Many C-Suite are feeling jaded by transformations that are tiring, expensive and frankly don’t live up to expectations.
Leadership Development
The pursuit of big change increases the need for higher leadership capacity. Moving beyond directive leadership to one of inclusive and inspirational leadership, positions an organization to collectively achieve excellence.
Aligning Executive Teams and the Organization
Defining purpose gives life to the members of an organization—resulting in a special connection for personal growth, increased commitment, and contributions. Facilitated planning discussions across the organization, create shared understanding and ownership of the plan from top to bottom and aligns, commits, and energizes the organization at scale to execute it.
Systems and Culture
Bad systems beat good people. Upgrading the organization DNA for excellence requires a focus on both the social and technical sides of transformation. New organization designs, training, new processes, and technology may be important, but they only represent some of the overall system. Addressing the full system enables meaningful, sustainable change.
Strategic Partner
Without proper support, many face settling for expensive and exhausting incremental change. An upfront investment in a strategic partner can increase your impact, while boosting employee engagement.
If making a cake was only as simple as throwing a few of the right ingredients into a bowl. Even if you know what ingredients are needed, one still needs to have mastery of how to turn them in to a cake. UP’s formula is the recipe that allows us to guide clients consistently through great outcomes.
What makes the formula work?
A chef becomes great because of excellent learning experiences, mentorship, and the hard grind of constant trial and error. Much in the same way, our unique formula evolved out of:
Our Formula combined with our Purpose-Process-People Management System framework are what enable culture and performance transformations that live up to expectations.
The section of the formula in blue represents “the learning cycle”. This part of the formula is where we leverage the method of problem solving to build up the organization’s capability to learn.
The section in red represents the areas of mastery to be learned deliberately, on-the-job, through delivery of goals and under the guidance of a master coach.
Combining blue and red together, enables improved performance today while also building knowledge for tomorrow.
Whether you begin at the team level and expand to the enterprise or vice versa, an enterprise transformation promotion effort will surface at some point. Our time-tested approach to enterprise transformation is grounded in the same approach used by enduring great companies today. • Accelerating Business Transformation • Value Diagnostics • Organization Capability Assessments • Leading by Principles • Defining Values, Vision, Strategy and Mission • Management Systems for Excellence • M&A Integration • Operating Model Design • Deployment Roadmaps • UP Promotion Team Configuration • Reward & Recognition System • Transformation PMO and Change Management • Value-Stream Organization Design • Designing Organizations for High Performance
Making good decisions drives performance. However, many leaders lack the information or experience needed to make good decisions that determine the future. Leaders need to understand the ability to think and learn to behave like innovators—vital to the success of the organization. Innovative teams enable the invention of better solutions and accelerate them to market faster. They defy convention, see what others don’t, think big, and seek breakthroughs—with explosive drive, contagious energy, and collaborative spirit. Innovation mastery accelerates time-to-market, gets newer high-value products to customers, and improves ROI from R&D investments. • Accelerated Innovation Ideation • Agile for Teams & @Scale • Product Development & Delivery • Technology Development & Delivery • Project Development & Delivery • Changing Thinking Modes • Expansive Thinking Techniques • Idea Sessions & Prioritization • Experimentation Method • Innovation Assumptions Testing • Rapid Prototyping Techniques — 3P • Problem Solving 8 Steps and A3’s • Decision Management
Accelerate and increase the impact of your strategy using the most proven high-performance strategy execution process in the world. Doing great strategies is more about the organization’s capability in executing than having a great strategy. Experience enterprise alignment, connection to purpose and cross-functional integration at the ultimate level – unlocking your organization’s delivery of your most pressing breakthroughs. • Defining Values, Vision, Strategy and Mission • Analyzing the Present Situation • Defining the Mission & Strategic Vision • Setting Breakthrough Objectives • Strategy Cascade • Vertical & Horizontal Two-Way Conversations for Integrated Planning • Strategy A3’s and Consensus Building • Accountability Contracts • Strategy Execution Management • Self-Managed Measurement Systems • Check and Review Cadence • Visual Systems for Strategy Excellence
