Projects
Our projects focus on Individuals, Teams, and Organizations.
Building the right solution often involves touching more than one category.
“I have been thinking about this problem for a long time. In 2 meetings with you I figured out more than I have in the last 23 years.”
PROBLEM
[Rachel] was having difficulty managing her time. She worked incredibly hard on projects and over-delivered results, but felt that she wasn’t getting the credit that she deserved. [Rachel] also lacked confidence in client meetings.
ASSESSMENT
[Rachel] was a perfectionist. She also felt a strong sense of professional validation through the projects that she worked on. As a result, [Rachel] often spent more time than necessary working on completed projects that were already ‘perfect enough.’
When it came time to present to clients, [Rachel] lacked confidence because she was unprepared. She worked up to the last minute, refining minute details, rather than allocating an appropriate amount of time to prepare a clear explanation of her work.
[Rachel] wasn’t getting the credit that she deserved because she wasn’t clearly explaining to clients the importance of the technical details that she was delivering. Without this context, they didn’t know about and could not appreciate how [Rachel]’s attention to these details translated to their business objectives. As a result, [Rachel] was reluctant to charge what she knew the project was worth.
GOAL
We created a plan with [Rachel] to help her become more organized and to prioritize communication and value of her work.
OUTCOME
[Rachel] felt confident and in control of her time and her work. Client satisfaction increased through her new approaches to client discussions and project planning. She became more confident both charging what she was worth and containing her time to what was important to her client.
“The most helpful part of this work was diagnosing each piece of feedback individually. …I always felt prepared with new ways to think about things or actions to take.”
PROBLEM
[Josh] was newly promoted. Those above him were also new in their roles, including the VP who was charting a new strategic course. [Josh] needed to figure out how to support the new strategy and hierarchy, plus make his mark as a capable leader.
ASSESSMENT
[Josh] was an excellent technical expert. No one individually worked as hard or accomplished more. He was rewarded for that individual performance - quickly moving up the ranks.
Now his success depended upon leading, not doing. His direct reports had previously been his peers and thought he wasn’t ready for this promotion. He needed to win them over, plus put his focus on the new strategy.
[Josh] knew that he was being tested. Being an acclaimed expert was no longer enough. He needed to make his mark as a capable leader.
GOAL
We worked with [Josh] to create specific traits and actions to successfully lead his new team, plus shift his focus from tactics to strategy. We also worked to help [Josh] earn his new boss’s confidence through clear business objectives, clear communication, and confident leadership actions.
OUTCOME
With targeted adjustments in [Josh’s] leadership behavior, his team is now in strong support of him. [Josh] has elevated his own business focus and he has earned the confidence of his new boss. He has proven that his promotion was the right choice for the company.
PROBLEM
[Steve] was the 3rd Director in 4 years appointed to his position. He had been charged with articulating a clear vision to move his team forward and with changing the organization’s culture. [Steve]’s vision involved a change in mindset from passive (addressing negative outcomes) to active (initiating positive outcomes).
ASSESSMENT
[Steve]’s vision was a dramatic departure from the status quo. His team was not responding well to the new objectives, in part because they hadn’t built the trust among each other and with [Steve] that is requisite for this kind of change.
In addition, [Steve] was having difficulty communicating his new strategy. Until recently he himself had been in a role focused on executing current practices, not implementing dramatic change. And this was the first time that he was attempting to clearly communicate a vision and rally support behind it, both skills that he had an urgent need to develop.
GOAL
We helped [Steve] develop targeted leadership skills so that he could communicate more effectively and gain the trust of his team. We worked to define his vision and then translate it into actionable steps that could be easily understood and executed by others.
OUTCOME
[Steve] has gotten his vision and culture change messages through to his team. They have begun adopting new, positive behaviors – strong success indicators for this tough culture change challenge. [Steve’s] supervisors are pleased with the progress.
PROBLEM
[Randy] was a recent VP hire. He inherited a team that didn’t yet trust each other, communicate well, or work together to solve problems. Their dysfunction was causing them to lose contracts.
[Randy] too felt tremendous pressure to perform. With significant strategy and operations issues on his plate, he had limited time to groom his team. At the same time, he knew that they needed to change the way they worked together if they had any hope of turning things around.
ASSESSMENT
[Randy] inherited a mixed team of seasoned and new hire employees that had not yet figured out how to work together. Work volume was so intense that everyone applied whatever experience they already had and jumped into production survival mode. This translated to a lot of independent work and little collaboration.
[Randy’s] sales team was failing to close deals, and was aggressively prospecting new ones. This meant more work for the analytics teams that crafted the deal proposals. With less time to spend on each proposal, the analytics teams were forced to use conservative numbers generated by algorithms without time for human revision to make them competitive. Without competitive proposals, the sales team had a hard time closing deals, and the vicious circle continued.
To make matters worse, each deal was pursued independently. There was no time for research up front that could be applied to multiple deals.
GOAL
We worked with [Randy] to build trust, communication, and problem-solving tactics within his team. Once established, we implemented a program of team coordination that would beat projected timelines and increase the number of contracts awarded.
OUTCOME
[Randy’s] team is now working as an independent unit of trusting comrades, not doubting skeptics. They have shifted focus to team success, not individual survival. They are meeting project timelines and closing more deals..
“Sharon is my ‘Boss Whisperer’…..priceless.
I am now able to understand my triggers and develop better coping techniques. And I am now more successful in developing my employees. Matrix Point helped me prepare and execute individual and team development.”
PROBLEM
[Grace] inherited a technical team that was slow to action. Work volume had accelerated. The team started missing important milestones. [Grace] needed to drive performance up, and quickly.
