Business Transformation

I will enable you and your team to better articulate your company’s business strategy; then build a focused program for implementing an actionable, intensely reasoned strategic plan for overcoming your competition and capturing new customers, while building brand loyalty and improving profitability.

I help clients profitably grow revenue, often dramatically so.

My work focuses on these five outcome-oriented practices:

  1. Conducting an in-depth analysis and evaluation to provide you and your senior team with a clear-eyed, objective analysis of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, market opportunities, and threats. This sets the stage for Step 2.
  2. Defining your strategy with the full participation of the executive team. We’ll rigorously assess the future scenarios, taking the “300 good ideas” that are often in play and crystallizing what will be the “top 3”.
  3. Aligning the entire organization, so that the core activities of your employees mirror the critical few objectives required to bring greater success to your enterprise.
  4. Creating a target-driven implementation roadmap to realistically prioritize and pace projects by rigorously assessing their impact and resource requirements—and setting clear executive accountability.
  5. Making strategy everyone’s job. By bringing everyone on board, you give your employees a chance to experience their role in a larger context. Through dynamic communications, we facilitate executive and employee alignment—leading to the business results you want.

It’s these five business transformation practices that have proven to work to consistently achieve all your mission, financial, and stakeholder goals.

Here is a list of frequently asked questions about my process and the work we will do together…

Who are the clients I work with?

I work with business owners and CEOs of small to mid-cap companies and nonprofits, and division heads of Fortune 1,000 firms

My clients have ambitious goals to profitably grow their businesses and/or improve profitability. They strive for an engaged workforce and to positively impact the well-being of their customers. 

The businesses they lead range from early /fast growth to mature businesses across diverse industries, including professional services, fintech, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, high tech, and the non-profit/social capital sectors.

Why is this service needed?

Most business owners are focused on the day-to-day challenges of running the enterprise. They struggle to find the bandwidth to step back and consider all the interdependent factors that need to be addressed in a systemic way to achieve big change, fast. These factors can include strategy, organizational structure, IT systems, processes, culture, leadership, and staff skills, to name a few. 

And strategies must be kept relevant. Not many companies have processes in place that include ongoing reviews and as-needed updates to the strategy.

Without a clear picture of where the organization is headed, it is left up to managers & employees to decide what’s important and what’s not. Without alignment, the organization is unable to enjoy the benefits that result from everyone being focused on achieving the same few factors that fuel success.

What are some typical issues you address?

  1. Focus keeps changing due to competing priorities, ranging from cyber-threats, DEIB goals, weak infrastructure, needed employee development and expanding the sales team.
  2. Stalled revenue growth and it’s not clear what is the root cause – ineffective salesforce, sales team too small, a tired product line, or a new competitor.
  3. Poor profitability, due to declining gross margins, high overhead, and management can’t agree on the root cause.
  4. The organization hasn’t evolved with the revenue growth, so leaders are now a bottleneck for decisions, and roles & responsibilities aren’t as clear anymore—or the expected synergies from a recent merger or acquisition have been elusive.
  5. An increase in employee and/or customer losses.

What can you expect to gain from working with me?

  1. You will benefit from immediate improvements in efficiencies in day-to-day operations, as an outcome of the initial rigorous assessment.
  2. You will have a growth strategy for achieving a focused set of exceptional results that is championed by your leadership team and supported by staff throughout the enterprise. 
  3. You will have a highly practical and actionable implementation roadmap to guide investments in initiatives that will have the biggest payoffs. You will also have a framework within which to assess opportunities thereby eliminating “chasing shiny new objects” and wasted effort.
  4. You will have a passionately engaged leadership team, able to collaborate more effectively and truly own the strategy—and hold each other accountable for results.
  5. Ultimately, you’ll benefit from developing a new performance-based mindset for managing your business.

How do I work with my clients? (process)

Though no client situation is exactly the same, a business transforming Alignment for Action project typically is completed within three to four months. The work is organized around three leadership team workshops. 

