Change Management

Dennis Obrien
President
ConAgra Foods
Omaha, Nebraska

"We had originally requested Brainard Strategy to assist us in the development of custom leadership development offerings. In the midst of our training, we began to go through some organizational changes at our company. In one of our sessions on Change Leadership, Michael demonstrated an amazing grasp of the organizational implications ofthese types of changes. As Michael had practical experience with organization change, we asked him to shift his focus from partnering with us on leadership development to change management. He was able to work with our executive team on communications and structural concerns, with our managers on how to deal with their own experiences of the changes and to offer them coaching and guidance on handling their direct reports. He demonstrated a true knowledge of change management, made theory real and applied his experience in practical ways.

We count on Brainard Strategy for strategic change management and leadership development needs and he is a well respected resource for many in our company."

Carl Katz
VP Operations/Finance
The Buddy Group, Irvine, CA

Trindle Reeves
Managing Director
Marsh, MMC

"Working with Brainard Strategy enabled us to design, implement, get results, and action plan based on a survey of over 200 employees within a 4 week period of time. Not only was the survey highly customize-able and easy to act upon we were able to modify the survey slightly and re-measure year over year. Michael’s knowledge of survey design and his ability to analyze the data, present clear reports, and help our work teams to engage in action was invaluable for us to engage in continuous improvement and gain a great deal of awareness about our own culture. Having an outside expert like the Brainard Strategy team helped our employees feel comfortable with giving feedback and allowed us to focus on the outcomes rather than the detail work."

Jack Farnan
SVP Human Resources
Mitchell International, Inc.
San Diego, California

"We have a new CEO and new ownership group, and we were just completing a year focusing the senior management team on external matters. As a management team we thought it prudent to challenge ourselves around these key questions: 1) Is the culture we have the culture we need for the future? 2) Are our values still a fit for who we are and who we would like to become? I knew that Michael Brainard was the only facilitator to help us to wrestle with these questions, and that if we did not leverage Michael, then the conversation could get muddled and there could be no clear implementation that would result from the conversation.

Michael and I had worked on goal setting and goal cascading in the past. While the OGTM process is still a part of Mitchell International five years later, what stands out most is Michael’s ability to facilitate a senior group. Michael, our CEO, and I collaborated on the agenda and Michael interviewed us prior to our session. During our session Michael was able to get us all to a common point of understanding of culture, the interaction of culture and performance, and the importance of values in the development of a new culture. We had many action-able strategies to validate and drive the values through our management practices and talent systems. Michael is unique among Management Consultants in his depth and breadth of expertise on organizational issues. Michael’s facilitation skills and pragmatism have brought about positive culture change for Mitchell International."

Alisa Judge
Vice President, Human Resources
Sequenom

"We have grown very rapidly over the past 12-18 months, primarily organically, and we had a very strong sense that our growth had impacted our culture.  A primary concern for our senior executive team was to proactively shape our culture during our high rate of growth and diversification rather than watching some issues arise un-checked.   We worked with Brainard Strategy to better understand the aspects of culture that were measure-able and action-able.  We wanted to understand our culture and it’s impact on our people, business processes, and performance.   We engaged Brainard to work with us to create a customizeable Organizational Survey Process.  This process was highly tailored to our org while encompassing a wholistic view of culture generally.  Brainard worked with our steering committee and our senior mgt team to ensure solid deisgn, data collection via the web and action-able reports.  We will continue to partner with Brainard well after the data has been reported to continually ewnhance our culture and business performance."

Executive Coaching

Aaron Cook
Executive Vice President
CORE Realty Holdings LLC

"Over the last 12 months I have engaged Michael Brainard as an executive coach in order to help continue to take my career to that next level.  While I had experienced reasonable success prior to working with Mr. Brainard he has helped identify weaknesses in my management style to focus and improve while also assisting in the development of my areas of strength.  As a result I have been able to improve my relationships throughout the organization and motivate other departments as well as my partners to take action towards a common objective.  I have been able to establish trust and confidence with my 4 partners and the “C” level executives in the organization creating a more cohesive and cooperative working environment compared with the first 2 years in the organization."

Aaron Cook
Executive Vice President
CORE Realty Holdings LLC

"I have been blessed with a successful career in financial services over the last twelve years due to being in the right place at the right time, surrounding myself with high quality hard working team members, some luck and hard work.  Over my career I have been able to grow from an individual producing financial advisor to the President and CEO of the managing broker dealer for my current company of which I am also a partner and an Executive Vice President.  Over that time I have overseen and managed as many as 60 employees at any one time.

