If you are interested in learning about the skills needed to succeed in rapid, organizational change, select from one of Robertson Lowstuter’s Change Management Consulting and Training Programs:

Executive Coaching

Creating High Performance Teams

Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change

Performance Management

“Companies need to strategically manage change rather than having change manage them. Those companies who think they can lay low and ride the storm out will be left behind. We can’t wait for the storm to blow over; we’ve got to work in the rain!”

Pete Silas, Chairman of Phillips Petroleum

 

“While our company has never experienced massive change before, we recognized that substantial shifts needed to occur. RL helped ensure the productivity of our workforce and taught our team to anticipate, recognize, and thwart roadblocks to success. RL’s consulting was truly motivational, content-rich, and tailored to our objectives.”

President and CEO, healthcare market leader

 

Go to our Articles and Insights section where you will find helpful articles on topics dealing with change management, including “Change Agents: The Next Generation.”

“Change is not an optional thing. We cannot vote and say we want to stop it. In fact, we are changing faster than ever before. Our strength is that we embrace change.”

Bill Gates, CEO, Microsoft

Most everyone will agree that change is constant, unrelenting, and increasing in its pace and intensity. Virtually all organizations are experiencing the symptoms of dynamic change, regardless of their market position, industry, or product offerings. The business realities of today are accelerated growth, declining market share, acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, carve-outs, delayerings, restructuring, and cost capitation. The focus on the changing landscape has made reactionaries of us all, and has led most organizations to not consider the impact on those who execute the business strategy—the employees.

Robertson Lowstuter’s Change Management consulting practice helps its clients navigate the turbulence of exponential change and achieve growth and profitability goals. We factor the human dimension back into the equation for world-class performance. By focusing first on the blockages that individuals and teams have, we equip our clients to resolve critical organizational inhibitors, anticipate issues and opportunities, and build the team needed for success.

Robertson Lowstuter is known for its innovative and highly practical strategies that help its clients address tough issues in even tougher times. Through our executive coaching and high-performance consulting, individuals are equipped to effectively adapt and thrive in constant organizational change and uncertain market conditions.

Enlightened organizations have long since recognized that they have to change to remain competitive in the 90s and beyond. Acknowledging the need to change, to become adaptive and self-perpetuating, does not necessarily guarantee that a company knows HOW to change. This is where we come in. RL knows what creates derailment and what creates world-class performance. We help our clients discover WHAT to do, as well as HOW to do it.

We take the mystery out of human and organizational dynamics and equip leaders to empower employees to achieve significant results rather than relying solely on the corporation for direction.

Twelve Signs of Exponential Change

Knowing that your organization (or your department) is undergoing significant change is the first step in responding to it. While these “signs” are not statistically correlated, if your organization is experiencing seven or more of the following, you and your colleagues are probably going through exponential change that may feel oppressive, unrelenting, or stressful. Note the ones that apply:

1. Leadership profiles change and new leaders emerge.

2. Short-term tactics and rapid action replace deliberate long-term strategy development and planful execution.

3. Trust seems low, with everything requiring justification to those in authority.

4. Dangerous “quick fixes” are often applauded.

5. Promotions and job reassignments seem arbitrary.

6. Communication is slow and incomplete.

7. There seems to be an imbalance between performance expectations and available resources.

8. “Politics,” not performance, seems to count the most.

9. Speaking out is seen as treasonous and not as loyalty.

10. Risk avoidance is the norm.

11. Blame-oriented behavior is high and “turf wars” are commonplace.

12. Talented employees leave.

In client relationships, RL often functions in several capacities concurrent to one another. We provide highly confidential counsel to senior executives and managers through Executive Coaching while we may also be working with an executive’s colleagues in Creating High Performance Teams. Organizations experiencing significant change as a result of rapid internal growth, acquisitions, divestitures, mergers, or strategic alliances utilize RL’s highly practical intervention, Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change, as well as our Performance Management development process.

Next Steps

1. Determine to what extent your team, department, or organization is undergoing exponential change.

2. Ask yourself, and others, the extent to which exponential change has had a positive and negative impact on individual, team, and organization effectiveness.

3. For those dysfunctional areas ask, “What five things can I do to eliminate the problems and enhance my effectiveness?”

Leading a team or an organization is no easy task. We understand. We’d like to support you if you have a need for discreet, highly-personalized coaching.

Please call Clyde Lowstuter to discuss how he and his team can help.

Top of Page | Executive Coaching | Creating High Performance Teams
Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change | Performance Management

Robertson Lowstuter offers Executive Coaching to those individuals who evidence truly high performance potential and a commitment to excel. To the extent that there is some form of blockage (minor to major) which is keeping them from this potential, we can also help. Through this process, individuals and the organizations to which they belong are transformed.

Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching is a one-on-one relationship between a high potential executive and a seasoned Robertson Lowstuter consultant/coach. During this coaching process, the vision, values, commitments, and drivers of the fast-track executive come clearly into focus. With equal clarity, the executive sees his personal and professional blockages, those critical inhibitors which are keeping him from reaching his full potential. Often the blockages identified in the assessment process are not removed quickly. It takes time, truth, and trust.