Workshop 1 requires in-depth preparation by me. Over a six to eight-week period I conduct an in-depth SWOT analysis, interviewing the top leaders and subject-matter experts in your company. In addition, I analyze historic operational and financial data, to identify revenue and cost-savings opportunities, as well as assess the capacity of the organization to exploit those opportunities. This is a comprehensive analysis, covering staff skills, culture, morale, core processes, customer satisfaction with the value proposition, and financial performance. 

In Workshop 1, I guide the leadership team through a structured process to make decisions on strategic intent and the top areas of opportunity to pursue. 

To prepare for Workshops 2 and 3, I coach the leadership team on how to create the strategy and implementation plans. This is very much a learning-by-doing approach for the leadership team. 

At these workshops, the leadership team presents their plans for vetting and buy-in by the entire team. This generates great ownership of the plan, excitement to implement it, and accountability for the results. The output is a set of pragmatic and detailed plans, which include metrics for monitoring performance and well-planned initiatives designed to close the gaps between past results and desired targets. Workshop 2 also includes improving how the leadership team collaborates and works together. Leveraging state-of-the-art team coaching, I enable your executive team to function at a high-performance level.  This has been called my “secret sauce” for successful transformation. By improving how the leadership team works together, they are able to collaboratively create and begin to execute the new strategy in ways they could not have imagined before. 

After Workshop 3, I prepare a “firm-day launch” – when everyone is brought into the strategic process, to understand the strategy and see where they play a role in implementing the strategy. These have been described as some of the best days at work your employees will ever experience.

What does this program help you avoid?

Embarking on a new strategy can be overwhelming. There are literally a million things you could do. And it can be very confusing trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Where should you invest your resources and what should you avoid?

So, we help you avoid confusion and overwhelm. We leverage proven analytic frameworks and pragmatic approaches to focus on the few critical factors to drive your success. In addition, we help you develop the skills to implement your strategy. Throughout our process, we educate, coach, consult and support you in achieving your short-term and long-term business goals.

How is my approach different?

My approach was developed while at top-tier management consulting firms helping leadership teams at companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 firms.  It is practical and hands-on. It leverages best practice frameworks and is highly action-oriented to achieve concrete results.

You’ll learn an approach or strategy and then immediately receive an assignment to put what you’ve learned into action.

This may be the most hands-on and collaborative work you and your leadership team have ever done together in your business. Your team will be energized, and your business will measurably move forward. 

What these services are not?

I am a senior-level consultant. No junior team fills in after our initial meeting. You have a senior-level commitment from the first meeting to the last. Clients receive experienced-based pragmatic advice, not merely process facilitation.

It is not an academic-industry study with pretty PowerPoint slides in a thick binder that sits on a shelf and that you never implement.

Additional Consulting Services

I help organizations transform by aligning strategy development, strategy execution and leadership capacity. Through my careers, I’ve learned that smart strategies fail without effective leadership and that great leadership skills offer little value when businesses lack strategic moves to win.

Nonprofit & Social Capital Strategy

I serve mission-driven organizations to help them grow, improve their organizational capacities and meet stakeholder needs.

Case Studies

Nonprofit & Social Capital Strategy

I serve mission-driven organizations to help them grow, improve their organizational capacities and meet stakeholder needs.

Case Studies

Executive Coaching & Leadership Team Development

Leveraging state-of-the-art team coaching, I enable your executive team to function at a high-performance level, which is essential to execute effectively in today’s rapid cycle environment.

Case Studies

Executive Coaching & Leadership Team Development

Leveraging state-of-the-art team coaching, I enable your executive team to function at a high-performance level, which is essential to execute effectively in today’s rapid cycle environment.

Case Studies

Mindful Leadership

Managing stress, building resilience, and leading with empathy in the face of challenges have never been more relevant. I train leaders in mindfulness and conscious collaboration.

Case Studies

Mindful Leadership

Managing stress, building resilience, and leading with empathy in the face of challenges have never been more relevant. I train leaders in mindfulness and conscious collaboration.

Case Studies
Your Next Steps…

If you think working with me may be for you,  we’ll set up a 60-minute meeting to answer any questions you may have and make sure the services are the right fit for you and your business. 

Schedule A Call Today