WHAT DO YOU NEED?

We are a successful business. However, new startups are increasingly taking away clients who we thought were loyal to us. The clients are buying technology and devices that are at a superficial level quite exciting, but we believe that our competitors cannot support these products into the future. Yet we are losing market share to these competitors. If it continues at this rate, we could be in serious trouble within 18 months. Our R&D folk are not at all concerned about this; our marketing department is hysterical; and sales management is probably in denial. All the latter want to do is to offer discounts. These 3 fairly fixed and contrasting mindsets are so entrenched that in cross functional meetings we get absolutely nowhere near an objective review of this reality which is really staring us in the face. This is our most basic problem. Can you help?

This company brand is built on reliability of our products, integrity in our relationships and the quality of the support we give to our clients. But purchasing patterns in the marketplace are changing. It looks like the market will require products with a shorter life cycle, more frequent product enhancements, a shift from longer term reliability to more innovation, even at the cost of reliability. This trend actually goes totally against our value proposition. How will we be true to ourselves if we adopt this new product design model? Our conversations on this topic quickly become heated. This means that we don't effectively engage in formulating a strategy that we can count on. I worry that we might get overtaken by events before we get our act together. Can you help?

It is clear to me that our success depends on how effectively our leaders work together. Our business has become far too complicated for the leaders to run their divisions as little empires. We need a true leadership collective at the top. I see it in our executive level meetings - the dominance of I; my team; my unit; my responsibility. It is as if their minds are closed to the collective - to the actual role of interdependence within business units at this level. If only I could change their conversation from I to us, we might turn this company around. I really don’t know how! Can you help?

This company embarked on a survival strategy 3 years ago. We were faced with massive change in the marketplace, a surge of competitors, new operating models, rapid technological change, new financial models and more. We coped with the design challenges; our design and production teams have put us back into competitiveness, yet the clients complain that it is difficult to do business with us. They describe us as slow, cumbersome, with inflexible systems and a lack of responsiveness. It is as if the design and product teams inhabit a different world to the delivery, financial, IT and admin people. They are not talking the same language, they don't listen or understand each other. We cannot go on like this, we are in danger of losing all the gains we have made. Can you help?

Our leadership teams have a mix of young, bright, energetic talent; as well as highly experienced leaders that have come up through the ranks and have survived through many stormy phases of our past. We are quite successful as a business, but if these 2 groups were more open to learning from each other rather than competing against each other, or ignoring each other, we would be the best in our industry. The fact is that we are really not talking to each other nor listening nor valuing. We cannot continue working like this. Can you help?

A team of consultants helped us a while ago to formulate a 5- year strategic plan and they helped us develop a step-by-step rollout. It is going to require that we take on a new identity. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change our mindset from ‘big is beautiful’ to ‘small and nimble’ is successful. We need to act small to be big in the industry. This new mindset and identity makes a lot of sense to us at an intellectual level. We have gone through many sessions to explain the new model and identity to our staff, yet it does not seem to be filtering through to how we think and behave. If you listen carefully in our meetings at senior levels, we are using the same language and the same issues dominate. Many of us realize that, but we can't exactly put our finger on the levers to make the changes happen. It seems to be absolutely embedded in our language. Something has to change. Can you help?

I operate a business which is franchised and the franchisees operate across many regions. They are all in different phases of development from the franchise startup phase to business maturity. Obviously, because they are in different locations, they also have different issues and business realities, but at the same time, they share some common business practices and challenges which are fundamental to the success of the franchises. We meet twice a year to share their learnings, their challenges and to try and assist each other with ideas and support. But it's actually not very successful because these franchise holders tend to talk right past each other. Everyone wants to tell their own story. I cannot get them to listen to the other person’s story and extract the parallels and the common issues that are in there. I see it, but I don't know how to train them or develop them so that these semi-annual meetings become effective and really contribute directly to the bottom line. There is so much potential learning we are missing. Can you help?

Major business opportunities are opening for us in Latin America. If we are successful there, we will spread the work to other countries outside of the Americas. We plan to create project teams to do the initial market research in these various countries and then teams to handle the start-ups. We need help to identify who is best suited for the teams. What we are going to need first are the market research teams: individuals who are able to suspend their bias and judgement in interaction, particularly in meeting situations, who are culturally sensitive, who are able to create an environment in which people volunteer their ideas, can freewheel creatively and then can integrate their ideas and find common agreement. These are rare skills, but critical at this time. Can you help?

There is a peculiar syndrome in our leadership team. They get on extremely well socially, a number of them socialize with their families after work and there is a unique friendship in place. There are charity fund raising events they get involved in together, and so on. However, the minute they walk into the executive meeting room, it all disappears! Then they don’t connect, don’t appear to share a common business reality, they are at odds with each other, talk past each other, display no empathy for each other and as act as individuals. No, one listens, it’s a circus, not an executive meeting! I dread the day that their out of office friendships no longer provides the glue to keep them together! We need to change our approach. Can you help?