About Us
To paraphrase the poet Robert Burns, ‘it is a gift to see ourselves as others see us.' Whether you are a first time/first line supervisor or a senior executive, whether you are an experienced academic or new to teaching or presenting your ideas, or if you are a conference/workshop coordinator who would like to have the participants' feedback we can help you to get the feedback you need.
Not just feedback in the general sense of – "great job." Praise is "nice to have" but is not sufficient. You need feedback that addresses your interests - it must be specific, timely, and delivered in a way that helps you to see yourself as others see you.
Our system has the strength of face-to-face interviews without being time intensive, logistically daunting, or needlessly expensive.
The systems developed by HelpfulFeedback.com are customized for your organization. We will solicit narrative feedback that matters and provide reports that are easy to understand. Knowing that you scored an average of 3.42 on "giving assignments" or on your "ability to maintain eye contact during the presentation," is of limited value. We want to provide you with specific examples from the experience of the audience or your employees.
HelpfulFeedback.com specializes in developing unique – web based - secure – customized feedback systems. We can be most helpful when the feedback demands the highest sensitivity and diplomacy.
Owner-Developer: Jeffrey C. Connor, Ph.D.
Jef provides organizational and personal career/performance assessment and consultation for senior executives in government and business and for leaders in professional service organizations. He has designed and taught in executive education programs on leadership, organizational change, leadership transitions, stress, decision making, and accountability. He has consulted on senior executive selection and has provided in-depth assessments and executive consultation for individuals struggling with her or his role as a leader.
Jef is a Lecturer on Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Medical School where he has co-facilitated a seminar on leadership for chief residents in psychiatry. He formed IntelLeadership, LLC through which he provides senior leadership development and consultation for the intelligence community of the U.S. government.
For twenty years Jef was the CEO of a large professional service organization providing specialty psychiatric services. He has previously been on the faculty of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University where he co-taught the Organizational Diagnosis seminar with Professor Harry Levinson. For twelve years, Jef was an associate of The Levinson Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.
Jef has published papers on organizational failure, upward feedback, stress, mentors, dealing with difficult personalities such as those who are passive aggressive and those who are suspicious, and on breaking bad news and managing terminations. He co-authored (with Harvard Business School Professor Scott Snook) a paper on the Columbia Shuttle loss. He wrote a case study relating to the interface of race and gender that was published in the Harvard Business Review.
Jef received a master's degree in psychology from Boston College, and a Ph.D. in administration, policy and research at Brandeis University. He has completed advanced training in negotiation and in mediation at the Harvard Law School.
Dr. Connor's publications and interviews include:
It's About the Feedback, Law Practice Today - ABA, April 2009.
Leadership after the Layoffs, Law Practice Today - ABA, January 2009.
The Price of Progress: Structurally Induced Inaction, with Scott A. Snook. Chapter in Organization at the Limit: NASA and the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell 2005.
Partner Evaluations: "Upward Feedback", Law Practice Management, ABA, October, 2003. (EDGE-American Bar Association award as best management paper in 2003).
The Stress Excuse, New York Law Journal, November 2002.
Protégé ISO Mentor. Legal Times, September 30, 2002.
Altercations Over Issues of Gender and Race Can Hurt Any Workplace, Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2000.
It wasn’t about race. Or was it? Harvard Business Review, September-October 2000.
Disarming Terminated Employees, HR Magazine, January 2000.
The Paranoid Personality at Work, HR Magazine, March 1999.
How to Break Bad News, Leadership and Management Directions, Spring, 1996.
Bearding The Lion That Roared. Levinson, Harry; Sabbath, Joseph; and Connor, Jeffrey; Consulting Psychology Journal, Fall, 1992.
Managing Passive Aggressive People, HR Magazine, November, 1991
Preoccupied With Ailing Parents: When Your Subordinate Is Too Worried To Work. (with John Elder) The Levinson Letter, 1988.
Interview: Tread Carefully When Terminating Employees. Pamela M. Prah, The Kiplinger Washington Editors, April 10, 2000.
Interview: Defuse your enemies before the job explodes. Elizabeth Leech, Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1992.
Interview: The Thrill of Insubordination. Thomas Claven, Working Woman, September 1991.
Interview: Discreetly Evaluating The Boss. Boston Sunday Globe, October 7, 1990.
Our firm has worked with Jef since 1994 on a number of management issues. He helped us design our program for obtaining associate evaluations of partners, and he has helped us to present the results of those evaluations to partners in a thoughtful and constructive way. He is perceptive, familiar with the law firm environment, and has credibility with both partners and associates that very few law firm consultants do. I value his counsel, and I recommend him regularly to other law firms.