The Work

Non-Financial Due Diligence :
Value Creation Dynamics 

Operational & Culture Risk

Do you have the right team for your enterprise?
Are investors and senior managers aligned?
Will the culture sustain the product?

• Non-financial due diligence avoids the risk of poor decisions.
• Interpersonal stress tests create effective project teams.
• Psychometrically-validated assessments and real-world group metrics enhance board efficacy.

Identify actionable intelligence using an 11-Factor diagnostic incorporating confidential interviews, unobtrusive observations, behavioral forensics, and scenario-based projective techniques. This diagnostic uses an evidence-based, triangulated, research methodology to mitigate bias enabling capture of venture dynamics that make-or-break success.

Organizations convey the rules of behavior directly and indirectly.  These rules seep into the pores of every employee. Behavioral guardrails are always present. The 11-Factor diagnostic and follow-up process consultations reveal these organizational dynamics that govern behavior.

Non-financial due diligence will root-out individual and group dynamics that place the venture at risk – where team decision-making differs from individual decisions and where incentives misalign with managerial behavior. The whole is not necessarily greater than the sum of the parts. The rules matter. The dynamics matter. The conductor matters.

Biases of individuals and groups can hurt performance. It blinds. To enable higher levels of team and individual performance self-awareness, situational-awareness is crucial. Our process consultations reveal and reduce counter-productive cognitive or unconscious biases. These include automatic oversimplifications, failure to seek contrary evidence, avoiding healthy conflict, blind spot ignorance and navigation, attribution errors, failure to escalate risk, regret avoidance, irrational beliefs & management expectations, risky group decision-making, misaligned incentives, said-unsaid incongruities, recall as error not confirmation, false group consensus – these are some of the subtle and often unrecognized impediments that enter board rooms and project teams though they are not invited. These dynamics destroy talent and teams. They negate results. Our work uncovers these dynamics in a safe, blame-free manner enabling insight, improved information processing and as a result better thinking, better execution, better results.

OUR METHODS .

TALENT MANAGEMENT

“Am I using hiring practices that work?”

“Do my managers retain or repel talent?”

“After intense focus on the hire, and once in the system, will the wheels fall off?”

We assess, fine-tune or build custom hiring practices, so you hire wiser. No pre-baked solutions in search of problems. Job-related. Objective. Reliable. Valid.

Grounded in behavioral reality we identify the competencies, observable behaviors that drive business outcomes – establishing a foundation, if not explanation, for talent management.

We make sure the talent you painstakingly hired doesn’t become a flight risk.

PREDICT JOB PERFORMANCE

Hire better people by measuring agreeability, conscientiousness, other job-related characteristics to identify organizational fit.

PREVENT CAREER DERAILMENT

Reduce likelihood of performance risk by getting ahead of behavioral tendencies that impede individual success, erode interpersonal relationships and harm culture.

LEADER DEVELOPMENT .

Executive Coach

“What can I do to achieve more at work?” “Do I lead effectively?” “Is my career all that it could be?”

This 1:1 treats leadership development as a contact sport – suitable for high achieving business athletes.

Data-immersive, this development program deploys insight-oriented questioning to understand leadership style, business requirements and the need for alignment. Initial, qualitative, interview-based assessment is validated later in the engagement using sound, scientifically-anchored, quantitative measures.

The individual consultation is a hard-hitting, gloves-off process of evidence collection, collaboration and learning by doing. The metrics of success are business outcomes.

The work is performance-centered. The process is private, safe and comfortable. It is also very hard work. New, better leadership behavior is born of self-reflection, psychological internalization of the learning, hard, objective evidence-based feedback and third-party facilitation that activates sustainable behavior change.

  • 6 Week Intensive

    Research. Root-Cause. Results.

    Best practice, proprietary STEPS™ protocol, SWOT-style, hard-Hitting, rapid advisory consultation; Not the coaching you googled; a performance-enhancing elixir, suitable only for high achieving, feedback welcoming, professionals facing or anticipating harsh interpersonal and competitive environments.

  • 4-6 Month Developmental Program

    Psychometrics. Blind Spots. Behavioral Roadmap.

    When do we add the most value? When the going gets rough. When change demands action. When it is time to take your career to the next level. When project teams are under extreme pressure and decision-making may succumb to human frailty and unwanted team dynamics. When unproductive cognitive bias bleeds into the boardroom. When wrongful, discriminatory decision-making occurs. When M & A culture collisions jeopardize deal value. When shifts in business strategy and leader behavior misalign.

  • 2 Month Career Transition

    A new job. New responsibility. Bigger, broader accountabilities.

    Entering a new corporate culture. Hitting reset as prep for assuming broader responsibilities. Assuming accountability for a business unit that requires you navigate the tension between preventing unwanted behavior and building an entrepreneurial mindset.