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Change and Transformation
“The Beacon Group’s program proved to be a transformational experience for our staff, and has created a new, more open culture of creativity and collaboration that has given The Globe and Mail a marked and measurable competitive advantage.” — Phillip Crawley
“The Beacon Group’s thought provoking curriculum utilizes best practice tools and interactive media for evaluation, assessment and overall learning. It has helped us raise the bar on our calibre of talent.” — Ernst Lieb
“The Beacon Group was able to handle our 360 reviews across 9 offices in a manner that brought significant value to our partners, the firm and ultimately our clients.” — Judson Whiteside
“The human capital programs provided by The Beacon Group are best in class.” — Tye Burt
“The Beacon Group acted as a strategic partner and was instrumental in helping us raise the bar on candid dialogue and team performance.” — Robert Courteau
“The Beacon Group approaches very serious and difficult topics in an accessible and insightful way.” — Eric Siegel
“We engaged The Beacon Group when we needed to bring two cultures together after our first major international acquisition: the evidence of their success lies in both the subsequent growth in our business and our presence in more than twelve countries on five continents.” — Rupert Duchesne
“The Beacon Group excels in facilitating open & candid dialogue that has fostered superior team performance.” — Mary Ellen Carlyle
“Top-level thought leadership, combined with practical, cost-effective solutions—that’s the real value the Beacon Group team brings to bear on Foresters talent challenges.” — Suanne Nielsen
“The Beacon Group delivered cutting edge perspectives on many human capital topics that were tailored and customized to our company in a way that we could not have obtained at more generic, cookie-cutter advising shops.” — Doug Lord
“Doug Williamson and his team were of invaluable assistance in helping our organization navigate through a completely new strategic planning process and emerge with a three year plan resoundingly endorsed by our Board. Doug’s global perspectives and ability to drive consensus was an integral part of our success.” — Don Forgeron
“The Global HR & Communications senior team engaged the Beacon Group in shepherding us through a unique strategic planning process that involved an outside-in view of our current and future workforce and how this aligns to our business strategy. Thanks to Doug and his team it was a thought provoking process that sharpened our strategic thinking and, in the end, made our strategy stronger.” — Sylvia Chrominska
“The Beacon Group’s customized and personalized approach fit our needs perfectly. From the initial self-discovery phase all the way to recommending solutions, the work they have done has been consistently world-class. They combine strong analytics with a wealth of real world experience. They are focused, targeted and are experts at taking theoretic concepts and making them real. We look forward to working with Doug and his team as we continue to elevate our business and improve our internal performance.” — Don Romano
“I have had the pleasure of working with The Beacon Group and Doug Williamson for several years across several organizations and have always been impressed with their professionalism, work ethic and customer orientation. Doug's own highly energetic and highly customized approach to the specific needs of our business and our leadership team sets him apart from other strategic facilitators and objective "thought provokers" I have experienced. I am always grateful and impressed by the tangible results his interventions tend to produce.” — Lloyd A. Perlmutter
“The big contribution was The Beacon Group challenged our culture and our comfort level. We then arrived at a clear plan of concise deliverables that we needed to execute to move forward on our vision.” — Tony Ambler
“SKF approached The Beacon Group to develop our Talent Management program. The process implemented by Doug Williamson and his team was extremely important for us in determining how to execute the program on a clear, organized and systematic way. This was one of our most important projects that will enable us to ensure our sustainable growth.” — João Ricciarelli
“Through its sound and strategically practical business knowledge and experience The Beacon Group has and continues to assist SCI in better understanding and enabling our organization to build engaged teams and leadership capability to help make our supply chain clients more competitive.” —John Ferguson |
Provocative PropositionsIn the hyperactive and challenging world in which we all live, it is becoming harder and harder for business leaders to find time to read, reflect and gain insight from the many valuable sources at our disposal. In "Provocative Propositions", The Beacon Group attempts to fill that void by offering our opinion, often rather pointed, on a wide array of issues we believe are relevant to leading a modern organization. The articles are catalogued into 12 categories so you can quickly and easily find a topic of particular interest. We then offer three easy steps under the heading "In Our Opinion" to help business leaders take action on the key themes. Simply click on the category and read away. Eras of Innovation
One can picture a time - back in the early 1800's - in a small rural town, perhaps in Canada, Australia or India when a farmer would wake, before dawn, and set out to the fields. He would grab a bag of seed, and by the handful, he would toss the seeds onto the land. He would let nature take its course, and hope that enough rain would come, and that the seeds would produce enough food for the family as well as some to sell in the town.