ASSESSMENT
[Grace’s] new team was timid and acted more like individual performers than managers. They waited for Grace to tell them what to do.
[Grace] was an action focused leader. But her assertive management style wasn’t working. She had yet to earn trust from her team.
[Grace] had a lot of pressure on her and needed to focus her time on critical business issues for her division. She needed her team to function as independent decision-making leaders to free up her time.
GOAL
We worked with [Grace] to help her shift her team from followers to action-based leaders, build her effectiveness with her team, and create an ongoing leadership development plan for her current and future managers.
OUTCOME
[Grace’s] team is now independent, decisive and action-based. [Grace] has established a successful leadership approach and has earned her team’s trust. She now has the bandwidth to focus on her strategic responsibilities. In addition, the leadership development plan that [Grace] executed was so successful that it is now used by other teams within the division.
“As Chairman of a statewide policy task force, I utilized Matrix Point to help facilitate an extremely complex and contentious process. Ms. Maher’s advice and insight as well as the way she structured the process were invaluable in leading to a successful conclusion.”
PROBLEM
[Justice Jones] was chair of a judicial policy task force. This membership body consisted of a spirited and diversely opinionated group of stakeholders. They were tasked to asses new technology advancements, evaluate stakeholder impact, and begin policy change discussions to enable those advancements over time.
ASSESSMENT
New technology advancements would benefit the courts and some stakeholders, but negatively impact other stakeholders. Task force members had opposing views of the advancements, often based on the impact to them personally.
[Justice Jones] needed to get this disparate group talking, create common ground, and develop potential future solutions. Entrenched positions and long standing agreements made that difficult.
GOAL
We developed a plan and process with [Justice Jones] and his staff to get task force factions talking to each other. We also focused on helping all stakeholders to recognize the culture change ahead and their responsibility in getting on board and driving that change.
OUTCOME
Task force members built trust, acknowledged history, yet found common ground and aligned on a shared long-term vision. That foundation paved the way for productive dialogue, exploration of potential solutions, and agreement on the next course of action.
“One of the best investments our team has made.
I am now personally rethinking leadership and getting results through others.”
PROBLEM
[Jorge]’s division had performed masterfully during a period of high growth. But as the market turned, business focus changed and their performance took a hit. New market conditions were creating similar problems across divisions. Employees weren’t working together to plan for or solve them.
ASSESSMENT
[Jorge]’s division of executional experts had been under-rewarded and over-punished for taking risks. They were heavily controlled by top-down decision-making. When changing market conditions mandated a new strategy, [Jorge]’s division lacked the autonomous leadership skills to drive the change. If they couldn’t adopt a new culture of leadership, [Jorge’s] team risked a precipitous decline in performance.
[Jorge] was highly regarded as a thoughtful expert. But his leadership style was sedate. It missed the mark for creating the influence he needed and wanted. For [Jorge], expanding his own leadership capabilities and actions was imperative to changing the division’s culture from one of fear to innovation.
GOAL
We helped [Jorge] develop alternative leadership approaches to alleviate fear, create trust and accountability, and to increase cross-functional team decision-making and results.
OUTCOME
The risk-averse culture in [Jorge]’s division is now gone. Performance and employee engagement have both measurably increased. Teams are now heavily collaborating around problems, solutions, and accountability.
“One of the most professional and productive interactions I’ve had since joining this company several years ago.
The leadership results we attained from your program were substantial. A recent peer discussion was night and day from a year ago.”
PROBLEM
[Todd]’s team was the crisis management and problem solver team. When operation failures occurred, his team was first line of defense. [Todd] knew that to improve operations consistency, he had to convince his peers to share diagnostics and collaborate on developing new solutions. However, [Todd]’s requests to work with other teams to assess problems and prevent future occurrences were often dismissed.
ASSESSMENT
The culture of [Todd]’s company was risk averse. After being reprimanded for past errors, employees’ had become self-focused. They learned to deflect responsibility. As a result, peer teams didn’t work together to analyze problem sources to ameliorate future negative events.
[Todd] needed to overcome this obstacle and develop a more effective approach to communicating with his peers in order to establish an ownership driven solutions process.
GOAL
We worked with [Todd] to help him shift his communication and leadership styles. End goals were to build trust and shared ownership of problems with his peers.
OUTCOME
[Todd] completely shifted the working dynamic with his peers to a shared problem/solution philosophy. They have decreased their incident rate and increased their resolution rate.
“We developed an exceptional team environment with high trust and accountability, delivering industry leading results in terms of cost and operating performance. Matrix Point made a huge contribution to that end result.”
PROBLEM
Engineering leadership relied heavily on their technical expertise to drive their teams. When the business shifted strategy, they were under-prepared to meet their newly defined performance goals.
ASSESSMENT
Technical experts who were instrumental in growing the business from the ground up were now in positions that required a broader leadership skill set. The previous culture valued micromanagement and putting your head down to get things done. As a result, these capable performers became expert doers, but were not given the tools to learn how to lead their teams.
As the company shifted its strategy and redefined the bar for performance, [Chris] was brought in as a new EVP to change the ship’s course. He needed a game plan to change his historically hesitant, narrowly focused experts into confident, collaborative, proactive leaders.
GOAL
We worked with [Chris] to help groom his managers to effectively lead their teams through change in business focus and change in culture, and simultaneously increase team performance metrics.
OUTCOME
[Chris’s] reports are now performing as leaders. Their teams are exceeding their new goals. In addition, they are collaborating with other divisions and are finding new ways to translate their new leadership tools into increased productivity.