Outperform competitors, accelerate value, and free up cash for growth through increased mastery of work process design and continuous improvement. This is an investment in your organization’s capability to embrace routines and consistency while adapting and changing with speed. It will help develop safer, simpler, cost-competitive and customer-first processes. In organizations, there is a natural tendency to blame people when things go wrong, but the reality is outcomes are the consequence of a process. At UP, we believe in attacking processes where the issues are usually rooted in imperfection, not people. We understand that extraordinary processes set people up to succeed. • Designing Agile & Simple Work Processes • Work Activities, Connections & Flow • Asset Management • M&A Integration • Customer-to-Operations Alignment • Built-in Quality/ Quality Improvement • Just-In-Time Delivery • Level Loading Processes • Working to Takt Time • Visual Management & Help Chains • Avoiding & Eliminating the 8 Wastes • Standard Work • Managing Processes for Agility & Adaptive Innovation • Value Stream Management & Improvement (Working across silos) • Targeted Performance Improvement • Defining Internal Customers Wants & Needs • Metrics & Huddles • Daily Performance Management • Problem Solving 8 Steps and A3’s • Testing & Experimenting for Improvement • Thriving in Change • Idea Systems • Knowledge Sharing & Replication • High-Performance Principles, Rules & Mental Models • Kata Routine • Frontline Coaching for People Development • Business within Business Performance Management • Other Quality, Lean & Six Sigma Principles and Tools
Elevate mastery of the thinking, behaviors and capability leaders need to serve, empower and motivate their people—for ultimate inclusion, engagement and agility in delivering massive customer value. Our approach to leadership development for performance provides extraordinary results. Leaders emerge invested more in what’s best for the organization and in developing their successors rather than invested more in themselves—while simultaneously driving greater impact. • Understanding Customers & Aligning the Organization • Challenge & Respect for People • Operationalizing the Strategy • Managing Horizontally & Vertically • Visual Management for Clarifying Expectations & Accountability • Increasing Organization Accountability & Self-Management • Management System for Sustainable Growth • Organization Learning System • Leader Standard Work • Coaching, Leading & Building Effective Teams • Developing an Ultimate Performance Culture • Learner & Performance Mindsets • Self-Mastery & Developing Others on-the-job • Revealing the Thinking Process of Others • High-Performance Mental Models • End-to-End Value Stream Ways of Working & Organization Teaming • Unlocking Innovation & Creativity • Systems Leadership • Purpose & Principles-Driven Leadership • Servant & Distributed Leadership • Influencing Others • Reflection, Execution & Failure for Fast Learning – Asking Why • Coaching Kata Routine • Understanding Leadership Styles, Strengths & Weaknesses • Leadership Bootcamp & Simulations
Transform teams into ultimate performing teams for stronger business results and increased employee satisfaction. Our methods and tools leverage the best innovation in the field of team effectiveness. • Team Diagnostics of Collective Strengths & Developmental Needs • Purpose & Priorities Clarity & Alignment • Teams Charters • Trust Development & Respect for Others • Thriving in Continuous Change, Innovation & Improvement • M&A Integration • Reflection & Execution as Learning • Mutual Accountability & Performance Tracking • Empowerment & Self-Regulation Capability • Influencing Others • Relationships & Interpersonal Dynamics Enhancement • Candid Dialogue for Productive Debate
Confirm business goals and people to develop
Expose learning needs to achieve goals, causing pull for mastery.
Build Mastery and deliver impact at speed.
We engage based on your readiness for change and we work with a targeted team, a business division, or across the full enterprise.
Regardless of where we start, we use a proven formula to build cultures of growing, enduring excellence.
Our unique formula creates harmonic balance with business improvement needs and people capability development needs.
We uniquely address the organization’s performance health through improvement of its collective systems. Much like human health improvement can involve various systems such as skeletal, muscular, nervous, circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems.
We effectively change ingrained habits among frontline operators and highly technical staff.
1We also work closely with executives, helping them achieve their business strategy and build growth cultures.
2We base our philosophy on transferring capability, not dependency.
3Our approach leverages methods grounded in adult learning practices and neuroscience.
4We coach on the job, building new skills and behaviors while working on delivering strategic business goals.
5We enable the learning organization muscle to evolve as an integral part of regular day-to-day work. Improving the work, is the work.
6We tie learning to immediate return on investment, often receiving >20X ROI.
7We have real experience applying these practices in energy companies.
8Click below to schedule a no-fee Discovery connect.
We connect to understand your organization’s challenges and opportunities, and to discuss approach options to achieve desired outcomes.
We agree on resources and focus areas for your organization’s UP transformation. Together, we make it happen.
