Situations that may be familiar to you
If you’re like our clients, one of these situations may alert you to the need for a development intervention:
You have promoted a senior manager and are worried about how they’re going to handle their subordinates. Many executives, whether lawyers, accountants or business specialists are technically competent, but have little experience with managing people before they are promoted to the role. Even when training has been received, the real challenges of motivating, directing and managing staff are only encountered through real experience. Can they meet the challenge on their own, or is some extra support called for? You can reduce the risk of failure by providing specialist support during their critical introductory period.
You have a great team leader who delivers excellent projects on time, but whose brash, occasionally insensitive manner generates conflicts and complaints. Are some of your senior executives so task-focused and driven to create results, that they often achieve them at the price of other people’s feelings and sensitivities? Managers who have problems influencing, and communicating with others in a constructive manner create conflicts and increased costs with poor retention rates in your business. You need them to change – fast. Not to diminish their strengths, but to complement them with more humane approach to people.
You’re the CEO or Board director who needs an external sounding board to discuss and clarify confidential issues. Weaknesses or doubts cannot be divulged. Only an external person of sufficient calibre and discretion will allow you to discuss corporate strategies and personal differences in a confidential, safe and constructive environment. Where do you access such experienced and skilled people? How do you identify the right person for your needs? You want help sorting the issues and determining appropriate actions.
One (or more) of your managers is personally disorganised, with poor time management and work-life balance issues that impede their own and their staff’s performance. How can you help this manager adopt new working practises? She has been on the relevant courses – it has not helped – so what now? You want help for her to develop above and beyond her current restrictions.
Your partners and senior professionals are brilliant technically, but they aren’t business savvy. They clam up during negotiations, they don’t have a passion for marketing and because of their inabilities, valuable business is slipping through your company’s fingers. How can you help them acquire the sales, marketing and negotiation skills they need? You want to provide them with the right training and development programmes.
You are a member of the Board of an organisation who’s just set a new strategy in place and significantly upped the expectations on bottom line revenues. How are you going to win the support of your senior managers? How are you going to motivate them to achieve more, when last year they just met a significantly lower budget? What personal growth needs to occur in all personnel to grow the achievements? What can be done to draw on all the energy of the organisation’s staff and empower all its members? You want help clarifying action plans, priorities and delegation of issues.
Your organisation is growing and your team is expanding faster than its members can assimilate the changes required of it. How can you assist your team member’s transition smoothly to what is now needed? How can you avoid the conflicts and confusion that can arise with new assignments and responsibilities? How can you avoid the alienation of older members when younger and newer styles of interaction occur? You want assistance and support, both for yourself and your team to shift to a more comfortable process.
Our clients are frequently based in the United Kingdom, with subsidiaries world-wide. Our work with clients is conducted face-to-face, as well as over the phone. As long as you speak English, we can work together, anywhere in the world. If you identified with any of these scenarios, click to find out the characteristics that make up our Client profiles.