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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. Cuture of Deception
One day, there you were on top of it all. The next thing you know, both you and your organization are irrelevant. You have become the organizational equivalent of Latin.
You gather your team together in a desperate effort to figure out what happened. One by one, now that they have nothing to lose, they open up. They tell you your own arrogance and overconfidence led the organization to stray from its path. They tell you that, essentially, you are the reason the organization has fallen over the cliff. They tell you how you ignored the warning signs, how you vetoed their decisions and replaced them with your own. They tell you how your charisma blinded the employee population until it was too late. They go on and on, and you begin to get the message. You are an egomaniac. The Fact is trust, candour, and alignment are only a pipe dream in many organizations. Far too often a leader, driven by ego, creates a workplace that is dysfunctional, ineffective, and ultimately heading down the wrong path. The Problem is everyone in these types of organizations is a co-conspirator by allowing this type of behaviour to persist. Nobody questions the logic behind bad decisions, nor are they willing to fight for their own point of view. The Outcome is many organizations are full of thick-walled silos, unhealthy disputes, and bad decisions based predominantly on subjective grounds. The Solution is -To understand that your organization's egonomics are out of balance. Egos and your P&L It’s amazing there's any room left for ego in the modern workplace. However, according to recent research, there is still plenty to go around.
Ego. It’s there - in fact, it’s everywhere. They key is knowing it, and then learning how to manage it effectively. Ego is not totally bad. It does have benefits. It drives ambition, instils confidence, and builds courage. In order to be successful, and ultimately unstoppable, organizations must have a certain amount of ego. The problem arises when the organization's ego (which can be driven by a single person in a position of power) gets out of control. When this happens, the organization starts to ignore hard data, distort market realities, and ultimately make bad decisions. The Root Cause Does this sound like your organization:
If so, you’re likely on the verge of developing an ego. You may ask "how can that be?". The reality is, as organizations become successful, they fall victim to forgetting the very virtues that helped them get to where they are. According to Marcum and Smith, the key factors to continual success are: Humility - striking the crucial balance between too much ego, and not enough Curiosity - blending free thinking and clear purpose without bias Veracity - removing the fear of giving or getting feedback to produce true honesty. The Blind Eye David Marcum and Steven Smith in their book "Egonomics" outline a series of "early warning signs" that alert an individual or organization that they are developing an ego. They include competitiveness, showcasing brilliance, and seeking acceptance. The truth is, most organizations should take a lesson from Henry Ford: "The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time." If your organization can develop habits using humility, curiosity, and veracity, and focus their efforts on the betterment of their organization, success and respect are sure to follow. In Our Opinion The Beacon Group’s Keys to Managing your Organization's Egonomics Constant Crisis - Organizations who believe, as Intel Chairman Andy Grove put it, "only the paranoid survive" won't have time to develop an ego. By refusing to rest on your laurels, your organization will maintain a constant level of evolution, and, ultimately, will succeed. Social Networks - Having a group of "friendly consultants" helps. Just as your spouse would tell you not to wear a particular outfit, you should maintain a wide-array of friends and colleagues who are willing to give you unsolicited, candid feedback on your operations. Whistle Blowers - Egomaniacs can be scary. Therefore, in order to ensure that employees within your organization can speak up, and present objective data, you must ensure that there are concrete paths that allow this vital process to take place. This must be allowed to happen without the fear of reprisal and, ultimately, a sense of "thanks for speaking up". |
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