Individuals and groups, communities and organizations, businesses and governments: everyone plans. There's no escaping it. We prepare for something we want to happen, want not to happen, or expect may happen. We have intent and discover intent. We look for options and check them out. We make choices and commitments. Our plans are followed through and executed, or not. We adapt to circumstances and learn from outcomes. We do all this in full awareness of the process. Or it just happens, without our being conscious of it, our "inner planner" at work.

Reg Lang's planning career, spanning nearly four decades, covers a wide array of professional activity at all three levels of government, in the non-profit sector, in academe, and with community groups. His practice has encompassed community, regional, environmental, functional, academic, policy and strategic planning in various roles including expert, advisor, facilitator, administrator, consultant/researcher and educator. Through this diverse experience, Reg has acquired a broad and deep repertoire of planning skills: conceptual, evaluative, analytic and synthetic, creative problem finding and solving, strategic-thinking, interactive, negotiating, managerial, educative, coaching and mentoring. He has maintained a consuming interest in ethics, a passion for personal/professional development, and a commitment to lifelong learning.

Over the years Reg gradually came to approach planning generically, as process applied to content in context. His unique take on planning extends beyond the usual deliberate stance, where intent precedes action, to encompass the emergent, where intent becomes revealed through action. He introduces another dimension seldom acknowledged: the potential impacts of personality-type preference on planning behaviour.

Reg Lang and Associates offer three distinctive planning services:

Enhancing professional and personal effectiveness, aimed at planners and allied professionals

On-the-job "shadow" coaching, back-up for planners and others in new positions or working alone

Facilitating strategic planning processes, especially for smaller non-profit organizations

Ad hoc learning workshops, tailored to your organization's needs

Training and coaching for enhanced professional and personal effectiveness.
Research demonstrates that our personality-type preferences affect how we see the world, organize our experience, and interact with others. This includes how we take in information and evaluate it to make decisions - key aspects of planning. Planners who are aware of their inbuilt predispositions in this regard, cognizant of the strengths and shortcomings, and appreciative of others whose preferences are different, can increase their effectiveness at various levels of practice. Using a well-developed instrument in workshop and one-to-one settings, Reg and his associates will equip you with a powerful set of capabilities that enlarge your professional repertoire, with spin-off benefits for your personal growth. To find out more about this service, go to Coaching for enhanced personal and professional effectiveness.

On-the-job "shadow"coaching.
This may be appropriate and timely if you're a one-person planning office, or if you have recently assumed a position that requires planning capabilities you haven't yet developed. Reg can be a back-up and sounding board — someone with whom to discuss issues that arise, on an as-needed and confidential basis. Rather than providing answers as a consultant would, Reg plays a learning-enhancing and capacity-building role, helping you find solutions yourself and become better able to deal with such situations in future. For more on this service, check out on-the-job coaching.

Facilitating strategic planning processes.
Rather than doing the planning for you, Reg works with your organization or team to enhance your capacity to plan. A typical sequence begins with co-designing the process. Reg will then facilitate a series of workshops where members of the board or a planning team identify core values, pinpoint strategic issues, draft vision and mission statements, incorporate stakeholders' needs and expectations, devise strategies, assign implementation responsibilities, provide for follow-up implementation, and build in system adaptability. Between workshops, participants assemble required information, do necessary consultations, and prepare for upcoming sessions. Emphasis is on developing planning competencies, stimulating learning, and increasing your organization's or group's response-ability in the face of change.

Ad hoc workshops.
Reg is available to design and conduct in-house learning experiences. These are made-to-order for individuals or groups who want to explore new directions at the leading edge of planning theory/practice (e.g., Planning Amidst Complexity and Expect the Unexpected), access new knowledge and skills, increase self-understanding, and interact more effectively.

Interested in a free consultation? Contact me.