Driving Strategy and Culture Through Leaders

The press for new products. The quest for new markets. The need for new strategies. The reality of new structures. All represent a permanent part of the business landscape-and the subject of the strategic change taking place in organizations on a continuous basis.

We ensure that your strategic change initiatives are successful. And we do so by focusing on your leaders.

After all, leaders are the ones who need to define and articulate the strategy. They are the ones who need to remove the obstacles that are blocking execution. They are the ones who need to cross boundaries to align resources and create change wherever needed.

“The hard part of change is to get your people to accept it, buy into it, and rally around it. And that’s where Linkage’s processes and tools really help make a difference.”

-William F. Glavin, Jr. managing director and chief operating officer
David L. Babson & Company, Inc.
a member of the MassMutual Financial Group

Your leaders are also the ones who are going to need to do it again with your next strategic change initiative. By developing your leaders along the way, our strategic change solutions ensure that your leaders will be ready next time, as well.

Our creative approach typically involves several elements, including:

Partnering and Planning

Some strategic change initiatives need front-end definition. Others need mere refinement.

Either way, we partner with your team of leaders to help create the necessary clarity. The array of proven tools and processes we employ to this end include:

• Strategic change audits that help crystallize the organization's "Agenda for Change"
• Blueprinting tools that help bridge the current state of the organization to the desired future state
• Structured offsites that help catalyze and fine tune vision, values, and operating principles

The net result: a team of leaders fully aligned, committed, and prepared to drive the organization's strategic change.

Accelerating Strategic Change

We also help you convert your strategic plan into reality—and results.

Here again, the focus is on using leaders as the lever to drive strategic change. Specifically, we provide a defined strategic alignment process as well as various methods (change mobilization workshops, employee engagement events, etc.) in support of that process so leaders can:

• Engage the entire organization in learning and transition around the strategic agenda
• Mobilize people throughout the ranks in committed support of that agenda - in thought and in action
• Drive the type of strategic alignment that leads to real strategic change-and superior business results

Integrating Leadership Development

Even the best-laid plan for strategic change can go awry if your leaders and managers lack the specific capabilities required to drive that plan. The development of your leaders, in fact, impacts every phase of the process-and dictates the ultimate success of the initiative.

For this reason, at the same time that we are helping you design and implement the strategic change, we are also working with you to:

• Determine the unique leadership capabilities required to drive the strategic agenda
• Assess gaps in capabilities existing at individual, team, and organizational levels
• Create strategies, measures, and programs to close those gaps

All of this helps ensure the success of the strategic change initiative—as well as the next one looming down the road.