Over the last 12 months I have engaged Michael Brainard as an executive coach in order to help continue to take my career to that next level.  While I had experienced reasonable success prior to working with Mr. Brainard he has helped identify weaknesses in my management style to focus and improve while also assisting in the development of my areas of strength.  As a result I have been able to improve my relationships throughout the organization and motivate other departments as well as my partners to take action towards a common objective.  I have been able to establish trust and confidence with my 4 partners and the “C” level executives in the organization creating a more cohesive and cooperative working environment compared with the first 2 years in the organization.

Mr. Brainard has also helped me get the most out of the 30 some employees that I currently manage by helping me develop a system of accountability as well as encouraging creative thinking, ideas and problem solving with my team members.  I have been able to foster independent decision making and open discussion and debate of ideas with management while still being able to provide the final approval or veto.  Once a decision or idea is implemented each team member has participated in the thought process and thus has more of a vested interest in its execution.  While I am still working on improving, Mr. Brainard has helped me exhibit my trust and confidence in my team’s abilities, which has provided the platform for their improved and more rapid career development.  These efforts have improved levels of performance with team members freeing me up to more effectively develop innovative investment products, consider longer term strategic direction and to continue to build and grow the company’s distribution channels all while also creating a greater sense of loyalty and commitment amongst the team."

Ryan Katz
CEO Goal Financial,
San Diego, California

"Michael Brainard has been able to provide the climate and framework for my growth and development and I directly count his coaching as one of the drivers of my organizations growth and success. Michael has a unique combination of business acumen and interpersonal savvy to listen effectively, confront, and advise at the right time, all the while keeping me focused on my development…"

Jane Baker
VP Human Resources
Qualcomm, San Diego, California

Steve Becker
SVP HR,
Golden State Foods

"Golden State Foods is one of the largest diversified suppliers to the Quick Service Restaurant industry. This 63-year company is values-based and is 100 percent management owned and run.  As such, GSF places a high priority on quality leadership development, which has been a strong motivator for us to establish a strategic learning and development system at our company.

In the past, we have provided training and learning solutions, but it became increasingly clear in recent years that we needed a more strategic approach to further educating and developing our leaders.  We participated in the Disney Institute, Kellogg Executive School, and outsourced training to AMA, DDI and CCL. The approaches were effective to a degree, but none was right for us holistically.  What we needed to do was to build a comprehensive and integrated training and development program that would include the best elements from the above organizations, but one that was more customized for us.

As I began to seek advice about a resource or partner to help us to build this infrastructure, I was referred to Brainard Strategy by a number of trusted colleagues.  Michael Brainard met with me and our CEO to collaborate about outcomes and process options.  Michael proved himself to be a technical expert in building and delivering corporate learning initiatives, but a ‘fit’ was critical, both technically and personally. Additionally, we needed a Web-enabled solution for our managers and employees, as they are spread out around the globe. 

Brainard Strategy was selected based on our comfort with Michael and his team, their technical expertise and experience, and their Learning Management System recommendations. We are finalizing the design and implementation phases for this year-long project, and we are preparing for our initial launch later this year.  It is a highly complex project, and we are delighted with the substance of and personal direction from the Brainard team.  We look forward to a successful implementation in 2010."

Steve Becker
Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Golden State Foods

"We are a 3+ billion dollar company who is among the most values driven corporations you will ever experience.  We have provided one-off training and learning solutions throughout our history, and it became clear that we needed a strategic approach to learning and development in 2009.  I attended the Disney Institute, we had executives attend Ivy League programs, and we had hired firms like PDI and CCL in the past.  All of these approaches were effective, but none of these solutions were right for us holistically.  What we needed to do was to build a comprehensive training and development program that might include the best elements from the above firms, but one that was highly customized for us.   As I began to seek advice about a resource or partner to help us to build this infra-structure I was referred to Brainard Strategy by a number of trusted colleagues.

Organizational Design & Structure

Robert Nascenzi
CEO
Nielsen, San Diego, California

"Our business was mature and our brand was strong, but we had been through a couple of mergers and the executive team was a mix of past competitors. Our Teamwork had broken down and the company was under increasing pressure from outside sources. Alignment among the executive team was critical. Michael Brainard provided an effective method to diagnosis the team, which helped me to restructure the team and helped the executives themselves achieve greater alignment across functions. His process centered approach, business acumen, facilitation skills, and pragmatism helped us over the course of 6 months to work better as a team and to renew and gain focus around our Mission, Vision, Values, and core functional strategies."

