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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 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 approaches very serious and difficult topics in an accessible and insightful way.” — Eric Siegel
“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 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
“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
“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
“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. Performance Matters
Picture two average employees, working away in their cubicles at Procter & Gamble in the late 1970s. They spend most of their day writing memos and following rigid corporate policies. Neither one is particularly ambitious. In fact, their co-workers voted them as the employees "least likely to succeed". Both graduated from top universities, they're smart. But nothing really stands out about them.
The twist: These two employees are Steven Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, and Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE. Surprised? Did you think these two leaders would shine a bit more at an earlier stage in their career? Are you worried that you're failing to notice top talent in your employee group? The Fact is talent is overrated. The Problem is business has created this false image of a shake and bake leader that emerges out of thin air. The Outcome is leaders are looking for hidden talent. No one bothers to do the hard work to train a leader and get them to practice relentlessly... it's the shake and bake mentality everywhere. The Solution is to stop looking for illusive talent and start having people deliberately practice their leadership skills. We're not talking about practicing endlessly with no aim, this is about deliberate practice. Rising standards Olympic records of 100 years ago, are standard vanilla performances for high school athletes today. Consider this: In 1908 the winner of the men's 200-meter race ran it in 22.6 seconds. Today's high school record is just about 2 seconds faster. A fairly large margin of difference given the nature of the sport. Several decades ago, doing a double somersault at the Olympics was groundbreaking. Today, it's hardly worth a second glance. In every sport, or in fact in every achievement, we see that over the course of decades, old records appear to be only average by today's standards. Why is that? It's not about hidden talent. It's about improved training methods and practicing regimes. You can argue it's about mental models and barriers being broken down as well. Yet, you may notice the very same thing in your own business. Over time, your people improve processes, do things quicker and smarter than you ever thought possible. In Geoff Colvin's book "Talent is Overrated" he argues it isn't just any type of practice that will do the trick. It's deliberate and focused practice. 10,000 hours of work won't cut it, if you don't know what you're practicing. The shake and bake leader Some managers try to pick out potential leaders from an early stage. They look at ambition, they may perhaps go for someone who is outspoken, someone well educated or with a high IQ. But none of these methods really delivers top performers, according to Colvin. Deliberate practice is what is needed and herein lies a tremendous opportunity for you. Because the vast majority of companies do not understand the basics of proper practice and how to implement it in their organization, this is an area where you can gain a competitive advantage But Colvin does raise an interesting question about the concept of deliberate practice: If deliberate practice requires so much concentration and effort, why is it that some people subject themselves to it and others don't? Read the book to find out more. In Our Opinion The Beacon Group's Advice for implementing deliberate practice in your organization Make Performance Feedback regular - Of course performance feedback needs to be regular and consistent. You have systems and evaluation forms right? That’s fine, but you’ll also need to make sure that feedback is being provided informally. Performance feedback is like breakfast for people doing deliberate practice. Avoid shake and bake methods - Work with your managers and leaders to prevent a pervading attitude of trying to identify leaders too early. It’s tempting to go this route, because it means the tricky and difficult work of performance feedback is not needed. Also, employees will react very well if you embed the idea that everyone has talent that can be unlocked by practice. Encourage Employees to come up with their own plan - Let employees tell you what they think they need to practice. Let them develop a plan. What do they want to get better at? You can treat it as a career plan, and help them find out what skills they need to attain their goals. |
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