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Find out what we do and how we do it.
The short version:
We run the most innovative and bespoke programs to accelerate the performance of your business. We develop the best people into aligned teams with clear leadership. With everyone pulling in the same direction, your business will be unstoppable.
How? We don't run off the shelf programs, because they're what may have worked for someone else in the past. Everything we do is created just for you, unique, innovative, creative and it works precisely because no one else is doing it.
If you're asking if it is training or coaching, they're the wrong questions. We work with your dreams and aspirations, not with your shopping list. We help you to become what you have the potential to be, we don't tick boxes.
If you have the commitment to really make a difference, to really do something that works, and if you're prepared for the consequences of a truly high performing business, then we're perfect for each other.
Jump to:
Philosophy: The background to what we do
Integration: How we seamlessly integrate people services to deliver real results for your business
Modelling: How we replicate the intuitive talents of high performers and preserve your unique cultural identity
Alignment: How we ensure that the people in your business can easily and consistently translate vision into action
Service elements: What are the components that we integrate to deliver solutions?
Questions: What can you do to create greater alignment in the people cycle of your business?
We don't have standard products because you don't have a standard business.
We don't do training needs analysis because we don't look for what's missing.
We look for high performance that has evolved naturally within your business environment. Your high performers, the people who excel at their jobs and who also support and grow that culture. They do everything you ask, and more. You know that they stand out from the average performers, and you wish you could clone them. Well, that's pretty much what we do.
They wouldn't be high performers anywhere else. The unique combination of their abilities and your culture is what generates the results. So it's not enough to buy an off the shelf performance model, because that would be like you trying to sell your competitor's products.
We build our bespoke service delivery on a journey that discovers and replicates those high performance talents and accelerates the evolution of your business.
Without service integration, developing the people in your business is like building flat-pack furniture without the instructions.
You already have integrated IT systems. Rather than buy lots of separate components which don't work together, experts build systems that work from end to end. You've probably heard about integrated public transport systems that work in the same way.
We do the same thing for the most important part of your business; people.
In 2003, we ran an integrated program of sales training and follow up coaching. At the start of the year, only one person had enough business in his pipeline to hit target. At the end of the year, the whole sales team were over target.
In 2007, we ran a program of sales performance coaching. Before the program, the sales team's conversion rate was 26%, afterwards it had almost doubled to 46%.
You may currently be using services such as coaching and training, or you may be thinking about them. Our advice is not to. Your business is too valuable to waste time on stop gap, piecemeal products.
Traditionally, for you to attract and develop the right people for your business, you had to use a number of different and completely separate services:
The development of your people ends up being disjointed and separated from the business, and the cycle of 'training needs analysis' and training/coaching delivery fails to deliver real, measurable and sustained business performance:
You have to buy products from a number of suppliers and then work out how to integrate them yourself. You're left having to make the training program fit the business need, or at least left wondering what the long term benefit of your investment was.
Our solution is simple. We understand how to support the end to end attraction, development and retention of people in your business. We integrate the complete service delivery with your business processes and business plan.
When we deliver specific parts of this life cycle, we integrate those parts in a seamless way which delivers real business performance.
When we manage the end to end service, we ensure high quality, consistent attraction, development and retention of the right people for your business.
All of this is based on the first step in the process; we take time to understand and benchmark exactly what makes your business successful by modelling the intuitive talents of your high performers within the unique cultural environment that they work in.
In 2003 and 2006 we worked with a blue chip construction services company to help their consultants and project managers win more business through their professional networks. One project manager alone found opportunities worth 670% of the program cost within a month of the first workshop.
In 1999, a large telecoms company with a reputation for having a risk averse, bureaucratic culture decided to make a push into the corporate market. It hired 60 hungry, keen, target driven new business sales people. Within a year, 59 of those people had left.
The highest performers in any business have a set of intuitive behaviours that are unique to that culture. Firstly, they don't know how they do what they do. Secondly, what they do is a result of behaviour and context. So there's no point hiring someone from another company and expecting them to perform in the same way.