Leadership Development

Jonathan Schoonmaker
SVP Human Resources
Borland

"“Developing individual leadership acumen and team functioning is typically an important pursuit, and critical at Borland at this time given the current and future internal and external business challenges.

Brainard Strategy worked with us to define a highly customized approach to executive development that included individual and team assessment.  The development activities were equally comprehensive, highly relevant to our business, and very impactful for both driving changes in behaviors and also enhancing team functioning.”"

Alisa Judge
VP HR, Sequenom

"As our business changes the pressure on our leadership team to continuously improve is ever more critical.  We sought customized 360 feedback and a development process.  We believed that an off the shelf 360 would not meet our needs, as we needed to specifically define the unique competencies required for our leaders.  In addition, we did not need a web site or book to offer development, we needed a trusted local resource to interpret the feedback and offer action-able, just in time learning tailored to each individual executive.

Tony Chartrand
SVP Human Resources
Viejas Casino
San Diego, California

“We needed an accurate way to measure the capabilities and potential of our management team. Brainard Strategy effectively assessed our team and helped us better understand our strengths and areas for improvement. Brainard Strategy then worked with us to develop a comprehensive and integrated leadership development curriculum that was highly practical and focused on driving the right results. Now, we can more effectively manage talent at this critical level in the organization.”

Mergers & Acquisitions Integration

Bob Hurley
Chairman
Beckman Coulter Japan

"At Beckman Coulter we have a great deal of experience with mergers and acquisitions. In 2009 we acquired a large Japanese Diagnostics business.   This business had autonomous executive management in Europe, Japan, and North America.  As the executive responsible for the integration, I had and have a great sense of urgency for Beckman Coulter to realize the value targets.  This more than half of a billion dollar transaction is incredibly complex due to its size, international components, regulatory and competitive environment, and the senior management implications. 

I thought that Michael Brainard may be of assistance based upon his unique background and prior successes working with senior teams.  Michael has completed transactions as an internal executive, and his process orientation as a consultant offers a unique combination that is valuable in integration work.  We originally invited Michael to assess the combined businesses product portfolio.  As a part of this process Michael facilitated a series of meetings to develop an integrated product strategy and to develop a first pass rationalization of the combined R&D budgets.  As you can imagine there were executives wed to their products and products in development.  Our outcomes were fantastic in that the newly combined team made objective decisions that would not have been possible without Michael’s skills.  Michael then began to work with the new management team on their overall Mission, Vision, and Strategy.  This team is now partnering with Michael as an on-going strategic consulting partner to assist them with the many integration activities. I have also asked Michael to “do what he does” for our Japanese executive team and then to work with that team as they interface with other management teams around the world.

Michael’s unique background as a psychologist and a business development executive who completed transactions, his facilitation capabilities, as well as interpersonal skills and pragmatism helped our team and company to gain value that may not have been gained without him.             

Testimonial:
Michael Brainard is uniquely talented, a friend, and someone whom I trust implicitly as a strategic consultant.  Please don’t write a book, Michael. We can’t have you go on the road and be unavailable to our business."

Organizational Assessment

Richard Swartzbaugh
VP Human Resources
Goal Financial, San Diego, California

"Our organization wanted a more effective, diverse, and capable OD department as our company continued to expand. We discovered that with Brainard Strategy, we could outsource our OD work and get everything that we wanted...Plus, it was significantly more cost effective."

Greg Georgianni
Director, Human Resources
Kia Motors America

Performance Management

George Carpenter
CEO, CNS Response

"After more than one year of a great amount of turbulence at the board and executive team levels, we needed a deep and independent assessment of our management effectiveness.  This was particularly complex because our founder and former CEO remained a disruptive force to the organization in many ways. 

Michael and I met, and at that time I was not exactly sure about the right path forward and how to implement the assessment and change process.  All I knew was that we needed an outside and expert view that could enable us to better understand some of our historical dysfunction and then help us to develop a road forward as a company, board, and executive team.  However, as soon as I was able, we contracted with Brainard Strategy.  Michael demonstrated a confidential and practical approach for to conducting a board and executive assessment process which could be implemented instantly.