This is Executive Coaching. A coach is first and foremost a truthteller. Knowing the truth really is essential to being free to be all we were meant to be. But truth must be told in the context of trust—a safe place. The coaching relationship is just that—a safe place where the executive can be challenged to grow by a trusted ally. Sound counsel coupled with truth and trust over time bring change. Real change. Lasting change. Transformational, high-performance change.

Next Steps

You may be a candidate for Executive Coaching if:

1. You would welcome an opportunity to have a confidential and discreet sounding board.

2. You have routinely felt that you have greater capabilities than you have been able to execute.

3. You have found yourself wondering how to be more effective.

4. You have not developed a high performance team or are perplexed by how to do it.

To confidentially learn how to be more effective, please call Clyde Lowstuter.

Top of Page | Executive Coaching | Creating High Performance Teams
Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change | Performance Management

“It was not just the third-party perspective that delivered these critical messages with far greater impact than we could internally, but it was the power of the messages delivered. RL did a tremendous job of understanding our situation and providing real deliverables which our employees could act on immediately. Robertson Lowstuter also followed up on their work with individual support. The bottom line: Robertson Lowstuter helped our company operate more effectively and with greater congruency.”

President, chemical company

Creating High Performance Teams

Hardly any team functions at its optimal level consistently. Sometimes there are exciting bursts of real synergy and results, albeit short-lived. Robertson Lowstuter’s expertise lies in helping teams consistently achieve and sustain breakthrough results and transformational work relationships.

The focus of Robertson Lowstuter’s Creating High Performance Teams is to uncover the true blockages to a team’s success, powerfully influence the organization’s culture, and effectively equip all employees with the skills needed to operate effectively in the midst of rapid, ongoing change.

We acknowledge that this program will feel more like a personalized guided process of self-discovery and team building than a highly-structured, intellectual seminar. The experiential “workshop” format is a highly cost-effective method to launch such support and may, indeed, be the first in a series of development efforts. Minimally, this represents a forum in which the individuals’ and the team’s needs can be uncovered, legitimized, and effectively dealt with.

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits and dangers of well-intended consulting from internal or external change agents, go to Clyde Lowstuter’s article, “Change Agents: The Next Generation.”

Next Steps

Having a High Performance Team is critical to organizational success.

1. Ask yourself and others, “To what extent are team members exceeding performance expectations?”

2. How confident are you that your colleagues will constructively challenge you to perform to your best?

Contact Clyde Lowstuter to ascertain whether your team is ready and committed to achieving greater team synergy and results.

Top of Page | Executive Coaching | Creating High Performance Teams
Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change | Performance Management

“When a company has made a decision, it becomes everyone’s job to make it the right decision. Today’s organizations need supportive, flexible team players who can quickly catch the new vision. High-performance employees seize the chance to learn and grow. Talented players race to embrace change rather than run away in fear of it. They are able to refocus, look at what is needed today, and set about to accomplish it in a creative, strategic manner.”

Clyde C. Lowstuter

Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change^®

Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change is a straightforward, highly-practical forum for employees experiencing accelerated or massive organizational change including growth, merger, acquisition, or restructuring.

Through our personalized consulting and group workshops, individuals and organizations are equipped to effectively adapt and thrive in rapid change and turbulent market conditions.

This highly-interactive platform is designed to defuse emotional issues, reassure people about any concerns surrounding their organization, introduce the dynamics of change common to shifting organizations, and talk realistically about the opportunities and problems attendant to significant and ongoing change. We help interpret the dynamics of sudden organizational change and equip employees to quickly get refocused, both for the success of their own careers and the effectiveness of their company.

Next Steps

Take a hard look at your own performance and those of your coworkers in the midst of rapid change.

1. Are you as productive as you’d like to be?

2. Are you communicating and developing others as effectively as is needed?

3. To what extent are employees focused on creating results rather than commenting on exponential change?

If you are interested in increasing your team’s productivity and empowering them to operate more confidently and effectively, contact us to show you how.

Top of Page | Executive Coaching | Creating High Performance Teams
Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change | Performance Management

“It doesn’t matter how long you’ve worked or how hard you’ve tried, the only thing that matters is results. You get paid for results!”

Anonymous

Performance Management

Effective performance management is the cornerstone of an organization’s success. Without it, nothing else seems to matter. Robertson Lowstuter’s Performance Management program balances the achievement of measurable goals with the clarity of honest, straightforward communications and performance development plans.

RL’s Performance Management System will:

• Integrate individual performance objectives with the business planning process.
• Manage employee performance through consistent and straightforward feedback.
• Identify the blockages to success and the extent of role clarity and fit.
• Be highly adaptive, flexible, and results-driven.
• Create a highly collaborative team environment with a strong sense of urgency.
• Provide direction, feedback, and coaching for top performance, not merely “appraisal.”
• Establish the context for career planning, individual development, and succession planning.
• Sustain itself through internal controls and an internal team which monitors and calibrates the company’s performance management system.

Next Steps

To determine the state of your organization’s performance management system, we recommend that you:

1. Assess the extent to which performance expectations and behavior are significantly different and/or not being recognized.

2. Inquire as to how people feel about the clarity of goals set and achieved and the quality of the supervisory feedback.

3. Understand how a formal “pay for performance” process will significantly enhance employee growth and achievement.

Top of Page | Executive Coaching | Creating High Performance Teams
Thriving in Rapid Organizational Change | Performance Management

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