Business Sparring
Only entrepreneurs and business Leaders know what its like to stand out there all alone. Everybody is expecting drive, good decisions, support and leadership. This is all good and fine. However at times situations come up where it would be really helpful to speak with a knowledgeable person outside of the organisation. This is where I come in. Take the 30' free call and find out.
You most likely already have ideas, potential solutions. They may still be hidden somewhere, not completely thought through, not on a quality level that you can speak with your team about them? In a very informal, friendly environment we will unveil together, what you consider to be the best solution and to bring this forward. The need for such a conversation can arise quite spontaneous or can be planned on a reqular bases. Often 1 to 2 h gives you what you look for, to do the next step. No obligations or strings attached. Just support / sparring when you need it. There are a lot of examples, because many of them are resolved in one off short meetings. Lets fix a date for your free call - ideally with a specific topic that is on your mind.
Swiss Franc - currency shock - shall I move my activity outside of Switzerland?. This was a burning question an entrepreneur had. A topic he wanted to discuss, to test his ideas before he would discuss them with his team. We looked at his options, added some new ones. Part of these waere optimising the Swiss location, moving it to a low cost country, alliances, review of product portfolio and combination of those. All options had obviously pro's and con's. The client concluded that the option of transferring his business was far too risky. He selected 3 other options to discuss with his team. The objective that he felt comfortable on how to proceed was obtained.
We are just not progressing - what can I do?
The CEO of an entreprise was frustrated. Somehow he felt that he and his team were not progressing enough. We looked at their challanges what had been done, where he would like to be, set up options, discussed actions that he could implement. The conclusion at the end was, that he would make clearer statements what he wants the organisation to achieve and that one team member would have to be exchanged. It is not that the solutions were unique, but before the conversation they were not clear enough to the CEO.
CEO of a group - an M&A topic
The CEO called because he was working on an acquisition where he somehow did not feel comfortable about. It helped that we had been working together in the past. We discussed where his uncomfortable feeling might have its origin. We looked at various growth and problem scenarios. Suddenly the issue became clear. The transaction still took place, however there was an additional negotiaton and clarification made in writing that covered the CEO's concerns.
Trouble with a new board member
The CEO realised that the board was changing considerably, following the entrence of a new board member who was also a major shareholder. When analysing the situation it became clear that the new shareholder needed to have dividends paid out and hence the former direction of long term business deveopment was looked at from a different angle. Keep in mind that this had not been expressed clearly, but had to be interpreted by gathering data and interpreting behaviour. The CEO proposed to adjust the strategy, which was then strongly supported by the new board member and the rest of the board. The relationship came back to normal. A year later the CEO moved to an other company as he did not want to support this more short term oriented strategy. The key benefit was that the CEO had the awareness what was going on and the time to organise himself.
Production is not progressing
The CEO was unhappy with the development. During the conversation it became clear that the lack of growing the topline was linked to the lack of fliexibility of production. Apparently production showed to be unflexibel and defensive. The option of coaching the head of production was that there was too much of a gap between the requested profile and the existing profile. It would take a new person to do the job. The CEO was actually aware of the problem, but due to his personal relationship with the person and thankfullness for the effort he had shown in the past, the CEO hat pushed this topic to the side. It became clear what had to be done. We hence focussed on how and with which support the head of production could be let go. The CEO picked an option/package that permitted him to enter in to a good separation discussion.
