Summit Consulting L.L.C

A company has a new major executive requirement. As examples, it could be an internal new product launch, a major promotion to a new position or an external acquisition. The hunt is on for the executive who has the keys to superior performance…the edge that can bring the project home safely and create significant value for the company.

In the hunt, the company looks internally at its best candidates. Frequently in parallel, external candidates are also secured for review. Assessments are run, matches against prior experience are done for fit and suitability. Elaborate structured interviews are conducted frequently by outside specialists. Finally, a candidate is chosen.

Now the challenge. The candidate is looking for some “quick wins” frequently employing tactics used with some level of success historically. And, if they meet resistance, the tendency is to “dial up” the intensity of the tactics. So, with all of the books written about what it takes to be a great leader from Welch to Bossidy, Maxwell to McKinsey, why is it that an astonishing 40-60% of these critical leaders fail in the first 18 months ( various studies by McKinsey, Harvard Business School, Wall Street Journal) in their positions costing at least an average of $1 million to the sponsor company?

WHAT HAS HAPPENED?

In the simplest of situations, a proven executive has either achieved a premature career plateau or seems to be slipping in performance without a clear reason. A good coach will guide the client to the weaknesses honestly, yet ensure the support mechanisms are in place that demonstrable success is assured at the end of the engagement.

However, most issues are driven by exposures to new challenges. The answers are not simple, but they seem to fall into some reasonably clear patterns:

All of the issues surrounding the broad topic of “corporate culture” will be exacerbated in our global business community. I worked for ten years in a combination of Asia (spanning Pakistan to Japan to Australia and Headquartered out of Singapore) and Europe (Amsterdam Headquarters and European centricity for global businesses) as the COO. Invariably, I was struck by how successful executives even within the company could move to other geographic areas and fail. In my naïve belief, I thought one company would also have one “culture”.

In my experience, that is not the case. In a global organization, companies need to respect the sub-cultures of the local communities to understand how to be successful rather than simply exporting the Headquarters culture. Unfortunately, Anglo-Saxon citizens appear to be the worst offenders of this truism. They seem to almost define the axiom that “if the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer then the world's problems are only nails”. Thus, cultural sensitivity is one of the most difficult coaching interventionist challenges.

In addition to our core competency of Executive Coaching, Summit is fully prepared to engage across a spectrum of activities including Project Management, Change Management, HR Integrations M&A Conversions and Business Improvement.