A Real Leadership Story - and a Sample of How We Work with Organizations

An independent energy company acquired a new location. The leadership team, put in place at the time of acquisition, found a high level of resistance because facility ownership had changed hands several times in the last few years - employees at the location had a “wait for these guys to leave” attitude. Initial efforts to incorporate the corporate culture and work methodologies were forced through coercion and punishment, as well as a consistent, relentless approach to change. While some positive changes had been experienced - higher levels of efficiency, lower costs - turnover was high in some specific areas, and the leadership team felt trapped in a negative perspective toward employees that made further improvement more difficult.

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How We Work With Organizations culture, leadership

A Real Leadership Story - and a Sample of How We Work with Organizations

An independent energy company grew through acquisition over a five-year period that resulted in many locations having inexperienced leaders. Each location had its own challenges - extremely old equipment at one, a history of acquisition every year at another, constant upheaval at the leadership team level at another - that impaired the ability of these leaders to have an impact quickly. The corporate office assigned the top leader at each location and had input into other leadership choices, and there were very strict methodologies for managing locations that were expected to be adopted quickly and efficiently.

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How We Work With Organizations leadership, misfit, team

A Real Leadership Story - and a Sample of How We Work with Organizations

A large financial services organization acquired a new line of business and staffed the senior team with a new CEO and several other new members. Additional changes to the leadership team were made over the next year. Every member of the leadership team was in the largest positions they had ever held, some of them in executive positions for the first time. The company had been purchased because of its struggle in an extremely dynamic marketplace. The new team brought stability and structure to the new organization, but began to struggle with execution and the roll-out of new products.

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How We Work With Organizations action learning, coaching, new product development, talent

A Real Leadership Story - and a Sample of How We Work with Organizations

A major specialty retailer experienced a changing marketplace where their previous strategy of being a “big-box, low-price” choice was inviting too much competition. A decision was made to pursue a strategy more focused on customer intimacy. One of the very big barriers to success of the new strategy was the transformation of their culture of transactional efficiency, to one driven by the customers’ needs. As part of overcoming this barrier, they conducted an executive search to bring in a new senior vice president, over all of their marketing functions. Once they found the appropriate candidate, this person’s mandate included changing the culture. This company’s past history of hiring at the senior executive level, however, had not been good - it had been difficult to integrate outsiders into the existing strong culture.

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How We Work With Organizations executive, onboarding

A Real Leadership Story - and a Sample of How We Work with Organizations

A regional financial institution experienced a dramatic shift in its marketplace due to regulatory changes, which made its competitive positioning tenuous. In addition, a long-term CEO left, whose customer connections had played a major role in the organization’s past success. The new CEO faced the equivalent of a start-up organization, with a pre-existing infrastructure that struggled to support the current organization and was clearly inadequate to support future growth.

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How We Work With Organizations culture, leadership