What benefits for clients?

  • Tailor made service
  • Re-discovered confidence
  • No-holds-barred discussion
  • Room for intuition
  • Swift implementation and follow-up of recommendations
  • Shared empathy
  • Innovative solutions

 

Short projects (less than three months)

  • Change in the composition of a management team in a small financial services firm

    • Triggering event: stalemate within the management committee (personal disagreements, hidden ambitions, …)
    • Method used: cultural audit + facilitating a management committee meeting + personal coaching of the CEO
    • Downside avoided: resignation of expert managers, unhappy majority shareholder
    • Project impact: new organogram, reorganization of internal governance, promotion of middle managers
  • Design and facilitation of a seminar on managing the problem of the "new generation of young graduates" in an electronics company

    • Triggering event: latent conflict between new-generation salespeople and established "old hands". Problems of communication, motivation, behavior, responsibility
    • Method used: conference on the sociological context of the new generations + off-site workshops on actions to be taken and advice to be used in daily operations
    • Downside avoided: reinforcement of extreme attitudes, risk of conflicts, misinterpretation of the new reality
    • Project impact: new perspectives, assumptions challenged, exchange of practices among senior salespeople

 

Short projects (three months to six months)

  • Study of the new power relationships between an HQ and its regional subsidiaries recently formed into an industrial company

    • Triggering event: subsidiarization of five regional managements, shareholder pressure (for a short-term strategic plan with an obligation to show positive results within two years)
    • Method used: cultural audit of the five entities (+ HQ), feedback to the CEO, to the management committee, to the 200 key managers, and to the shareholder
    • Downside avoided: retrenched autonomy of the subsidiaries, retreat of the HQ (on the defensive)
    • Project impact: awareness of a common Group culture, definition of action paths for achieving strategic objectives, strengthened HQ legitimacy, opening up of internal channels of communication
  • Organization and facilitation of a convention with a knowledge-sharing workshop for a car manufacturer’s European distribution network

    • Triggering event: need to organize a first meeting for members of the newly constituted European network
    • Method used: conception, organization, and facilitation of a "no-holds-barred" convention designed to foster the exchange of experience between European managers from 15 different countries (including Central Europe)
    • Downside avoided: discontinuity between strategic talk (intense pressure to produce measurable results) and concrete actions
    • Project impact: discovery of innovative, transferable, non-competitive experience (commercial, technological, financial, HR management,…) at the very heart of the network, trigger for a need to share even more

 

 

 

Long projects (six months to one year)

  • Turbulent succession of the CEO of a major banking group’s subsidiary

    • Triggering event: a young CEO with no knowledge of the business suddenly replaces a charismatic leader
    • Method used: cultural audit + changes to the management team + cultural agenda-setting speech + customer-focused seminar + immediate launch of 5 structuring projects + 1-year change plan (management, strategy, communication)
    • Downside avoided: demotivation of the management team, resignations, loss of revenue, rise in fixed costs
    • Project impact: the CEO is firmly installed, the board of directors has regained credibility, budgets are on-track, operational costs have been brought under control, a more aggressive strategy has been launched with shareholder approval
  • Merger of four businesses based in four different countries with an industrial company from a fifth country

    • Triggering event: first external growth initiative by an Austrian company (acquisition of a Norwegian group’s four subsidiaries in France, the UK, Spain, and the United States)
    • Method used: simultaneous cultural audit in Austria, France, the UK, the United States + radical modification of the originally conceived integration plan + launch of a strategy of cooperation rather than of simple "absorption"
    • Downside avoided: revolt by the subsidiaries, parent company’s inability to successfully complete an "absorption" operation
    • Project impact: a new group culture has been forged, the merger has been successful (creating the No. 3 in the world market)

 

Long projects (more than one year)

  • Integration of the top managements of an independent network into an insurance company two years after their acquisition

    • Triggering event: two years after the acquisition, the acquiring group decides to merge the two top managements
    • Method used: presentation of the problem to the board, cultural audit in the two entities, coaching for the directors, focus on two "problem" managements, communication follow-up, organization of a joint seminar (80 managers)
    • Downside avoided: ossification of the acquired management around independent behavior/methods, rise in fixed costs
    • Project impact: the new teams were quickly formed and are learning to work together, a strategic vision has been defined, a workforce clash has been avoided
  • Introducing formal structures to a small, fast-growing service business five years after its birth

    • Triggering event: general lack of formal structures and systems (strategy, HR management, internal and external communication,…)
    • Method used: cultural audit + coaching the three founding directors + setting up an HR management system (recruitment, integration) + implementing an internal (intranet) and corporate (brand image) communications strategy
    • Downside avoided: the company’s "explosion" (growth in turnover, loss of customers, management disagreement)
    • Project impact: growth in revenues and staff, successful capital offering to new shareholders

 

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