{"id":1509,"date":"2021-02-26T21:49:20","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T21:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bizexteam.com\/?p=1509"},"modified":"2023-07-04T16:26:56","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T16:26:56","slug":"reflections-on-a-challenging-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/26\/reflections-on-a-challenging-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on a challenging Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1415\" width=\"342\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/steve-halama-L-uGw_mR6qA-unsplash-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 342px) 100vw, 342px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>As we all can appreciate, 2020&nbsp;was&nbsp;a&nbsp;different&nbsp;year!&nbsp;While the year\u2019s events and circumstances posed many challenges, looking back&nbsp;the year inspired agility and adaptation for us. Here are some of the&nbsp;things&nbsp;that led to positive changes for us in 2020 and that continue to shape our future directions for 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the pandemic&nbsp;forced all of us into smaller profession and personal bubbles, this requirement inspired us to&nbsp;innovate. As a result of creatively using our connectivity tools, as an organization&nbsp;we&nbsp;expanded&nbsp;our&nbsp;business&nbsp;focus and we successfully extended our business services internationally with services and a&nbsp;focus&nbsp;in&nbsp;Europe&nbsp;and in&nbsp;Canada.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a team, the challenges of 2020 led us to&nbsp;quickly adapt to&nbsp;the new situation and shift our&nbsp;team approaches and our&nbsp;work services&nbsp;to embrace on-line teaming platforms and to provide distance-based services such as training, on-line coaching, virtual meeting facilitations for our clients, and other new innovations.&nbsp;&nbsp;As a result of&nbsp;embracing these new&nbsp;technologies,&nbsp;we&nbsp;enabled&nbsp;our team to seamlessly coordinate through global time zones and&nbsp;to be virtually present with clients and groups in many international settings.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even in the face of a global pandemic, our team grew. We welcomed new members to the team and developed completely new distance-based service models for conflict resolution and ombuds services, and for providing outstanding organizational development support to organizations thousands of miles away.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the challenges of 2020, among many others,&nbsp;this year\u2019s&nbsp;key professional accomplishments include:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Providing REALTOR\u00ae Ombuds training to the New Mexico Realtors Association and to the New Mexico Commercial Realtors&nbsp;Association;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Continuing our nine year collaboration with the International Foundation for Online Responsibility, where our team provides on-going ombuds services and&nbsp;an annual audit of systems designed to police internet abuses.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Conducting detailed organizational assessment and providing organizational&nbsp;excellence support to various organizations, including one of Canada\u2019s rapidly growing,&nbsp;premier&nbsp;early learning organizations.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Providing programming for professional development for women in the workplace.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Launching a new workplace training program with a compete professional development&nbsp;curriculum&nbsp;for an entire workforce including its leadership team and all workers at every level.&nbsp;<\/li><li>Providing coaching and counseling to executives and to leaders dealing with workplace conflicts, harassment concerns, and customer relations and workplace policy concerns.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For each of us who work under the BES model,&nbsp;<\/strong>it\u2019s important&nbsp;for us&nbsp;to give back&nbsp;to&nbsp;our community and&nbsp;we&nbsp;<strong>donate our time&nbsp;to support our profession and&nbsp;worthy activities. Examples of our volunteer work in 2020 included:<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Continuing voluntary services to the International Ombudsman Association, where Bruce serves on its Board of Directors, and also co-leads the IOA\u2019s&nbsp;initiative&nbsp;to update the organization\u2019s Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Serving as the convenor and \u201cconductor\u201d for an&nbsp;initiative&nbsp;in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, to develop standards and practices for community consensus building for developing new county ordinances and land-use requirements;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Providing mentoring&nbsp;ombuds&nbsp;services to&nbsp;ombuds&nbsp;around the globe, including formally mentoring three&nbsp;emerging&nbsp;ombuds&nbsp;professionals and serving as a \u201cgrounding resource\u201d for a number of other&nbsp;ombuds&nbsp;who seek a confidential sounding board to test their assumptions&nbsp;and approaches and to help them feel a sense of support and community;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Serving on a&nbsp;speaker\u2019s&nbsp;panel for the&nbsp;International Corporate- Sector Ombuds day 2020, which was a virtual event involving a diverse group of corporate ombuds working in the international sector.&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Additionally,&nbsp;our&nbsp;team wrote and shared many blog posts and articles in 2020.&nbsp; Among other topics, we shared articles such as:<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210803014621\/https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/16\/organizational-ombuds-an-important-resource-in-turbulent-times\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>ORGANIZATIONAL OMBUDS: AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE IN TURBULENT TIMES<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;<\/li><li>&nbsp;<strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210803014621\/https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/21\/new-information-for-organizational-ombudsmen-in-higer-education\/\" target=\"_blank\">NEW INFORMATION FOR ORGANIZATIONAL OMBUDSMEN IN HIGER EDUCATION<\/a>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210803014621\/https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/15\/staying-connected-in-challenging-times\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>STAYING CONNECTED IN CHALLENGING TIMES<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210803014621\/https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/11\/building-trust-in-challenging-times\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>BUILDING TRUST IN CHALLENGING TIMES<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;<\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210803014621\/https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2020\/03\/27\/virtual-meetings-and-the-virtual-ombudsman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>VIRTUAL MEETINGS AND THE VIRTUAL OMBUDSMAN<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>E<\/strong><strong>merging&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>L<\/strong><strong>esson&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>F<\/strong><strong>rom 2020:<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Online work&nbsp;approaches to helping groups move forward&nbsp;can be slower&nbsp;to take effect&nbsp;than&nbsp;in person approaches, but the individual and group connection that one can build can be surprisingly deep and effective.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A&nbsp;Look&nbsp;Ahead as we move into&nbsp;2021<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as circumstances in 2020 infused variables into our work and approaches, it did not dampen our commitment or enthusiasm for helping organizations thrive. For the coming year,&nbsp;we&nbsp;will&nbsp;continue to&nbsp;focus&nbsp;on&nbsp;our clients&nbsp;needs and&nbsp;provide quality&nbsp;and customized&nbsp;services&nbsp;where&nbsp;we add value and help our clients build excellence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vagaries of 2020 actually proved the value of our business model as an adaptive, variable&nbsp; and agile team.&nbsp; This year, we provided team services with many different team members and team configurations.&nbsp; We will definitely be carrying this approach forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;As an agile team,&nbsp;we&nbsp;plan to expand our portfolio into exciting and challenging new areas, such as&nbsp;instant an on-demand training.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have thoughts, suggestions, or questions we welcome you to reach out to us!&nbsp; If there are topics that you would like to suggest that we address in our blog posts or in our articles, please feel free to suggest them!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to 2021. May we all prosper!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Bizexteam&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we all can appreciate, 2020&nbsp;was&nbsp;a&nbsp;different&nbsp;year!&nbsp;While the year\u2019s events and circumstances posed many challenges, looking back&nbsp;the year inspired agility and adaptation for us. Here are some of the&nbsp;things&nbsp;that led to positive changes for us in 2020 and that continue to shape our future directions for 2021.&nbsp; While the pandemic&nbsp;forced all of us into smaller profession<span class=\"post-excerpt-end\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/26\/reflections-on-a-challenging-year\/\" class=\"themebutton\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizexteam.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}