Sincere, mission-driven CEOs need the right catalyst to achieve more with less wasted effort.
“Scott is the Independent Operating Partner who engages CEOs and teams, giving them access to insights from GE & Vista Equity Partners they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.”
– Software CEO, E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner
TODAY’S LEADERSHIP DILEMMA
“57% of business CEOs believe there Is an URGENT business need to Innovate.”
– YPO Global Pulse (29K CEO members)
LEADERS ARE NAVIGATING UNCHARTED TERRITORY
CONVENTIONAL THINKING
Same Thoughts
Same Choices
Same Actions
Same Outcomes
Same Feelings
GROUNDHOG DAY
Emotional signals calling leaders to CHANGE
Anxiety, Disappointment, Frustration, Anger
Leaders go to extraordinary lengths to protect their default positions.
The magic happens outside leaders’ comfort zones.
ADAPTIVE THINKING
New Thoughts
New Choices
New Actions
New Outcomes
New Feelings
NEXT LEVEL RESULTS
Emotional attributes of leaders in RENEWAL
Excited, Flexible, Curious, Alive
CONVENTIONAL THINKING
Same Thoughts
Same Choices
Same Actions
Same Outcomes
Same Feelings
GROUNDHOG DAY
Emotional signals calling leaders to CHANGE
Anxiety, Disappointment, Frustration, Anger
Leaders go to extraordinary lengths to protect their default positions.
The magic happens outside leaders’ comfort zones.
ADAPTIVE THINKING
New Thoughts
New Choices
New Actions
New Outcomes
New Feelings
NEXT LEVEL RESULTS
Emotional attributes of leaders in RENEWAL
Excited, Flexible, Curious, Alive
Clients come for the results and stay for the possibilities;
possibilities that take them beyond where their habitual choices would lead them.
It’s time to move beyond traditional approaches. The need for change has never been more urgent and traditional learning programs are no longer adequately preparing executives for the challenges of today and tomorrow.
Instead, interventions need to be personalized to current challenges – the right insights, at the right time, for the right reasons, in the right ways.
Scott W Zimmerman
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES FALL SHORT
Approach
Strengths
Weaknesses
Training
Offsites
Coaching
Personalized to one leader. Typically, focused on improving leader EQ to get better results.
Consulting
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES FALL SHORT
Training
- Approach: Expose leaders to new leadership and culture building ideas.
- Strengths: Exposure to meaningful ideas and motivation.
- Weaknesses: Leaders re-enter environments, motivation fades, little sticks. Exposure to new information doesn’t create skill.
Offsites
- Approach: Quarterly “strategic” planning sessions to support clarity – Vision, Mission, Strategy, Values, Goals, Cadences.
- Strengths: Valuable when clarity and structure are absent.
- Weaknesses: Facilitators have rarely achieved big business outcomes and challenged when navigating away from one size fits all frameworks.
Coaching
- Approach: Personalized to one leader. Typically, focused on improving leader EQ to get better results.
- Strengths: Coaching starts to get beneath the surface and beyond management science.
- Weaknesses: Deep business acumen is rare. Coaching individuals in isolation does not help reshape team norms, attitudes, behaviors.
Consulting
- Approach: Expose leaders to new leadership and culture building ideas.
- Strengths: Domain expertise around common business challenges.
- Weaknesses: Transactional and costly while not building organizational capacity for evolving problems. Personnel are rarely skilled practicioners.
CLOSING THE STRATEGY-EXECUTION GAP
Leadership is about not just being effective in any one element but how all the elements work together. Without a holistic approach, strategic change loses its aim and lacks power.
“Leadership effectiveness explains 68.7% of the variance in company profit margin performance.”
– Lieberson and O’Connor
TRANSFORMATION HIGHLIGHTS
Adaptive Culture Building
Definiteness of purpose and plans – inspire the energy needed to transform
Adaptive Performance Management
Grow leaders’ capacity to drive next level performances (169% more output/qtr.)
Adaptive Talent Management
Assessing existing leader capacities, giving them confidence to make changes.
Adaptive Sales Systems
Installing systems to transform seller results (300% improvement in new opp. identification)
Adaptive Operations
Implementing standard work – work at level (driving seven-figure EBITDA expansions)
Adaptive Productivity
Automating six-month implementation to one hour, draining problematic backlog.
