Overview

Conscient Strategies assisted the founders/owners in a partnership that had experienced rapid growth to reevaluate their alignment and their objectives resulting in preparing the company for sale. With annual revenues catapulting overnight from $800K to $11M, the two partners struggled to manage the increased workload and scale their team effectively. Resentment grew as one partner assumed significantly more responsibility than did the other. As the relationship between the partners deteriorated, the culture of the firm suffered, and the future of the company was put at risk.

Assessment

We leveraged our proprietary leadership and culture assessments to evaluate the capabilities of both leaders, the cultural factors at play in the growing company, and the dynamics underpinning the organization’s challenges.

What we discovered

The assessment identified three critical gaps that were driving significant risk for the business:

• Tension between the two partner’s approaches to running and working at the firm
• The lack of a defined culture and values that were tied to strategic objectives
• The need to determine the optimal path forward

What we did

In order to address these issues, we provided a combination of leadership advisory services, executive coaching, and targeted facilitation to identify a set of strategic objectives the company and for their partnership.

We began by facilitating group sessions with both partners to identify goals of the firm and understand how far the divide was between the two partners. We also held individual sessions with the partners and with each member of the team to further understand the culture and to identify any opportunities to reconcile the tensions that were disrupting the success of the firm. The Conscient Strategies’ team drew on its deep business acumen and extensive experience dealing with cultural considerations as well as on its expertise in executive coaching and facilitation.

The Challenge

The CEO was terminated by the board following advice from legal counsel. When we arrived, the work environment was dysfunctional as a result of the actions of the terminated CEO. Distrust and suspicion remained. The board and a recently hired COO was concerned about reenergizing a relatively young staff and bringing the organization back to productivity.

What We Did

After conducting an employee engagement assessment, we held a companywide gathering. We conducted “truth & reconciliation” type meetings to allow the opportunity for grievances to be heard and responses given. We also acknowledged the point of transition and described the vision forward to drive the organization to greater success. Bringing everyone into the nature of the change process set the expectation that the road ahead will be bumpy, yet there is a clear path out of the turmoil. We worked with the board on their role, decisions and interactions with the staff to ensure that all parties were aligned with the actions necessary to stabilize the organization.

What We Discovered

The board demonstrated inconsistent behavior and oversight driving some of the instability surrounding the leadership transition. The organization was structured such that outside stakeholders beholden to the founders often drove much of the negativity. Staff were either not allowed to rise to their position or promoted prematurely, creating an environment where no one trusted the others on the team, including a clear “us vs them” divide between senior leadership and the staff.