The Vector View on Valuing Others: A Step beyond Respect
Introduction Vector Group clients call on us to intervene when there are significant organizational challenges. Oftentimes, those challenges include issues of employee relations, morale, conflict, management ineffectiveness or significant clash during cultural integration following an acquisition. An apparent common theme between all these factors is often around “respect” between people or more likely a lack […]
The Vector View: Mergers & Acquisitions Roadmap for Success
Internationally, the past performance of M&A activity results is quite poor. Multiple studies analyzing the last 30 to 50 years of M&A activity document a business success rate of less than 30%. One McKinsey study of 30 years of M&A activity concluded that 77% of acquisitions failed to meet their intended business objectives, over half […]
The Vector View on the Management Mirror©: Assessing Senior Executive Teams
Introduction Back in 1994, J. Robert “Bob” Carleton, one of the Founders of Vector Group, received a copy of an article in The Financial Times (London) from the head of British Airways WorldCargo titled “Top dogs bark up the wrong tree” by Christopher Lorenz. Lorenz reported on a study of senior team perceptions of themselves […]
The Vector View on Trust: How to Build and Maintain It (Part 2 – Reliability)
Here is Part 2 as promised. The previous Vector View on openness as it relates to trust should be reasonably clear. Without openness, trust is difficult to build and without reliability it is difficult to maintain trust. RELIABILITY “I know I can count on you.” Embodied in this statement is a major component of what […]
The Vector View on Trust: How to Build and Maintain It (Part 1 – Openness)
Recently, a number of group discussions on LinkedIn and blogs found elsewhere focused on the importance of trust within organizations, within teams, within work groups and within any work relationship. I thought it might be helpful to our readers to present the Vector View on trust as we describe it in work with our clients. […]
The Vector View on Issues-Based Team-Building®: How It Works
Having recently facilitated an Issues-Based Team-Building® (IBTB®) session with a client, I thought it an appropriate time to share with our Vector View readership how this process works. We successfully employed IBTB® in a number of client organizations across a wide variety of industries domestically and internationally. Instilling high performance standards in any organization is […]
The Vector View on Receiving Feedback: Some Practical Considerations in Designing 360° Feedback for Managers
A couple of weeks ago I posted a blog about Vector Group’s View on Effectively Giving Feedback to Improve Performance with a promise to provide some additional information on receiving feedback. I also wrote a blog in February touching briefly on using organizational values in a 360° feedback survey for development of management and leadership. […]
The Vector View on Effectively Giving Feedback To Improve Performance
Companies call on Vector Group to help turn their businesses around, make certain that an integration effort goes well or just to make certain the organization delivers results as needed. We find that in almost all of these situations, organizational members do not receive adequate or appropriate performance feedback. This falls directly on the shoulders […]
The Vector View on Organizational Values and Revisiting Our Own
Very often Vector Group’s client organizations call upon our consultants to help them either establish or review their organizational values. What is the importance of “organizational values” you might ask? On the surface to most business people, organizational values seem soft, squishy and irrelevant to daily business operations. Our strongly held view is that organizational […]
The Vector View on the Role of the Integration Manager during Post-Acquisition Cultural Integration
As I will describe in an upcoming posting (Mergers & Acquisitions Roadmap to Success), we at Vector Group developed a process called the M&A Roadmap for Success. This evolved from an original design for a specific client to more clearly define and leverage the role of a properly staffed, skilled, and focused Human Resources team […]