Michael’s blend of assessment skills, organizational development knowledge, and senior executive presence helped me to get our management team focused on the key re-building activities.  Additionally, Michael put together a report that enabled our board to clearly understand the challenges, root causes, and strategic choices as we moved forward.  Lastly, we are implementing his action items and our company is in a vastly better place today than we were prior to engaging with Brainard Strategy.  As a small publicly traded firm, Michael applied a highly customized, thorough, and legally defense-able process for us to resolve once and for all some of our major challenges and move forward in a much more unified way.

Testimonial:
Brainard Strategy’s flexible options for management assessment enabled us to navigate very choppy waters and we are better for it at the board level, executive team level and organizational level."

"We had a performance appraisal form that was less than popular and a performance management process that, while well defined for senior executives and employees, was lacking for Managers through Vice Presidents. We evaluated many firms that might help us to develop our performance management strategy and approach. We chose Brainard Strategy based upon their team’s expertise and experience in building Performance Management initiatives in a variety of industries to include healthcare and Michael’s abilities to specifically create an inclusive and comprehensive process.

We created a steering team to work with Michael’s team to build the processes, deliverables, and measurements that would increase our organizations ability to drive results. This project took a year and covered the initial blue-print all the way through HR policies and training. Brainard Strategy’s team is flexible, technically expertise, and fun to work with. Michael’s ability to present multiple options, as well as his experiences have helped us to build a performance management approach for our managers that is going to be able to grow in sophistication as we grow. We are now looking at linking our performance management system to our variable compensation approach and succession planning strategies. Brainard Strategy has earned our business for both of these engagements.

The team at Brainard Strategy is expert in performance management, they customize and create with us rather than doing things to us, and they are easy to do business with. We will leverage Brainard Strategy to help us grow well into the future."

Ed Cleary
VP of Sales and Marketing
Moon Design MFG, San Diego, CA

Re-structure and Downsizing

Ryan Katz
CEO Goal Financial,
San Diego, California

"As many serious external changes such as legislative environment and credit risk were exerting negative pressure on every player in our industry our company had to respond by “re-structuring” some of our operations. Michael was able to align a comprehensive action plan that above all was consistent with our values. We believed that while some would be losing their jobs and jobs would be changing we had a set of core beliefs around respect for the individual whether leaving our organization or not. Michael put a plan together that addressed all stakeholders; he planned and modeled the logistics and financial aspects of the re-structure, the risk assessment, and assisted us with the “new” organizational structure. He led a team of internal and external professionals to flawless execution. While this type of business activity is relatively common it is never easy and Michael’s vast experience, custom approach, and leadership were invaluable to us getting back on track toward growth in a still tough environment."

Strategic Alignment & Implementation

Tom Triolo
VP HR, Borland Software, 2009

"At Borland Software we were attempting to do a great deal, as our resources became increasingly limited.  It became important to bring our executives to together to re-visit strategic goals as we could not possibly operate “as usual”.

Michael met with our team to challenge us to think about our goals in a disciplined way, around value accretive activities that were to be prioritized objectively.  Michael led us through a series of facilitated meetings to establish the highest level goals around operational efficiency, operating margin, employee commitment, and market position / customer intimacy.  Michael then worked with Erik Prusch, our CEO and our team to develop a goal cascading methodology that we were able time implement globally within 60 days from establishing our goals at the highest level.  The Performance Scorecarding method (OGTM) was unbelievably simple and efficient, as well, the individual goals and metrics were able to set in Success Factors and every single manager and above had goals set that were directly descended from the executive scorecard.   An un-planned benefit was that we conducted team goal setting meetings and teams were able to collaborate about goals and metrics we have seen a great deal more clarity and openness in resource sharing and teaming.

This OGTM / Performance Scorecarding method is the single greatest innovation in goal setting I have ever seen.  It is amazing and I will bring it with me as a competence, thanks Michael.

Testimonial:
This OGTM / Performance Scorecarding method is the single greatest innovation in goal setting I have ever seen.  It is amazing and I will bring it with me as a competence, thanks Michael."

Jack Farnan
SVP Human Resources
Mitchell International, Inc.
San Diego, California

"Simple and effective approaches to management and organizational issues.
“OGTM” is to goal cascading as “Monster” is to resume searching.
Excellent, professional partnership.  Would definitely engage again.

Our session with Brainard Strategy was exactly what we needed.  A fresh perspective that included best practices and innovative ideas all packaged into an engaging experience.  Our team acquired knowledge and additional motivation as a result of the program.

