Framework
The Demand for Results
Consulting, Inc.
In the current business world, the demand for results is extraordinary. Along with the pressure to raise levels of performance, the pace of change in technology and the marketplace is accelerating with blinding
speed. Establishing a stable level of growth, or a predictable return on investment is no longer sufficient for most organizations or their leaders. In response to the need for more potent improvement and change, an army of consultants, reengineers, TQM proponents, and many other specialists has emerged. Each approach offers its own rewards. But often the results are disappointing, below expectations or short-lived.
Lots of Consultants, Little Results
Framework is distinct from any of these.
Why Change Efforts Hit a Brick Wall
An organization’s culture can’t be changed from
within – it is its own best protector. Without investigating and identifying the culture at work, it remains strong, operative and continues re-asserting itself in the face of any attempt at change. So all of the effort spent on reengineering processes, or attempts at continuous improvement are a struggle — because there is a built-in conflict between the old and the new – between the protective culture of the organization and the change effort. If you set out to significantly improve the functionality of a building, there would need to be architectural and structural changes made before the desired results could be achieved. Knocking down a few walls and new paint won’t provide more than incremental improvement. That’s obvious when we talk about buildings. Unfortunately, it’s less obvious that there is an equally solid, immovable framework in the background of an organization and its processes and people.
Framework’s primary aim is to work with the leaders of organizations and ultimately, with the organization as a whole to distinguish and loosen the stronghold of the culture. With the release of that grasp comes the ability to make real, lasting changes — to do it consistently, and to produce results that are dramatically and unpredictably improved. We call those “breakthrough results”.
The Real Problem is The Corporate Culture
We begin with the premise that an organization is made up of a
framework of “conversations”, just as a building is made up of a framework of steel and wood or a human body is made up of a skeletal framework. But in all of these cases, the framework is erected early on, and becomes an invisible support structure. The framework of conversations takes the form of beliefs, expectations, generalizations, agreements (tacit and explicit), rituals and practices—that is, the organizational culture.
Past experience shapes the nature and potential of every decision, communication, goal, plan or conversation. Because these are in the background they are unconscious and unchallenged. As concretely as the structure of a building, they limit what is possible. We have all heard of paradigm shifting. The current explosion of digital media, and the recent pervasiveness of the Internet is a perfect example. Just ten years ago the World Wide Web was an abstract concept for all but academics, hackers and military intelligence. Today, we consider it to be “just the way it is.” So what was once unthinkable is now ordinary. That’s the quality of paradigm or context shifts. Once the old paradigm is distinguished and contrasted with a new paradigm, new thinking can arise. That’s why change efforts are able to emerge and take hold in a new corporate culture, where prior to the work of transforming the culture, they were resisted and thwarted.
Rather than confront sub-optimal actions, we deal
Ways of Being
Organizational Ontology
with sub-optimal ways of being—or, ways of being that are inconsistent with the fundamental goals
and commitments of the organization. Framework‘s primary work is with the leaders of organizations and, ultimately, the organization as a whole to distinguish and displace the old culture. What we deal with is the unspoken but well-known precepts and generalizations. Often, they are the things that “everyone knows and thinks, but noone would dare say”. Or, they are the things about which people complain and gossip, and by which they feel victimized or threatened. That is the hidden mass that is at the source of the dominant ways of being. As human beings, and as business-people, we don’t address this area. It is considered simply to be an automatic by-product of how business itself is done. At Framework, we assert the opposite.
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Business is done and executed as a direct function of how the leaders and the organization are being.
The Way it Gets Done Framework’s programs are rigorous and challenging inquiries that require real thinking and intellectual and emotional honesty. We provide a variety of courses and services beginning with our BreakthroughEssentials Program that can be done with up to 100 people at a time (although usually it is done first with the top executives) over three days.
Framework’s programs are deeply probing and thought-provoking events. We question the fundamental truisms of corporate life—and touch upon those issues of personal life that intersect the organizational context. In the course of the BreakthroughEssentials program,
Language, Inquiry, Coaching
participants have the experience, both individually and
collectively, of getting outside of themselves and their organization and seeing what is really happening — the background context that determines all action and therefore, results. Like any discipline, the work of organizational ontology (the study of organizational being) has its own terminology and methodology. So our clients learn a language that allows for referencing those aspects of corporate culture that have been invisible. We relate to our clients as their coaches. In the same way that a sports coach is the biggest fan of his team, we are the biggest fans of our clients. When we agree to work with an organization, it is because we see its greatness—both what is currently operative and a future possibility which they are committed be fulfilled. We adopt and share that commitment.
Breakthrough Results
Transforming the culture impacts every business result. For example, at one level, the way to increase revenue is to increase
sales. At a more fundamental level, the selling potential is limited by the culture. Transform the culture, explode the sales – revenue jumps unpredictably. That’s a breakthrough result. Our clients produce breakthrough results in all of the major areas of business. From customer satisfaction to stock value, revenue to resolving union disturbances. By distinguishing the organizational culture and possibly, deconstructing it, the work of change becomes real.
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“...all the companies in the […] Division have improved on their operating results over the previous year by a factor of 50 percent.” CEO and Framework Client, November, 1999 This is work for the courageous and the committed: leaders,
Who Should Do This Work?
managers and employees who are out to produce incredible,
extraordinary breakthroughs. It is not for the faint of heart, or those hoping for modest improvement.
“The great thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who you are for the possibility of what you could become.” Charles DuBois Our clients include a wide range of international and US organizations, including a software development company, an airline, a life insurance company, a telecommunications utility, an investment bank and many more.
Introduction to Breakthrough Thinking A Demonstration of Framework at Work.
Like many other things in life -- love, child-rearing, artistic inspiration and scientific discovery — our work is hard to describe; so we offer an opportunity to find out first-hand how Framework accomplishes its promises. We offer a three-hour seminar introducing your senior managerial team to the methodology that generates breakthrough results. It is intended to provide a real sense of how our programs work. We promise to deliver powerful tools that can be used immediately, whether or not you ever become a client. Our breakthrough seminar will be impactful and will make a difference.
It really works – Framework Makes it Easy
If you are interested in producing breakthrough results, contact us to find out more about an Introductory Breakthrough Seminar
Framework Consulting, Inc. High Stake Interventions. 3389 Sheridan Street, #434, Hollywood FL 33021, 33021, USA (954) 323323-2552 fax (954) 212212-2202 www.fwconsulting.com
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