View Our Case Studies
Click on the links below to view each case study.
Case Study #1
“Our market had changed, but we hadn’t.”
The Opportunity
A specialty health services organization, affiliated with a university, faced growing complexity, competition and declining revenues. Over 20 years of continuous operations, the organization had developed into a culture of academics that had segmented into self-serving silos and fiefdoms.
Although the mission of the organization was to provide groundbreaking services to its clients, the culture seldom allowed these professionals to give clients, and the increasingly competitive marketplace, a second thought. Moreover, its sustainability came into question as new, more flexible, adaptive and innovative competitors entered the market.
The Solution
Through targeted research, insightful discovery and multiple conversations with a highly diverse group of employees, we developed a road map for transforming the organization into a high performance culture.
We integrated teaching, experiential learning, coaching and practical assignments. We molded highly accomplished professionals who were not predisposed to teamwork into a solid, collaborative team aligned around a new vision that included stretch goals. Plus, we built advanced competencies into senior leadership teams while transferring management of the institution from academics to staff.
The Results
✓ Experienced the best successive quarters in the organization’s 20-year history (over a two-year period).
✓ Achieved greater effectiveness in leadership, management, and teaming.
✓ Increased success in cross-cultural communication and coordination.
✓ Gained greater efficiencies across the organization.
Case Study #2
“Our continued success depended on integrating global expertise while honoring local needs and business practices.”
The Opportunity
A global technology client was experiencing extremely rapid growth. They faced a pressing need to design, introduce and integrate international standards and expertise into local delivery systems on multiple continents. The client’s objective was to meld diverse operational units into one well-coordinated team so they could manage quality assurance during growth. However, it was also important to develop that consistent service and delivery while allowing for flexibility to accommodate regional customs and practices.
The Solution
We started by assessing optimal zones of focus for leadership and management and helped align roles and responsibilities. We also introduced standards for communication and coordination. This prioritized the success of and brought consistency to the fulfillment of promises and commitments at global and local levels.
In addition, we developed “right people” profiles for new hires and existing team members. It created a strategy for hiring new executives into an environment of rapid change, escalating growth and intense media and analytic attention.
The Results
✓ An organizational structure and leadership architecture where global expertise supports local delivery and change is embraced as a gateway to innovation rather than an impediment to success.
✓ A more efficient application of strategic expertise in support of global consistency that allows for differences in the needs and customs of local cultures.
✓ Public recognition and celebration of the success of the business unit by the CEO.
✓ Routine increases in business performance and results.
Case Study #3
“Redundant processes and duplicative departments made it hard to achieve our vision.”
The Opportunity
To achieve new efficiencies and optimize effectiveness, four nonprofit organizations chose to merge into one. In so doing, functions were to be consolidated, overhead reduced, and services and social impact sustainably improved. A new CEO was announced, and a timeline was established for the merger to take place.
The CEO invited Aperio to work collectively and individually with three key executive teams that incorporated the merged enterprise’s ten Directors. Our job was to facilitate developing a comprehensive plan and delineate how the merger would take place. Along the way, we were also asked to transform three teams into a unified, high-performance leadership unit capable of generating optimal success for the merged venture.
The Solution
As we began our discovery, we realized that there were unforeseen hurdles to be overcome before the initiative’s goals could be accomplished. There was a significant lack of trust among the leaders of the four organizations. The merger’s true intentions were being questioned, and the resulting culture that would be created was of concern. Could the diversity of the combining ethnic groups be protected and retained? Would the cultures that had served a diverse population well for years be lost in the process?
Moreover, many feared that the merger was simply a takeover by the largest of the four organizations. To help all the stakeholders understand the hidden roadblocks to a successful merger, we developed an interactive tool to bring the executive team’s concerns to the surface. Then, we created a space for discussions that allowed for debate about the organization’s direction and exploration of ways to retain diversity and cultural integrities. Next, we helped the team crystallize a new vision for the organization that gave a mission and clear direction to those internally, which inspired confidence externally. As a result, we created strategies and road maps for executing the integration of four different systems and processes for each group.
The Results
✓ The merger was successful for both those in the company and outside stakeholders.
✓ Launched implementation of plans ahead of schedule, within budget, and accelerated the fulfillment of goals.
✓ Increased capacity of executives to maintain focus and discipline when unanticipated outside influences created chaos and generated unexpected breakdowns.
✓ Built competencies in leadership and management skills and optimized the capacity to team, communicate and coordinate with each other.
Case Study #4
“We grew so fast globally,
we were in danger of failing.”
The Opportunity
A global financial services organization needed to facilitate its firm’s successful growth from 10,000 to 20,000 employees over a roughly two – to three-year period. But first, deeply skeptical executives had to be convinced that an extremely aggressive program of growth and expansion of services could be pursued without losing its company culture of entrepreneurial focus and discipline around the world.
The Solution
To prepare the company for such tremendous growth, we started by working with senior leadership and management teams, giving them tools for innovation and proactivity. In addition, we broke down walls between departments and disciplines to create a solidified team-based approach to growth. This instilled a can-do and highly productive attitude throughout the organization and allowed learning to cascade from the most senior management levels down to the most junior employees.
A program that combined instruction, experiential learning and assignments was created. New tools and practices were integrated into day-to-day work-flows. Implementation and developmental coaching offered ongoing and supplemental support.
The Results
✓ Rapid and successful global growth occurred.
✓ Industry leadership in the expansion of services was achieved.
✓ Competency in leadership, management and teaming was radically elevated.
✓ Inter-departmental and inter-disciplinary communication and coordination was significantly improved.
✓ Overwhelmingly successful cultural transformation.