Phenomenal!  The company provides a remarkable A+ service to its clients and strives to build strong relationships.  The staff is cohesive and truly defines a “unit”, which is the key to success.

It was incredible!  I was very impressed. Tailored hands on approach designed to fit our needs.

The Brainard Strategy team was a delight to work with!  Their professionalism and accessibility allowed our organization the expertise and support we needed to complete our initial strategic plan.  We are looking forward to a continued partnership, and we highly recommend their services to any company seeking creative solutions to organizational dysfunction."

"In late 2008, Scripps was looking to enhance overall organizational performance through increased alignment between its overall strategic objectives and individual managers performance.  After studying national best practices, Scripps designed a performance objectives program in which the organization’s strategic goals “cascaded” from senior leaders to managers as part of the company’s annual performance evaluation process.  The program was designed to focus managers on the achievement of aligned objectives, increase overall management accountability and reward managers for their individual contributions to the organization’s overall goals.

As part of the program implementation, Brainard Strategy was engaged to help train Scripps managers and executives in understanding and adopting the Performance Objectives Cascade program.  Brainard Strategy developed a customized training program and conducted 30 training sessions across Scripps hospitals and clinics in which senior leaders and managers had the opportunity to develop objectives similar to a performance scorecard.  The training provided a consistent framework for establishing measureable, actionable objectives, as well as facilitated the proper translation of goals, tactics and metrics.

One year later, Scripps has completed a full cycle of the program with positive results.  As an organization, we’ve found that the program engages managers in the achievement of our strategic objectives.  Further, Scripps has found that the process helps to clarify and refine’s of senior leaders’ vision and strategic direction – in turn helping to focus managers efforts and resources."

Strategic Planning

Chris Olivier
President, ASM, 2009

"Advantage Sales and Marketing (ASM) is the leading sales and marketing outsourcing company for the retail food industry in the United States.  Upon coming on board in 2008, I was specifically tasked by our board of directors to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide our more than 1 billion dollar company over the next three years.  Ours is a complex company consisting of food brokers, outsourced marketing services for tier one brands, other outsourced I.T., sales, and marketing functions for the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers.  Additionally, our executive team is spread out all over the U.S. and we have many stakeholders to this process (a board including private equity firms, customers, many levels of managers and employees, and a variety of consulting partners). 

I sought proposals from the likes of McKinsey, Baine, and other regional and national tier one firms.  One could easily imagine how critical this decision was for me as a newly hired executive, specifically tasked with the strategic plan development. 

In evaluating Brainard Strategy it became clear that Michael and his team could design, lead, and facilitate this complex planning development process at or above the level of some of their global competitors.  Additionally, Michael and his team were far easier to do business with, far more flexible, and vastly more pragmatic than the larger firms.  Michael and I partnered together through every step of the design of the process, the implementation of the process, and the documents and board presentations.  This 6 month process involved over 100 leaders in our company, at least 6 external parties, and meetings that were held in New York, Chicago, and Southern California.  Michael pulled a team together that included project managers, executives from our industry, and a variety of consultants who brought both ideas and data, as well as worked with our executives to interpret a massive amount of data and information.  In the end we tackled critical strategic decisions in an inclusive and efficient way.  Without Michael’s experience with the process, business acumen, and work ethic, we would not have such a robust plan.  Our board gave the highest marks relative to our ability to frame strategic choices, evaluate the markets and customer segments we serve, and do so in an inclusive and time sensitive manner.   While it is true that our plan will evolve and change as our business does, the core evaluative information and choices are elements that we refer back to and start from when managing the business today.  In addition to plan delivery, Michael worked very closely with us to define a goal cascading method that we have implemented and integrated into our performance management system.

Brainard Strategy and Michael enabled us to drive the single best strategic planning process and outcome I have ever experienced.  His team’s general business acumen, assessment and facilitation capabilities, and ability to balance process and outcomes are unique.

Testimonial:
I strongly recommend Brainard Strategy for executive strategic plan development.  His partnership with us remains critical to our success today and he still partners with us on a number of initiatives."

Mr. Wing S. Pang
Corporate Vice President, Discovery Business Center,
Beckman Coulter, Inc.

