History of Authenticity Consulting, LLC ®

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Authenticity Consulting provides consulting, training and publications to organizations, including for-profit, nonprofit and government. Co-founders include Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Andy Horsnell and Teri McNamara. These principals believe that organizations could significantly increase their productivity if only they could consistently leverage the tremendous wisdom and resources -- and authenticity -- among their members. These values are the driving force behind the development of each of Authenticity's services.

The concept of authenticity has long been at the heart of our services. Carter began his research about authenticity, even during his undergraduate days in the 1970s when studying philosophy, and that research continued through his PhD program 20 years later. For almost 20 years, authenticity has been a brand in his consulting services.

The following links jump down to sections of this page.

Peer Coaching Group(sm) Program Development Organizational Development and Change One-to-One Coaching Services and Programs Consultants Development Institute(sm) Strategic Planning, Marketing, Teams, Training

Free Management Library(sm) Training Programs Publications Consultants Clients

Peer Coaching Groups Program Development

In 1995, Carter designed the peer coaching group process, a breakthrough approach to quickly provide low-cost, core coaching skills across organizations -- again, especially for organizations that could not afford the increasing costs of training and development. The design was done in conjunction with MAP for Nonprofits in St. Paul, Minnesota and with funding from the McKnight Foundation. The design is now used around the world with many different types of organizations. The approach, based on the Action Learning process, made the process much more practical and accessible to people and their organizations. Today, Authenticity Consulting, LLC, is the leading company to customize peer coaching group programs for a wide variety of applications around the world, including for professional and organizational development, facilitator training, coaching, problem solving, team building and support . Microsoft and BP each conducted extensive searches to find the best vendor to provide highly accessible, low-cost, internal networks in which employees could share coaching to advance their careers and learn more about their organizations -- each of these two leading-edge companies chose Authenticity Consulting, LLC, and since then, each company has successfully continued to use the groups for an increasing number of applications.

This service is as much about guiding a company to develop its own internal, successful, ongoing program as it is about providing coaching to employees -- it's about guiding the company to manage change. Thus, this service involves establishing a successful working relationship with several key players in the organization, and learning the company's culture, business goals and desired results from the program. It involves clarifying who will be in the groups, how the groups will be marketed internally, how they will be facilitated, how they will be evaluated, how facilitators and group members will be trained, what resources will be required to develop and operate the program -- the service is about setting up a new successful internal program!
See Customized Peer Coaching Group Programs

Organizational Development and Change Management

Carter's PhD is in Human and Organizational Development, and he has strong expertise in systems thinking and systems tools. This was the basis for Authenticity's focus on organization-wide work, rather than working primarily on certain functions in the client's organization. The firm became one of the leading companies in providing system-wide capacity building services, especially to nonprofits. Where many firms specialize in one particular function, such as Board, leadership, planning, marketing, finances and evaluations, Authenticity provides highly practical services that integrate all of these to improve them from a systems perspective.
See Capacity Building for Nonprofits

One-to-One Coaching Services and Programs

Clients who were very satisfied with Authenticity's successful implementation of their internal peer coaching group programs began asking Authenticity to also provide one-to-one coaching services, as well. Since its inception, the company has developed a cadre of senior consultants with strong expertise and skills in consulting, coaching, facilitation, leadership and change management. Authenticity has deployed coaches to a variety of organizations around the world to successfully address their needs for consultants and coaches. Similar to the service of peer coaching group programs, a one-to-one coaching program involves all the aspects of carefully designing, developing and operating a complete, new program in the organization -- this service is more than providing one-to-one coaching to employees.
See Customized One-to-One Coaching Services and Programs

Consultants Development Institute(sm)

The principals of Authenticity noticed that there were not nearly enough consultants who really knew how to help their clients to successfully guide change in their organizations -- the world needed many more. So in addition to providing extensive, free resources about consulting and organizational change in the Free Management Library, Authenticity wrote and published the award-winning book, Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development, in 2006. The company published a version for nonprofit consultants, as well. In 2009, the company initiated the Consultants Development Institute(sm) to continue to provide free and low-cost resources to expand the number of consultants to organizations. The Institute also provides a workshop that trains practitioners about the phases of the consulting process, including how to work collaboratively -- and authentically -- with clients. After the workshop, participants join peer coaching groups with fellow participants to share coaching and materials in order to further develop their skills as consultants.
See Consultants Development Institute(sm)

Strategic and Business Planning, Marketing, Team Building, Training and Development

Authenticity has always taken a systems perspective when working to enhance the performance of organizations. That perspective requires strong expertise in all aspects of the organization, including Boards, strategic and business planning, leadership, marketing, product and program development, personnel, teams and financial management. Over those years, clients continued to appreciate Authenticity's services in additional areas that overall serve the organization, including strategic and business planning, marketing, team building, and training and development. Authenticity has formed strategic alliances with a cadre of highly experienced senior consultants who bring a wide range of expertise that, ultimately, addresses all of the most critical functions in an organization.
See Services

Free Management Library(sm)

Carter also believed that the World Wide Web could be used to quickly provide low-cost or even free, critically needed resources to people and organizations, especially to those with very limited resources. In 1995, he began developing the Free Management Library, now one of the world's largest collections of free, well-organized, online resources for personal, professional and organizational development. He volunteered approximately 2,000 hours of time from 1995 to 1999 to develop the design and initial resources from which others could easily contribute resources. Now the Library gets almost 1 million users per month. The Library is clear evidence of Authenticity Consulting's strong commitment to the development of people and their organizations around the world.
See Free Management Library(sm)

Training Programs

We offer a range of highly practical trainings about developing and restoring Boards of Directors, strategic planning and facilitation, leadership and supervisory development, renewal for leaders and supervisors, how to detect and recover from founder's syndrome, and how to guide change in organizations. We're one of the few firms to offer a development program in which to learn how to guide change in organizations. Many of these trainings reference our award-winning publications.
See Our Highly Practical Trainings

Publications

Authenticity publishes a large number of low-cost, very practical books about consulting, organizational development, governance, leadership and supervision, strategic planning, programs and financial management. The books are used around the world, including in classrooms at undergraduate and graduate levels. Many of the books -- the field guides -- are authored by Authenticity's co-founder, Carter McNamara. Several of the field guides have won awards in their respective categories.
See Highly Practical Step-by-Step Publications

Our Consultants

Over the years, we've developed a cadre of highly skilled, senior consultants and coaches who have years of experience in successfully consulting to organizations. We've deployed each of them to consulting projects -- and their project evaluations have shown that their projects to be highly successful. Each subscribes to a code of ethics for professionalism and confidentiality in their consulting projects.
See Our Consultants

Our Clients

We've grown to work with all types of organizations, including for-profit, nonprofit and government, and sizes ranging from start-up to well-established. We've worked with client organizations across the USA and into Canada. We've served employees in Asia Pacific, China, Japan, India, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Authenticity Consulting, LLC, has grown significantly since it was founded in 1998 and has served 100s of organizations around the world. The company is known for its authentic personnel -- always honest, sincere and engaged with its clients. The firm is also known for its authentic approach to projects -- always taking full responsibility to achieve the results desired by its clients.
See Listing of 100 Clients