“What’s unique? No matter the challenging situation, Scott surfaces new possibilities that help our experts get dramatically better. Literally, wherever the need is, he creates impact.”
– Chairman & CEO, Family Office, former Boston Consulting Group Principal
THE BUSINESS & FINANCIAL OPPORTUNITY
Client 1
Employees
- +36 Employee NPS
- -48% Voluntary Turnover
Customers
- +39 Customer NPS
Operations
- 31% Service Bookings
- Most Improved Award
- Best in Class Recognition
- Most Trusted Recognition
Financials
- +$31.1M EBITDA
Client 2
Customers
- -68% Go-Live Timing
- -79% Manual Errors
Operations
- 90% Enterprise Win Rate
- 40% Faster Deal Velocity
- 11K+ New Leads
- +26% Tech Productivity
Financials
- +$22.9M EBITDA
Adaptive cultures can create EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS in as little as 18 months.
“Owners should stop trying to save their losers – cut them off, shut them down, walk away. Instead, they should be using Scott Zimmerman to optimize their winners.”
– Software Venture Capitalist, latest exit = 31X return
GETTING STARTED IS EASY
Reflect
Is what got you here going to get you where you want to go?
Decide
Are you exposing yourself to enough new potential choices?
Act
Start a conversation that could spark new thinking and action
“This approach is for leaders courageous enough to explore:
What about my leadership is causing these results?”
– Chairman & CEO, former Carlyle Group Partner
PROGRESSIVE IDEAS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE
The power of full engagement
Leaders have been conditioned to orient from Hierarchy (the 1-up,1-down relationship between supervisor and subordinate) rather than Heterarchy (supervisor and subordinate as peer-to-peer, shoulder-to-shoulder, in it together). As a result, they tend to prioritize choices that will please or maintain a stable relationship with their supervisor rather than transparently sharing differences in moments big and small.
Be the old rabbit hunter
All too often, in the face of a baffling challenge, leaders search outside themselves and their organization. They can become fixated on pursuing a silver bullet to their organization’s dilemma(s), things like new computer systems, software tools, or best-selling methods (the young rabbit hunter style). Invariably, the invested time, energy, and money do not produce the desired results.
The new leader blind spot
Invariably, new leaders focus on the wrong things, make bad decisions, debate what they should embrace, and discount people with the relevant knowledge they need to be successful. Their inaccurate interpretations and poor judgment drive performance decline, damaging relationships and shareholder value. This self-validating thinking and behavior is the dominant cause of thousands of failed leadership transitions.
FEATURED & RECOGNIZED
Q&A WITH SCOTT
What companies are a good fit for offering?
Companies that need, and are worth, fixing. Those with viable markets and solid solutions. Businesses that should be doing well but are under-led.
I get most excited by opportunities where a client’s advisory investment can generate a 5-10X return for CEOs and ownership.
What do you know about my industry?
If acquiring more industry knowledge is holding the company back, I recommend hiring an industry consultant.
This offer is for leaders seeking to unlock next level performance in their leadership. My clients are buying certainty; certainty they will be exposed to ideas they haven’t been exposed to or thought of before.
Clients come for results and stay for possibilities; possibilities that take them beyond where their habitual choices would lead them.
What leaders are a good fit?
In assessing a partnership, I’m looking at a leader’s openness to exploring new ways forward, a deep desire to get better, and their willingness to look at their own need for development. If these qualities are present, Adaptive Edge is a good match.
The reality is a leader’s historical choices have created their current results. Getting next level results means taking responsibility for new choices.
What is the average tenure of your clients?
I haven’t lost a client since I started but I would like to see clients graduate within 18 months. I will lose clients along the way – some will have a liquidity event, some will find out they really don’t want to be held accountable, and some may decide they need something different.
I will also say goodbye to clients who are not earnest enough to make the changes they need to experience more success.
I’ve tried other things that haven’t made a difference. How will this be different?
Cookie cutter approaches not only fail to address to hidden issues but lack investment in implementation. Implementation is everything.
My approach is not a plug-in methodology. It surfaces possibilities clients have never considered while simultaneously building their capacity to lead within their everyday work.
Leaders attend training but don’t have the rituals for building skill. I’m training their performance ability.
I disrupt limiting patterns and team dysfunction while getting to the heart of resistance. I inspire teams to have the courage to tackle historical challenges and up-level their collective choices and standards. And I stick with teams until new principles and skills are networked into their way of working.