John Jakubek
SVP Human Resources
ConAgra Foods
Omaha, Nebraska

Greg Georgianni
Director, Human Resources
Kia Motors America

Ed Cleary
General Manager, OCP 
San Diego, CA

Talent Acquisition & Talent Management

Tom Watlington
COO
Biosite Diagnostics, San Diego, California

Team-Building & Executive Alignment

"After several years of exceptional growth, it became important to pull our executive team together to refocus our strategy and commitment to teaming. We determined that an outside consultant would be helpful to facilitate this process and create a clear and concise agenda. We sought input from a number of trusted partners in the Orange County market, and Brainard Strategy’s name came up again and again.

Michael met with our CEO and me to discuss the outcomes and options for the process. We sought to both develop our executive team’s ability to work better together and to develop/refine a set of strategic objectives that would guide the business over the coming two years. Michael interviewed all of the team members, and then worked with us to refine the agenda and outcomes while offering the benefit of his insight. Michael then facilitated a series of meetings that resulted in a set of strategies that we are successfully implementing today. Michael introduced us to a team functioning assessment that gave us a starting point for the team development process. That model and language have been immensely helpful to our team.

Michael’s blend of assessment skills, facilitation capabilities, and pragmatism helped our team and company to gain ever more focus on the highest value activities and have helped us to work better together."

Paul Brubaker
VP Human Resources
Pioneer, Long Beach, CA

"After unifying three separate HR groups within North America under a Shared-Services umbrella, I decided to hold the first-ever national HR Leadership team meeting for Pioneer Electronics, North America. I asked several consultants for thoughts about team building activities that might be helpful and most suggested using the DISC profile. However, having used the tool many times previously myself, I knew that it likely would have no lasting impact on our team.

Michael Brainard brought us added value by not only administering the DISC and doing a debrief with our team, but by also having us read the Patrick Lencioni book, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” The book about building a high-functioning team led to valuable discussion that the DISC alone would not have generated. Michael did a masterful job in guiding the discussion, asking probing questions, and helping to set a tone of openness for the remainder of the two-day meeting. We’ll have Brainard Strategy back again!"

Sarah Gunhouse
VP of US Sales
Biosite Diagnostics Inc, San Diego, California

Judy Bentley
VP Human Resources
Edwards Life Science, Irvine, California

Shelly Applegate
HR Director, Life Technologies

"We had a major corporate initiative being driven by one of our teams of Ph. D. scientists.  This team is incredibly smart, but less than incredibly appreciative of the importance of teaming and / or the impact of true organizational leadership.  It was difficult to get this type of team to be open enough to be willing to learn something about the “soft skills” associated with a high performing team; however, the need to increase team performance was clear to all.  When I was referred to Michael, I was impressed by his way of thinking, his experience in life sciences with this type of population, and his credentials.

Michael met with me and the leader of this team who was not yet convinced that “team building” would do any good.  Michael reframed his belief about team building to be more of a team development process….  Michael dispelled his beliefs about some kumbya session, or ropes courses, etc.  Rather, Michael’s approach was based on pre-assessment of the core issues, an agenda built upon inclusive dialogue, and objectives that were measure-able.  The team development process changed many of the key leaders’ approach to teaming and leadership.  Michael has a unique ability to communicate with highly educated and tough executives, so much so that we now leverage Michael for similar types of work with other groups.  It is meaningful to me when a member of the team that we worked with over a year ago refers to something Michael covered with that team.  I appreciate Michael and his firm, and they are a trusted partner for us at Life Technologies.   Michael’s facilitation skills and pragmatism helped many of our teams go from “performing” to “high-performance."

Testimonial:
Michael’s unique facilitation skill and communication skills, as well as his adept understanding of group dynamics are an asset for us and we are a challenging environment.

EVP of Corporate Development
Large Multi-National Bio-Tech Company

At Life Technologies we have had a great deal of success with mergers and acquisitions but in 2010 we sought to reduce some of  the friction that our internal process seemed to be experiencing.   While ultimately much of our work in Corporate Development was highly successful it was clear that we were not operating the deal process as efficiently or as effectively as we could.  As the executive responsible for all aspects of M&A activity I have a great sense of urgency for Lifetech to realize its value targets and for us to build scale-able and replicable process to the extent possible.  Our transactions can range from tens of millions to multiple billions, be incredibly complex, have international components, and we often must navigate a complex regulatory and competitive environment.

Michael was referred to us based upon a prior experience a colleague had with Michael, his Corporate Development background as well as his Organizational Development expertise.  We contracted with Brainard Strategy to assess our M&A processes, then deliver a series of reports and facilitated sessions with a variety of executives and other stakeholders.  As one can imagine there were executives wed to certain aspects of the process and many of the people who were in the debrief sessions helped to create the very processes that were being assessed and potentially challenged.

