Services

Bill, Dom and Michaelle spend a significant amount of their time doing what they write about and talk about; advising and facilitating. Over the past thirty years, they have been involved in, as consultants and/or business owners, almost every facet of operating businesses, from business development through operations, from employee motivation through compensation and incentive systems, from re-engineering processes/procedures through automation of the same.

All of their services have several aspects in common:

  • Situation assessment,
  • Information gathering/knowledge management, and
  • Facilitation and change leadership.

Succession Institute LLC doesn't try to fit clients into predetermined tools and processes. Rather, projects typically start with an assessment phase, in which questions are asked, such as:

  • What is the existing situation?
  • What are the identified issues?
  • Who are the players?
  • What are their capabilities?
  • What are the market-forces?
  • How are those forces impacting the situation? etc.

After an assessment, the information gathering/knowledge management skill set is applied. At this point, it is necessary to capture relevant information/knowledge in order to have a better understanding of the current situation and alternatives. This information is typically gathered using techniques including, for example:

  • Interviews,
  • Facilitated discussions with employees, customers and management,
  • Observation,
  • Surveys, and other techniques.

Finally, it is time for change leadership in order to generate forward momentum. This consists of identifying an organization's strategy and integrating it with communications, action plans, defined projects, research and any one of hundreds of specific initiatives. In order to accomplish this, Bill, Dom and Michaelle switch hats on a continual basis to help the organization arrive at its desired destination, such as the hats or roles of being an organizational manager, facilitator, change leader, general contractor, project manager, strategic planner, performance enhancer, knowledge manager, technologist and process improver.

Given their comfort assuming many different roles, Succession Institute has categorized its services in the following ways:

  • Planning Services,
  • Operational Efficiency,
  • Marketing,
  • Technology Strategy,
  • Personnel Performance, and
  • Improvement of Internal Communications and Information Management

Regarding each of these broad areas, Succession Institute offers services that take a high-level look at a business in order to identify ways to improve processes and more readily and rapidly obtain expected outcomes. While this work often includes implementation, our most common role is that of change management catalyst.

The services we offer have a common thread. We use our diverse multi-industry experience to act as for-hire problem solvers or opportunity leveragers. We have been successful in this capacity because we work to uncover the root causes behind negative situations using our collective business acuity to see beyond the often over-focused upon symptoms. As well, we help organizations spotlight and quantify the value of taking action to leverage currently uncapitalized-upon opportunities.

Conflicts (both strategy and management), poor processes, inefficiencies, under-utilization of people or technology, employee dissatisfaction, revenue shortfalls, under-performing margins, and ineffective technology are all common symptoms of the following root causes:

  • Poorly or partially defined strategy;
  • Compensation and incentive systems motivating the least desirable behavior;
  • Minimal to no accountability, with responsibility easily passed on to others, while the proper authority rarely accompanies that delegated work;
  • A culture that suppresses creativity and ignores input from those performing the fieldwork;
  • A technology strategy conceived from an automate the repetition instead of a creating a competitive advantage mindset
  • An invalid assumption that the grapevine is controllable or a miscalculation as to its power; and
  • Inconsistent leadership, just to name a few.

When these conditions occur, while several very efficient and effective departments might exist, the organization seems to perform well below the sum of its parts. It is common in these cases to reward the effective, ignore the problematic or ineffective, with the result being marginal overall. Our job typically is to take a holistic look at the organization and help chart a course to strengthen the weakest links so that the company's overall performance is elevated.