By modelling the people who have evolved into high performers in your culture, we create a multi-dimensional set of benchmarks which are then applied to our end to end service delivery.
Our unique approach to modelling talent enables us to replicate the intuitive behaviours that people are not even aware of themselves, and this approach is unique in that it preserves your cultural identity and integrity.
No matter how great the latest off-the-shelf training program looks on paper, it was designed somewhere else, in a different culture. It will not work for you.
We have seen many examples, and maybe you have too, of companies spending huge sums of money on off the shelf progams. A year later, not a sign of the 'new' methodology remains. When we deliver our integrated programs, they work beneath the surface by supporting your culture, so they change behaviour permanently.
Not only do we program manage the full service we provide to you, our approach inherently replicates high performance and best practice at each stage.
If you want to read about the modelling process itself in more detail, click here.
"If you could get all the people in an organisation rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time" Patrick Lencioni
Perhaps the most critical skill for any business is the ability to translate vision into action.
This is dependent on two factors; leadership and alignment. Assuming that you have a clear vision and are able to communicate that clearly and vivdly, you must then align people and processes with that vision.
If we consider a hierarchical model of an organisation, we can find misalignment between the levels of an organisation that is underperforming compared to the potential of its people..
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In an organisation, misalignment causes loss of energy through frustration, waste and a thousand other side effects which you and your colleagues can feel. Eventually, that misalignment will destroy the business - not because of the cost of waste but because the frustration sucks the energy and passion out of people. Work becomes a chore. Customers become an irritation. Problems become show stoppers. The business grinds to a halt. |
By creating alignmnent through the business, we ensure that the energy and passion of your vision is translated into action. Some compaines think their customers buy from them because of price. Some think their customers don't have a choice. Eventually, those companies put themselves out of business. Your customers continue to buy from you because they feel that passion, that energy. They see and feel it in the products, in the marketing, in the customer service, in the dedication of your people. Work means anything from play to a noble cause. Customers mean an opportunity to shine, to infect people with your enthusiasm. Problems become hurdles to jump over. The business gathers more and more momentum. |
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And, just like the universe and all of the living things on this planet, your business is either thriving or dying. You cannot stand still.
In 2006, we worked with a major international manufacturing company. One of their business unit managers generated a 700% increase in profitability in six months once he had aligned his team behind a clear leadership vision.
We integrate a combination of bespoke and portfolio products and services to deliver an end to end solution for your business.
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Ascent is our team development and personal leadership brand. It includes the original Ascent Adventure Coaching Experience as well as bespoke team events in any location, for any size of team. What makes Ascent unique is the journey that it takes you and your team on, a journey which helps you face your fears and achieve long lasting success by being on the right path. |
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Change Magic is a book and a methodology for changing organisations by changing people. As a toolkit, it helps you to create a constantly evolving organisation which builds on high performance and best practice. As a philosophy, it helps you to thrive in an ever-changing world. Change Magic encompasses the tools for creative problem solving and organisational change that we have developed. |
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Excellerate bespoke services
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NLP We run both public and bespoke Society of NLP licenced NLP training directly and also through a number of training partners such as Salad and Mindxcel |
Attraction |
How does your brand and High Street image attract the people you want? |
Recruitment: |
How do you create and advertise roles that attract the people you want? |
Selection |
What criteria and assessments select in the people you want? |
Induction |
How do you induct people into the culture in a way that creates genuine desire for the right people and lets the ‘wrong’ people make a clear choice? |
Performance |
How do you set and measure objectives in a way that recognises the desired culture and behaviour? |
Development |
How do we develop and support the right skills and behaviours? |
Alignment |
How do we align high performing individuals into high performing teams? |
Succession |
How do we ensure the long term success and stability of the business? |
Exit |
How do we manage people out of the business as thoughtfully as we brought them in? |
Call us on 0870 1620802 or click here to email us
