Welcome to Allred Solutions

Allred Solutions is the home of Keith Allred's training, consulting, and mediation practice. Keith has been helping public and private sector clients achieve solutions to difficult problems and controversies for more than 15 years. He taught and conducted research on leadership, particularly in negotiation and conflict resolution, for seven years as a professor at Harvard. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, he was a professor at Columbia. A fifth-generation Idahon, Keith and returned with his family to his home state in 2003 to pursue his interest in focusing more an actually solving difficult problems in the real world. Keith also continues to teach leadership and management topics in executive programs at Harvard and Oxford and in the new Executive MBA program at Boise State University.

Contact us to find out how we can help find a solution to your difficult problem.

Allred Solution Services

Training

Keith is a world class trainer who brings deep knowledge of empirical research showing what works with what doesn't. Having taught thousands of senior participants in Harvard's executive programs, he has a proven track record of delivering engaging training with real impact that routinely receives among the top participant ratings in executive programs at Harvard. Part of Keith's training success lies in his skillful use of simulations and cases as well as training methods that he pioneered. For example, Keith developed the first 360 degree evaluation around negotiation and conflict resolution. The validation research for the Personal Conflict Profile revealed that participants' self evaluations have very little predictive power, while raters' ratings have strong predictive power. His success is also due to the credibility and real world examples that come from his own experience helping solve many high-stakes problems. Keith's individual training clients have included Chevron, Santa Fe Railway, Dow Chemical, Simplot, and the IRS.

Mediation

Keith has successfully mediated a range of high stakes disputes. He has recently mediated the jurisdictional dispute between the Nez Perce Tribe and local governments, a conflict concerning management of 600,000 acres of federal lands in Utah’s red rock country, a dispute over a series of hydroelectric dams in the Northwest, and controversy over a major proposed development in downtown Boise. He is currently working on a dispute involving the environmental impacts of phosphate mining that generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Consulting

Keith also advises clients who face challenging conflicts, including difficult organizational change initiatives. For example, he advised the Chief and senior staff of the Forest Service how they could better manage the contentious NEPA process. He advised senior political appointees and staff in the Department of the Interior how to successfully approach several high stakes conflicts. He also recently guided one city's reorganization to better serve and manage the rapid growth it was experiencing and advised another city on how to manage the controversy around proposals to build 25,000 new homes in an evironmentally senstive area.

Public Input

In addition to offering a wide range of traditional consulting and mediation services, we also conduct a unique public input and deliberation process called Collaborative Polling. Conventional public input processes tend to amplify the voices of those with extreme views and/or vested interests, often making it more difficult to reach a sensible solution with broad support. Through Collaborative Polling, in contrast, decision makers can gain a clear view of representative and informed public opinion about a controversial issue making practical solutions easier to identify and implement. In a Collaborative Poll, Keith works with interested parties to develop a brief on a controversial issue that the parties can agree fairly represents the issue. Randomly selected members of the public are then asked to review the brief and share their views. To see Allred Solutions most recent brief for a Collaborative Poll, click here.

Additional Biographical Information about Keith Allred

Keith taught and conducted research on leadership, particularly in the areas of negotiation and conflict resolution, for seven years as a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government where he was also a faculty member of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, he was a professor in social and organizational psychology at Columbia University. A fifth-generation Idahoan who grew up in Twin Falls, Keith and his family returned to his home state in 2003 to pursue his applied interests in consulting and mediation. Keith also continues to teach leadership and management topics in executive programs at Harvard and Oxford and in the new Executive MBA program at Boise State University.

Keith is the founder and president of The Common Interest, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that works in the Idaho legislature to put common sense solutions ahead of special interest and partisan politics. With over 1,000 members from across the poltical spectrum and from every corner of Idaho, The Common Interest has wracked up an impressive record of legislative victories. Drawing on Keith's experience in Collaborative Polling, every year The Common Interest develops balanced, substantive policy briefs on several policy questions chosen be the membership. Members then review the briefs and share their views. The Common Interest then advocates for any positions which gain two-thirds support from the membership.

Keith earned a B.A. from Stanford in American History and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior and social psychology from UCLA. He loves skiing, backpacking, fly-fishing, and snow machining. Having grown-up working summers on the family cattle ranch, Keith has competed successfully on cutting horses, going to the national championships twice. He now enjoys training horses. He is married to Christine Edwards Allred. They are the proud parents of Anna (4) and Dan (3) and Cate (not yet 1 year old).