Business Growth Consulting, L.L.C. Services

Seeing the strategic opportunities in every organizational momentSM

What we do:

Leadership development
Strategic planning
Executive team effectiveness
Communication skills and strategies
Succession planning
Organizational assessments and reorganizations

Leadership Development

BGC focuses on building companies by building the strength and effectiveness of its leaders. The work looks at the strategic, operational and organizational issues of the company and how the leader can address those issues in a way that moves the company beyond a short term solution.

An important part of the process is to develop the leadership mindset that can translate operational and organizational challenges into strategic wins for the company. The work covers the full spectrum of company leadership responsibilities, from developing the company vision to resolving issues with staff, leadership teams, capital partners and customers.

BGC offers both one on one executive consulting and team consultation. To that work BGC brings a variety of professional tools and advice gleaned from many years of leading organizations. The tools include DUAL SCREEN MANAGEMENT®, communication and negotiation strategies, organizational restructuring, and business planning. Some examples of our work are:

Advised and supported an executive officer of a medium sized design firm through a transition from his long-term role as president to the significantly different responsibilities of the chief executive.
Provided leadership consulting to two senior executives of an investment advisory company through the integration phase of a merger, moving them from hands-on task management to establishing strategic initiatives to drive company change.
Worked with the regional vice president of a national insurance company to fill an important management position and navigate through company politics to garner support for the final candidate.
Worked with the chief executive of a five year-old technology company that had had multiple CEO’s to establish a tightened strategic focus, strengthen the management team, and improve morale and productivity.

Strategic Planning

BGC works with organizations to develop strategic plans, taking into account not only their dreams, but also the reality of delivering on such dreams. Once the plan is developed, we support its execution with ongoing leadership team consultation, development of appropriate processes and smart tactical moves.

Strategic planning projects include:

Developed a national expansion plan for medium-sized technology project management firm that included office expansion, service diversification and development of strategic alliances.
Worked with a division of a large engineering firm to create a business development plan that included client retention, market expansion, and cross-selling opportunities.
Directed strategic planning work for a medium sized engineering firm to develop the first strategic plan it had done in eight years and to implement the plan during the following twelve months, positioning it to move to the next level.
Worked with a corporate real estate subsidiary of a Fortune 500 firm to reposition it to be integrated into strategic planning of the company business units. Developed business case planning processes, tools and mentored the team in its implementation.
Developed and supported implementation of business plans for senior real estate brokers in national firms, tightening market focus, improving tactics, and leveraging resources to increase productivity and profitability.
Directed the development of a strategic plan for a 30-year-old, 130,000 member non-profit state organization, including converting operating plans into concise strategic goals and raising board involvement to a more strategic level.

Executive Team Consulting

Development and delivery of company strategies require strong alignment among company leaders. Given the pace and divergent pulls of executive life, such alignment is hard to sustain without conscious effort. Loss of alignment can result in conflicts among executive team members that lead to lost time, revenue and the positive energy needed to grow. We work with executive teams to bring them into alignment on their goals, expectations and communication effectiveness.

Worked with team and individuals of medium sized avionics company to create leadership development plans and link leadership development to company strategy.
Worked with CEO and President of manufacturing firm to clarify their respective roles, develop communication skills to mediate their roles and create more strategic boundaries for them.
Mediated conflict among partners of professional services firm that was losing revenue due to poor execution. Realigned the partners on the strategic goals of the company, restructured responsibilities and facilitated improved communication among them.

Communication skills and strategies

A fact of organizational life is that where there are people, there must be communication among them. Communication, whether by word, gesture or judicious silence is the tie that binds people together to generate ideas and move them forward. It allows people to express thoughts, negotiate issues, sell concepts, ask questions, set direction, resolve disputes and bring people together. Most important, effective communication gives people the ability to listen and understand what others are actually saying and doing.

Successful leaders must master excellent communication skills. Without the ability to listen, ask, motivate, align and direct, a leader cannot lead. Communication has been made more complicated in the Digital Age by the increasing number of modalities beyond face-to-face conversations, reports and letters. The addition of email, text messaging, blogs, and other forms of instant messages among individuals within and outside the company has introduced a new level of challenge to forming clear, coherent messages that can be heard.

BGC works with leaders to:

Understand what actually is going on
Generate a clear, appropriate message and/or response
Choose the right audience
Choose the right time
Choose the right medium
Vet the responses to the communication

BGC helps leaders build tools and skills to:

Build trusted relationships with team members, staff, capital partners and other stakeholders
Run an effective meeting
Create and give a successful presentation
Negotiate position successfully
Write a clear message
Collect information from all levels of the company
Facilitate processes that generate buy-in

Examples of BGC work includes:

Worked with managing principal of an architectural and engineering firm to negotiate the termination of a senior employee and communication the transition respectfully and effectively to the company.
Helped Emerging Leader in professional services company to develop a constructive and trusted relationship with Senior Leader to facilitate his eventual promotion to the senior leadership team.
Helped president of fast growing real estate company to negotiate strategic issues with large capital partner on matters of firm direction and management.
Taught "Communication Strategies for Corporate Real Estate Professionals" from 2004 to 2007 for CoreNet Global. Won Top Faculty Award each year.

Succession Planning

Long term health of companies requires not only that their executives evolve through various roles and levels of responsibility, but that there is a pipeline of future leaders who can carry on the business as the senior executives move on. We work with companies on developing and implementing leadership succession plans for both the current and the up and coming leaders.

Worked with founder and senior officer of investment advisory firm to develop and implement a succession plan that took into account a two-year transition, his personal needs during that time and what he wanted to achieve in his remaining two years.
Helped managing principal of engineering firm to negotiate the departure of the firm founder.
Performed emerging leader assessment with professional services company to determine whether there were internal candidates available to take on the senior leadership or whether other alternatives had to be considered. Plan lead to re-organizing the company to train future leaders and to bring in senior leaders needed to fill functions that could not be covered by the internal talent pool.
Helped senior partner of design firm to clarify her retirement goals and timetable. Work included negotiation with other senior partners as to what would be needed to fill the functional and strategic gaps to be left upon retiring partner's departure.

Organizational Assessments and Reorganization

To determine positioning for growth, we evaluate companies and their leadership teams for strategic, operational and organizational issues and opportunities. We also work with the companies to implement the changes we recommend, including mediating conflicts that often come to light during such assessments.

Assessed finance department and it senior executive in a medium size organization for alignment with goals of new strategic plan. Recommended new executive role and business model for the department.
Restructured medium sized engineering firm along key business lines to align the company with its business strategy as well as to create leadership opportunities for emerging leaders.

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