How can I help?

 During the last 28 years I have gained experience working with hundreds of managers from a variety of companies.  Entrepreneurs and C-Level Managers are facing challenges that are similar in essence but their style, environment and daily reality is quite different. 

 Most Entrepreneurs prefer the action to the  planification and because of  limited resources and management team most are wearing many functional hats.  This is particularly true with startups.  Therefore, when working with Entrepreneurs, I put more emphasis on documenting their projects in order to give them a good appreciation of the internal and external challenges they might have overlooked.  I also work with them on a detailed plan that will not only give the day to day guidelines to reach their objectives, but the chronology of implementation as well.

In general C-Level Managers have strong functional expertise.  They tend to be good planner and know how to manage their day to day operations.  The Strategic Planning Challenge for the CEO comes from the distinct perspectives and agendas of the Functional Managers Team. 

In order for the managers to positively contribute to the Strategic Planning Exercise of the Company, they need to understand the overall picture.  They must know all opportunities and treats of the markets in which the Company evolves in addition to clearly understand its strengths and weaknesses when compared to their competitors.   It is only when all of this information is shared and valued by all managers that together they can come to an understanding on the best Strategic Positioning for the Company.  Afterward  they are better prepared to contribute to the Company's  Development Plan that all must sanction. 

Armed with a good Strategic Development Plan it becomes much easier for each Department Chief to develop a Coherent Functional Plan that will support the overall Company Strategy and Business Plan. 

The key to success when working with C-Level Managers is sharing information in order to talk the same language.  My contribution is to provide opportunities for all of them to share strategic and functional information they normally would not have access to. 

Research is imperative to document the markets. Confidential interviews is a practical and efficient approach to understanding the internal challenges and perceptions.  Workshops are probably the greatest way of sharing information and specific point of view and discuss  in collegiality potential orientations and strategies.  The workshop approach is also awesome for management team building plus to motivate and energize the participants.

There are also many other challenges that I should write about, including fund raising, developing a market in a foreign country, the benefits of an executive committee, developing dashboards for managers, etc.  I invite you to visit the specific service pages to get more details.  In each section, I will try to give you more details about the approaches I use as well as their advantages, inconvenient and the success I have had with them.  

 Thanks,

Daniel