Our Consulting Team specializes in trouble-shooting with organizations that seem to be stuck in paralysis, have difficulties implementing their strategies, or have disengaged teams.

Last year, one of our consultants was hired by Jack, the CEO of a large company, to diagnose why his teams were unable to turn business around after he had spent a fortune on an external consulting group who designed a well-thought-out strategy for their organizational turnaround.

One of the first things our consultant noticed was the low energy of the employees at the office. While waiting to discuss the situation with the CEO, the consultant observed a team of four people behind closed doors. One of the four was the CEO, the other three were the previously hired consultants that designed the new turnaround strategy.

During the  initial discussion the CEO, Jack, shared with our consultant his frustration with his teams resistance to change, being disengaged and "not getting" the strategy. Being familiar with this response, our consultant scheduled individual interviews with the team members to get to the root of the issue.

It's a well known fact that most people are afraid of and resist change to a certain point. However, there is a difference between this normal discomfort with change versus a complete resistance and disengagement.

While interviewing the team members, our consultant received, as anticipated, the following feedback almost unanimously:

•  "We don't know where we are sailing toward" meaning: they had no idea what the end result was and what was expected from them
• "We don't understand the strategy"
•  "Nobody asked us about our opinion"
• "Nobody cares about our ideas"

Getting into more detail, asking more profound questions, our consultant learned the organization hired a team of consultants - specialized in strategic planning - to craft a powerful strategy for this organization's turnaround. The consultants ran with the data they received from the analysts and at no point were the teams asked for their input.

No wonder the company had to deal with the

ripple effect of this action!

There was no shared vision, no clear mission, no shared strategy, no alignment - just a powerful strategy crafted by "outsiders".          A Ferrari in the desert...

If this organization didn't change their approach immediately, they would become another "victim" of the sad statistics of failure.

The business press is littered with stories about organizations that have failed to change and are losing the competitive struggle. In a recent survey conducted by Wm. Schiemann & Associates, Inc., of Fortune 500 companies, employee resistance to change was cited by 76% of the respondents as the major cause that accounts for why change efforts fail.

Other numbers:

• 90% of companies fail to execute their strategies
• 70% of them are not bad strategies - but bad executions
• There is an alarming disconnect between people who design strategies and the people who have to execute the strategies
   - Teams (at several levels) were NOT integrated in the planning process
   - No or little ownership and engagement
• Many of the strategies weren't aligned with the success triangle -        Vision ~ Mission ~ Values
• 95% of employees are unaware of or don't understand the strategy
   - The strategy has to be communicated in a "different language" at each level!!! 
• Less than 2/3 of senior executives are aware of how the corporate strategy relates to their job.