Performance Based Consulting

We help CEOs develop their profit and growth strategy using our unique brand of leadership principles. We guide employees to increase company profits by helping them identify and address the High Value/Low Cost (HVLC) opportunities that we know exist in all companies. We deliver great value to our clients because “WE WANT TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR RESULTS.” Our performance results for the last 25 years have demonstrated this commitment. And in the process we have created 20 companies with a Culture of Innovation or a company that we call the Quantum Leap Company.

Significant Accomplishments!

One of our most powerful tools is a concept that we call 5/67 Problem Solving . It is rooted in the way we present High Value/Low Cost ideas to employees. One form of this leverage is we ask employees to find $100,000 of waste with a maximum expenditure of $2,000. This is big leverage (spend a little money and get a lot back in return). Using the same concepts of leverage, we teach employees the “5/67 Principle” which tells them, for example, that 5% of their customers generate 67% of their sales. And they see that principle played out in other areas of the company. The results of this education are positively startling as noted in the following:

Deliverables

Before we determine that any approach is appropriate for a business, we work with our clients to understand with them which of the following alternatives or combination is the best way to proceed.

Corporate Initiative

This offering allows us to work with our clients to affect major change within the organization to create a culture of innovation. A CEO can use the HVLC Program to address a productivity issue or to use the program to create an initiative to put energy into the company. We look at this process as the first step toward creating a Culture of Innovation .

Consulting

Sometimes, a CEO might need our consulting support to address a specific problem. Sometimes it might be help to manage the company culture or it might be support for a merger or acquisition. In the case of an acquisition, the merging of disparate cultures is a primary key to the success. Our approach is very effective at dealing with the issues of culture management.

Innovation Portfolio Management

Every company has a portfolio of innovation. Whether it is managed is another matter. And we have considerable expertise in this area. It links directly with HV/LC Innovation because of all the innovation that flows out of that process.

Healthcare Strategy Development

We have management experience in the healthcare industry. We are taking that experience and combining it with our "5/67 Problem Solving" experience and are able to bring powerful insight to the CEO as we support the development of the Healthcare Strategy.

Coaching

We often help CEOs work through troubling issues (problems) by guiding them collaboratively to an understanding and resolution of the problem. This also applies to the ongoing support of a CEO in the leadership required in these difficult times.

Training

We have trained over 50,000 employees in over 150 companies. This training led to over 10,000 problems addressed and solved.

• Executive Problem Solving

This is a class we teach in CEO University . It is done as a training program for executives and managers in the nuances of 5/67 Problem Solving. See 5/67 Problem Solving (at CEOU).

• 5/67 Problem Solving

For us, this is the fun part of our job. When we train employees in a corporate initiative focused on "problem solving" lots of good things start to happen: employees become quickly engaged, ideas begin to gel and proposals are quickly submitted to management for approval. This happens in weeks not months.

• 5/67 Problem Solving as HVLC Train the Trainer

Many companies are not necessarily interested in implementing a full HVLC Incremental Innovation Initiative but they want employees to have a central system for HVLC Incremental Initiative management. HVLC Incremental Innovation allows for just that. Ideas are managed and the "HVLC Ideas" are mined for later processing as part of the company's Portfolio of Innovation .

In many cases, it is a combination of all 3 product offerings that works.

Approach

We offer a number of principles and tools to aid the process:

The Power of the Team

We have become quite good at both understanding and managing teams as a powerful way to change cultures, solve problems and create a foundation for collaborative change. From all of our experiences with teams and our particular way that we work with them, we are able to get the phenomenal results of which we boast.

No Blame Management

Early on, we realized the power of the concept of No Blame . For over 25 years, we have started every one of our HVLC Innovation Programs by laying down No Blame as a basis of the engagement. It may sound trite, but it is a powerful way to engage people. Not so surprisingly, they love this concept and it gives them security that they can proceed to address an issue that needs to get fixed without fear of reprisal from blaming managers. In fact, it is so important a concept that we trademarked the No Blame logo (See Below).

”5/67 Thinking in Business”

We apply this concept to a number of our offerings. Consider the following:

”5/67 in Healthcare Strategy”

In any healthcare strategy, the CEO needs to know how you can turn the company’s healthcare offering into a profitable strategy. So we naturally begin by looking at the 5% of the employees who are costing the company 67% of the costs. From there we base our advice on how you can make these people cover their costs. It turns out that there are a number of solid measures about how much these people cost the company in lost productivity. And we integrate all this analysis into a final “Healthcare Strategy.” But it is rooted in “5/67 Thinking.”

”5/67 in Lean Manufacturing”

We have lots of examples here but my favorite is the sales force problem. In just about all companies, I can ask a team of 5 people that is struggling to find a waste that is bothersome or put another way is there anything at this company that “really makes you angry.” Invariably they have lots of things that do that. In most companies, somebody is angry at the sales department. So we begin by analyzing what 5% of the salesmen are generating in revenues and it will come out to be near 67%. That usually blows everyone away and they ask the next question, what are the other 95% of the sales force doing. And boy does that get the juices flowing. Again, all caused by “5/67 Thinking.”

How to Put it to Work

Attend a "5/67 Problem Solving" seminar, read one of Len Bertain's books, or contact Len at COPS Headquarter, 3758 Grand Avenue, Suite 25, Oakland, CA 94610 or on his office phone: 510-520-8011.