Case Study #5
“Technology meant we’d die if we didn’t innovate and re-invent.”
The Opportunity
The introduction of a new and disruptive technology erased 40% of the revenues of a 50-year-old company almost overnight. For over five decades, the company could rely on sales from direct mailings and multiple advertising channels. Now, their world was turned upside down. After extensive internal analysis and advice from a leading global consultancy, the company’s leadership settled on a strategy. They would launch new initiatives to generate innovations that would combat declining revenues while positioning the company for sale.
In the meantime, second-tier executives, along with line managers and teams, began to express widespread cynicism about the enterprise’s ability to survive. This declining mood and focus eroded trust within the company and began to curtail the chances of success for the new initiatives. To avoid further erosion of the enterprise’s viability, carefully targeted action and rethinking of strategies were required. This was recommended by the global consultancy and ultimately in line with the company’s vision and direction.
The Solution
To prepare the company for such tremendous growth, we started by working with senior leadership and management teams, giving them tools for innovation and proactivity. In addition, we broke down walls between departments and disciplines to create a solidified team-based approach to growth. This instilled a can-do and highly productive attitude throughout the organization and allowed learning to cascade from the most senior management levels down to the most junior employees.
A program that combined instruction, experiential learning and assignments was created. New tools and practices were integrated into day-to-day work-flows. Implementation and developmental coaching offered ongoing and supplemental support.
The Results
✓ Rapid and successful global growth occurred.
✓ Industry leadership in the expansion of services was achieved.
✓ Competency in leadership, management and teaming was radically elevated.
✓ Inter-departmental and inter-disciplinary communication and coordination was significantly improved.
✓ Overwhelmingly successful cultural transformation.
Case Study #6
“We merged to become one, stronger company, not two weaker ones.”
The Opportunity
A global financial services organization needed to facilitate its firm’s successful growth from 10,000 to 20,000 employees over a roughly two – to three-year period. But first, deeply skeptical executives had to be convinced that an extremely aggressive program of growth and expansion of services could be pursued without losing its company culture of entrepreneurial focus and discipline around the world.
The Solution
To prepare the company for such tremendous growth, we started by working with senior leadership and management teams, giving them tools for innovation and proactivity. In addition, we broke down walls between departments and disciplines to create a solidified team-based approach to growth. This instilled a can-do and highly productive attitude throughout the organization and allowed learning to cascade from the most senior management levels down to the most junior employees.
A program that combined instruction, experiential learning and assignments was created. New tools and practices were integrated into day-to-day work-flows. Implementation and developmental coaching offered ongoing and supplemental support.
The Results
✓ Rapid and successful global growth occurred.
✓ Industry leadership in the expansion of services was achieved.
✓ Competency in leadership, management and teaming was radically elevated.
✓ Inter-departmental and inter-disciplinary communication and coordination was significantly improved.
✓ Overwhelmingly successful cultural transformation.
Case Study #7
“We needed to find new skills, not new people.”
The Opportunity
The new chief executive of a fully established non-profit organization, with a track record of mixed results over two to three decades, sought to blend its senior leadership and management teams into a coherent whole. His ultimate goal was to transform the organization’s bureaucratic culture into one of innovation and entrepreneurship and transform an under-performing business into one that would become best in market.
Team members included a diverse group of individuals whose entire career had been spent in the organization, as well as newly hired and short-term executives. The organization was populated with cliques and silos. Cross-functional communication was poor and interdepartmental collaboration and coordination suboptimal.
The Solution
We designed and led the execution of an initiative that combined instruction, cognitive and experiential learning with rubber-hits-the-road practices. Working with the executives and employees that were already with the organization, we integrated these practices into day-to-day operations with the support of executive and team-based coaching.
Along the way, we built advanced competencies in leadership, management, communication and coordination among the senior executives and management. By increasing cross-departmental communication, and coordination, we broke through barriers and silos that had blocked paths to innovation. This ignited individual and collective creativity within the organization. An entrepreneurial culture of innovation and collaboration was created, with clearly defined values, standards, and guiding principles.
The Results
✓ Exceeded financial goals for each successive year since the completion of the initiative.
✓ Doubled prior year’s performance during year one following the initiative.
✓ Ultimately attracted an exponential increase in funding and a leading corporate sponsor.
✓ Increased ability and capacity to provide educational and cultural programs to the widely diverse community the organization serves.
Case Study #8
“We wanted help building the right culture from the ground up.”
The Opportunity
The CEO of a start-up nonprofit with a global vision for combating poverty through innovative asset-building sought our assistance in providing executive coaching for him. He also asked us to help him design and implement a growth strategy, execution architecture, and critical path road map. Additionally, roles for an executive team were to be defined and top talent recruited and retained to fill the organization’s leadership team.
The Solution
Aperio embarked on a year-long schedule of executive coaching to cultivate leadership and management development in senior staff. This was combined with brainstorming, planning, and problem-solving sessions, through which a comprehensive strategy for achieving the organization’s goals was established, including critical path timelines and milestones.
By building advanced leadership and management competencies among the senior executives, we also helped define roles, responsibilities, characteristics and qualifications for the senior executive team. To ensure these successes were sustained, we created a system for monitoring and assessing integral results.
The Results
✓ An organizational culture rooted in constant innovation and bold leadership grew quickly but methodically.
✓ A top-notch leadership team was attracted and retained.
✓ Strategic goals were met well ahead of schedule.
✓ Financial performance and social impact far exceeded goals.
✓ Became a recognized, national thought leader, with multiple awards as a pioneer in the movement to empower the working poor with asset-building financial tools within three years of start-up.
The Aperio toolkit has been used, adapted, leveraged and continuously improved by clients worldwide:
