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To Make You Think

Consulting Services
In delivering products and serving customers, you told us you are facing greater challenges that are unique to your culture and industry. You have developed ways of operating that have been successful.

You also told us that these may not work as well in the future. Increased competition, reorganizations and downsizing are creating a need for people to stay focused on innovative approaches to achieve business objectives. Discovering what and how to change is often difficult.

The LMA Approach
At LMA, this is where we start -- with your unique business objectives. With 40 years of experience in the consulting business, our consultants design approaches that provide the support organizations need to help them through the challenges they face. We begin by understanding where you are now, where you want to be in the future, and the strengths of your organization. From here we build the stepping stones that become the basis for effective implementation of the changes needed to reach desired results. Our clients become our partners in the journey towards success.

Below are descriptions of some of our services. These can be used as stand alone interventions or can be combined. For example, we combine Strategic Planning and Culture Change projects with Executive Coaching to ensure that the leadership of the organization supports the intended changes.

Core Competencies
Our process for conducting competency studies supports growth. It ties into improving the organization by helping clients select the right people in the first place, managing people against a relevant set of competency criteria, supporting people to manage themselves to achieve higher performance, and training those whose performance is lacking in a relevant set of competencies and skills.

Strategic Planning
We have a variety of methods for assisting a client with strategic planning. We use the tools described in the Leadership & Change workshop, we focus on understanding unspoken customer needs, and we conduct intensive 3-day experiences involving 65 people from the organization. Together with the client we discover the most appropriate approach.

Needs Analysis
We collect information relevant to the issue which can be background information, looking at analysis already performed, and interviewing key people. We analyze this information, understand underlying trends, issues and needs and then prepare feedback. We present our findings in a non-judgmental, honest, and politically sensitive way for all involved. We then facilitate the group to determine what to do next. We always review and plan next steps.

Concept Development
Concept development is designed to help clients understand their customers' spoken and unspoken needs in depth and translate them into a product or service. Clients are able to connect the customers around what they really want, what their frustrations are, and most important, what would make them believe in the product or service.

Executive Coaching
Our process of Executive Coaching does not focus entirely on the individual but also on those who work with him/her. We meet with the manager, the targeted person, and direct reports to establish expectations, objectives, and ground rules. We use 360 degree feedback instruments, shadowing and training programs if needed. Regular meetings and phone calls reinforce objectives over an initial agreed upon time period.

Customized Courses
LMA will customize all of its courses to fit into the client's culture or for a particular event or conference. We design courses from scratch or use our existing courses as a starting place. Customization is anything from writing case studies and role plays using examples from the client's business, to shorter or longer interventions, to including pieces not present in the basic design.

Benefits

• Business results are directly tied into the consulting intervention creating lasting improvements and greater results
• The relationship between consultant and client is based on trust and mutual respect
• LMA's varied experience allows us to be flexible in designing an approach that will meet the unique needs of the organization
• Organizations build on their existing strengths to enhance individual, team, and organizational growth

Client Projects with LMA

• LMA helped a hi-tech high-growth company understand the next phase the organization needed to go through in order to maintain stable growth and success.
• Martin Marietta, a defense contractor, needed to reformulate company strategy towards aerospace and information technology. We prepared the company to conduct competency studies and build its' own self-assessment, training and development programs for senior executives, middle managers, and supervisors.
• AARP, the world's largest volunteer organization, used LMA to redevelop its curriculum. We trained the professional staff to work differently with volunteers who then confidently pursued the goals of the organization.
• On-going work with the Employement and Training Adminstration within the Department of Labor to bring together an SES level leadership group using Executive Coaching, Needs Analysis, and customized interventions involving several layers of the organization.
• We worked with the senior managers of Lederle, a pharmaceutical sales subsidiary in the Caribbean. The focus was on continuous improvement, enhancing customer service, and strengthening teamwork.
• LMA custom designed the major leadership program for the Foreign Service Institute at the State Department for senior foreign service officers, based on the competencies of 24 outstanding ambassadors.
• In Fortune 50 companies we trained sales forces, who believed their only bargaining point was to lower prices, to negotiate multiple resources and enhance the relationship.
• The U.S. and French marketing groups of Norwich Pharmaceutical Company began to work better together by jointly understanding their cultural differences and how to reach agreements.
• Bank of Montreal faced a major industry-wide shift in the way customers were buying and making the traditional sales relationship less profitable. We consulted and conducted the Leadership and Change workshop to do strategic planning to achieve a radical shift in approach.