Today, farmers rely on the latest technology. Seeds are planted with precision, accurate to the centimetre. Irrigation allows for just enough water, and the seeds are constantly monitored, fertilized, and cared for. The resulting crop is bountiful, and even surpasses the demand. When it comes to innovation, unfortunately, many organizations are still acting like primitive farmers, randomly scattering seeds, hoping for anything. This approach often creates a sense of panic for employees who believe the only innovation worthy of praise is a "breakthrough" innovation. The reality is - breakthrough innovations are one in a million. Today's successful organizations, on the other hand, use well thought out and proven methods and processes that have a better chance of yielding top quality ideas, and then they have an ethic of discipline to carry these ideas to fruition. Nice Innovation The situation in far too many organizations today is that somewhere along the line "out-of-the-box" thinking was actually placed in a black box, and moved to a store room somewhere in the basement of Head Office. Goofy brainstorming sessions, and too many PR speeches about how the organization must innovate, have reduced innovation to the business jargon equivalent to the word - nice. The passion is gone. The excitement is gone. The organization didn't take it seriously, and it died. The problem is that Peter Drucker was right on the money when he said "Every organization…needs one core competence: innovation". Somehow, your organization must "wake the beast" of innovation in order to survive. Types of Innovation Now that your organization has realized the error of its ways and is poised to innovate (easier said than done, by the way), the key question then becomes -How are we going to "focus" our innovation? In her book "The Seeds of Innovation" author Elaine Dundon breaks innovation down into 3 types: Efficiency Innovation
Organizational Continuum In order to develop an organization that is able to innovate effectively, you must also decide where your organization lies on a key continuum of organizational behaviour: Control <--------------------> Freedom If the majority of your organization's behaviour falls on the control side of the continuum, it will be little wonder why your organization is having trouble innovating. Allowing your employees an opportunity to think, be creative and learn, is an essential component to your organization's future success. A Farmer’s Life Even with the latest technology and modern science, not to mention bio genetic engineering and the like, farming is still an exhausting, non-stop way of life. Innovation is no different. Innovation cannot be relegated to a single training event, or town hall speech. As a leader you must personify the constant hard work that is involved in innovation. In Our Opinion The Beacon Group's Key's to Planting Seeds of Innovation Fertilize - Farmers use a variety of techniques to enrich their soil. They rotate fields and add nutrients to the soil - your organization has a corporate library, doesn't it? Cross-pollinate - Gregor Mendel discovered the ability to develop key traits by cross-pollinating certain plants; the same is true when high-potentials are exposed to new areas of your organization through assignments, and job rotations. Nurture - Wives-tale or not, talking to plants can make a difference. As a Leader, you should invest your time well, by teaching those around you what you know, and encouraging their growth. Harvest - In the same way farmers take their ripe fruits and vegetables to market, your best ideas must be cultivated, and yes - taken to market Our Monthly Rant Bad Seeds Once your organization has undertaken the key steps to foster a culture of innovation, you must then step back and evaluate your "seeds". If you find that some of your seeds do not yield the necessary crops, does it make sense to use those seeds again? These bad seeds can grow into weeds that rob your field of key nutrients, and can choke the life out of your strongest plants. As a leader, you owe it to your prize winning seeds to continually weed your field, to ensure your harvest is the very best it can possibly be. In short - tend to the harvest, nurture the soil and water regularly. |
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