William W. Rutherford, Chairman and CEO, Rutherford Consulting                                                                                                                                                                    

Out Of Tough Times Come Our Greatest Competitive Improvements

It is a rare leader who goes looking for tough times -- yet we all seem to need these experiences more than we would like to admit. Tough times help us take action where choices have been difficult. They make us address those areas where we have been dissatisfied, those that were not previously badly broken but have been around for a long time begging for us to get them fixed.

As we work together with leaders during these tough times, most have issues under consideration now that were not being discussed six months ago. Now is the time when many are asking the right tough questions; such as:

• Governance - Do we have noncontributing board members or too large a board? Have our levels of authority become unmanageable? Are our corporate policies aligned with our business direction?

• Markets - Should we be in all of the markets we are in? Which markets are mature? Which have good growth prospects? Do we need to become more customer focused? Are we truly addressing the needs of our customer’s customer?

• Technology - Are we addressing the technology gaps that keep us from becoming the efficient and effective company we wish to be? Are we moving forward fast enough for it to matter?

• Strategies - Do we have strategies that are not working very well? Do our strategies simply need further definition and clarification or do they need reformulating to achieve the gains desired?

• Leadership - Do we have management weaknesses that we are constantly trying to shore-up? Are our leadership teams capabilities aligned with our strategic intent? Do our leaders have the horsepower to take our business to the next level of performance we require?

• Organization - Does our structure need changing to achieve our needed level of customer focus, or efficiency and/or effectiveness of performance? Is our organization a well-oiled machine or is it stuttering from time-to-time?

• Business Processes - How do we feel about them? Do they support where we are taking the company ? Are they well enough designed to provide us with the efficiency and effectiveness we need or do they tend to be disconnected, poorly automated, bureaucratic, slow and/or expensive?

• People - Have we had some people issues that have been going on for awhile that are slowing us down or limiting our progress? Do our people have the right skills to support where our business is going? Is their morale high enough that when combined with their confidence and capability we have a winning team?

• Culture - Is it what we want it to be or a reflection of our past? What needs to be overcome and how should that take place? What do we want it to be and how do we get it there?

• Growth - Are we hitting our targets, by business area, or do we need to address why targets are being underachieved?

• Return-On-Capital-Employed - Is our project performance what we want it to be? Is the challenge underbidding or overrunning or simply positive exuberance? Do our teams really know how to avoid missing their ROI targets?

• Cost - Are we as competitive as we need to be? Do we need to get cost down further (in one area or across the board)? Is quality or deliverability or project ROI part of our cost challenge?

• Return-On-Assets - How is our asset performance against the targets that we set for them? Is our performance improving or degrading with time? What is the root cause behind this portfolio challenge?

• Continuous-Step-Change - If it did not progress well during the good times, we will have to push it hard now or lose significant ground within our industry. Does our team have a good method of ongoing improvement and is it achieving the results we demand?

Tough times are a good thing.  They are when most of our companies competitive differentiation is created. Worrying about survival brings with it a sense of clarity and keen sense-of-purpose. Tough times are when most companies greatest level of innovation occurs, where new visions are created and where most of our truly difficult decisions finally get made.

Tough times provide us with the rationale and political support to address issues that have been plodding along for years. When times are good, anyone can be successful and those times are now past. Thanks to tough times, we can bring our organization together in a way that creates value and achievements not otherwise possible. These are the moments of opportunity from which greatness springs. Let us make the most of these tough times. They may not come along again for awhile.

Companies rarely shrink to greatness!

Helping Leaders Improve Their Companies’ Performance

Rutherford Consulting is a global management consulting firm that helps successful leaders and well-managed companies identify, prioritize, design and achieve a significant step-change in their competitive position. Typically, the client has defined those areas critical to success and wants to do what is required to improve the performance of their business and effect cultural change. Quite often however, the efforts to design and implement particular strategies to realize this vision are unsuccessful, due to internal organizational and cultural barriers and missing skills and capabilities. In addition, employees’ lack of varied industry and cross-functional experience can contribute to this challenge.

Our clients tell us that our approach has not only energized their organizations for appropriate action, but has also substantially reduced the time required to successfully achieve these improvements and created the environment for accelerated growth and learning.

• Organizational learning, tools, skills, measures and the confidence to accelerate future gains in competitiveness on their own.

Rutherford Consulting works together with you to make otherwise unreasonable industry and market demands achievable. Experience has shown that both tangible and intangible benefits are needed to accomplish the new level of business performance you desire.

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