It became crystal clear that Michael’s ability to pull together many data points and points of view in an honest, clear and objective manner led to instant credibility.  It was also clear that Micahel and his team had a vast amount of technical expertise in both doing transactions, and consulting on the process of completing transactions.  In many instances Michael asserted known challenges for us and in many other cases he was able to articulate the implications of some of our challenges in such a way so as to limit defensiveness.  His ability to communicate tough truths and facilitate various types of groups toward the best end for us as the client was immensely valuable to me.  We were left with a concrete action plan for change that was eventually integrated by the board and the senior management team.

Life Technologies is now partnering with Michael as a strategic consulting partner to assist us with a variety of process consulting initiatives.  Michael’s unique background as a psychologist, business development executive who completed transactions, and facilitation capabilities, as well as interpersonal skills and pragmatism helped our team and company to gain value that may not have been gained without him.  I estimate his contribution to be worth many millions of dollars for us.

Allan Dicks,
CFO, Moark, Inc.

Brainard Strategy partnered with our executive team to clarify and refine our Mission, Vision and Strategic Objectives.  The process was very practical yet clearly grounded in the best ideas from some of the traditional strategic planning processes.  Once the strategic objectives were clarified Michael pushed us to set very SMART goals and define our goals via tactics and metrics.  Michael then brought us an easy to apply Performance Scorecard.  Our team defined this scorecard together and while we have fallen short relative to execution in the past we have already experienced a different set of behaviors as we now report out to one another our performance relative to the scorecard monthly.  Brainard Strategy’s consulting support around Strategy Development / Alignment has enabled us to refine and clarify our thinking, and most importantly is directly driving greater levels of execution and accountability than we have had as an executive team.  Brainard’s approach has enabled us to surface and address key strategic questions, plan for and align around key scenarios (develop strategic choices), helped us to re-define our core competencies, greatly improved goal alignment and accountability, and increased our urgency and competitive spirit

J.D. Power and Associates,
VP HR

While I had not partnered with Brainard Strategy in the past, I had always heard great things about their work. I contacted Marissa Waldman and she offered some great suggestions about how to position and approach our first executive off site session in many years. We agreed to meet with Michael so that we could thoughtfully design the right approach for assessment and rapport building, and the actual agenda and objectives. It was clear that Michael had a wealth of experience in this high level team development work and I had a great deal of confidence when putting him in front of my peers, the executive team.

Michael designed a custom interview that we reviewed in advance of him conducting the interviews with each executive. The information he was able to glean from each executive was rich and unbelievably candid. Also from the interviews each executive had a chance to get to know him and generated optimism for the pending session. Michael prepared a report from the interview data and he, I, and our CEO discussed the findings in detail and we collaborated on the agenda and outcomes for the actual session.

Michael’s approach in the session forced us to deal with the core issues, even when uncomfortable. We had an inclusive dialogue that led to action items that were measure-able. The team development process changed many of the key leaders approach to teaming and leadership. Michael has a unique ability to build credibility, facilitate executive sessions, and blend theory and street smarts. I appreciate Michael and his firm and they are a trusted partner for us, I would refer him without reservation.

Beckman Coulter
Performance Management, 2010
Performance Management

We engaged Brainard  Strategy to work with us on both a strategic and tactical project around Performance Management at Beckman Coulter.  We invited Brainard Strategy to help us to re-examine all aspects of our performance management strategy and approach and then to design a highly impactful training process for both managers and employees to ensure understanding of the Performance Management process and their role in the execution of that process. We then partnered with our HRBP’s in a transfer of knowledge, train the trainer sessions globally, to enable them to educate and train managers in the changes in the new process.

 We choose Brainard Strategy based upon their team’s expertise and experience in building Performance Management initiatives in a variety of industries, to include healthcare, biotech, and medical devices.  We found the team at Brainard Strategy to be experts in performance management, and were able to customize the materials in a way that aligned with our culture and expected outcomes. Michael’s facilitation skills were very valuable in delivering the learning sessions.  Jennifer Konkin’s  abilities in instructional design were also very critical to the successful outcomes we experienced.  We will continue to leverage Brainard Strategy to help us grow well into the future specifically building on the experience in matters of leadership development, coaching and strategy execution.