We’re really into squeezing lemons..

Over the years we have found that when organisations face challenges the answer often lies within. Your people are your greatest source of insight and intelligence. Most of the time what is needed is someone independent who has the time to talk to them and ask them a few interesting questions. This is where we can help and it’s usually the start of some kind of strategic dialogue.

Leadership 121

Of course every engagement we have starts with you. Whether you are the CEO, CFO, Divisional Leader or Major Account Director. We discuss what you would like to achieve, and talk to you about what ‘good might look like’. From this first conversation we usually schedule time with the rest of your team to fully understand the current situation and listen to their range of views and perspectives. These leadership 121’s allow us to understand pressure points and the extent of alignment in the top teams. When we work on a retained advisory basis we run leadership 121s on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Homework & conversations

Most people care about the companies they work for. They don’t go to work to idle. They go to work to fulfil a purpose, to do some good, to exercise their experience and add value. A lot of the time, things go wrong when people are not asked for their opinion. That’s one of the reasons we often set homework assignments that are followed up by conversations. It is in those returned homework assignments (and the conversations that follow) that we usually find common themes. Those common themes are often sources of organisational misalignment or indicators of critical success factors. This is part of our approach when we run Strategy Alignment Health Checks.

Workshops. Unlocking organisational intelligence

We love workshops and we are good at running them. Workshops are simply a fantastic way to achieve a multiplicity of things that are good for a business. Our workshops are carefully designed to give your people room to think, interact and create. Over the years we have found that individuals do not struggle to find the right solutions to complex problems through lack of experience or knowledge. Rather they find the path forward unclear due to lack of time and entrenched views and perspectives. Through careful consideration of the problem we design workshops that change the way your teams think. This means they have a greater ability to solve problems themselves which generates greater ‘buy-in’ to the the ideas they create because they were instrumental in the problem solving process. Our CORE workshops include:

• strategic planning

• strategic plan reviews

• executive leadership team charter development

• complex deal orchestration (for major account leaders)

Take a look at some of our workshops in our gallery.

Retained advisory, facilitation, coaching

We find that our clients like to keep us around as they consider their choices based on findings, assessments and suggestions. At this point we typically work in a few different ways depending on either the organisational maturity or the complexity of the challenge ahead. We keep progress on track, working directly with your teams giving light support and guidance. We ensure that balls aren’t dropped and our independency means we have no political agenda. We are driven by just one thing - ensuring your success.

International experience

Over the years we have worked with teams all over the world, from Argentina to South Africa, Austria to Kenya, Italy to Thailand, Belgium to the UK. Here are some of the typical challenges that we have helped senior leaders and their teams address:

• turnaround of under-performing Sales accounts

• growth creation with effective strategic planning

• diagnosing ‘flat-line’ team performance

• strategic conversations with the ‘c-suite’

• Improving win rates on highly complex deals

• creating influence with early, high value engagement

• recovering from major stakeholder changes

• repositioning for maximum value exchange

Of course we also know that there are times when you don’t need a 2 day workshop. Here are some of the other support functions we have provided to our clients:

• restructuring ‘mission critical’ meeting agendas

• design and facilitation of ‘delicate’ meetings

• facilitating board meetings

• strategy reviews and audits (sales / Marketing)

• RfP/q/I critique and improvement (major tenders)

• executive coaching