What We Do
We apply extensive human capital experience to make organizations, people, and people systems more effective through our validated suite of science-based offerings.
Honing Confidence in Your Acquisition
Before you acquire a company, you need someone skilled in scientifically assessing both the leadership team and the existing HR practices. While you focus on diligencing the finances and operations, our team assesses the people and people systems. Depending on your specific situation and sensitivity, we tailor our process on the degree to which formal assessments are used. Some deal partners want us sitting in management meetings. Some want more formal assessments through personality measures and interviews. Either way, after our process, you’ll understand the personalities of the leadership team and our view of their likelihood to help or hurt your investment thesis. We will also assess the “company vibe” and existing HR practices to identify early opportunities for optimization.
The Science of Assessing for Successful Fit
Whether you’re replacing executives or adding to the team, you can’t risk a bad hire. Lodestone starts with the foundation of understanding your specific business, the associated investment thesis, and the top three business imperatives an executive must execute. This Understanding Business Context process is essential for our ability to “wire” validated, scientific assessment methods, competencies, and personality characteristics into the specific candidate assessment designed for your executives. We then provide you information on competencies, personality (including risks of derailing!), and likelihood of success in meeting your business imperatives. The cost of a bad executive hire is simply too great to leave to chance, your gut, or the word of an executive search firm who is overly eager to sell you on their candidate.
Our robust executive assessment process is not just for selection. Many organizations use it as the foundation for executive development and in succession planning.
Whether a C-suite is new, partially new, or long-term in role, often with a new owner a new approach to team effectiveness is needed. Lodestone creates executive team workshops bespoke to each situation, and yet often the following are conducted.
Existing leaders often need to “skill up” as you grow an organization, and newly hired executives need to accelerate their assimilation into the company. Both often need help navigating your board and each other.
Lodestone’s approach to leadership advisory services is to be targeted and time-bound. We don’t engage in prolonged, life-long coaching; but rather, we assess the most pressing 1-2 challenges and work with the individual on addressing those over the course of 4-6 months, then re-evaluate.
From Lodestone’s flagship leadership development program to fully bespoke leadership training and development, group leadership training is a cornerstone of our program offerings.
Discover how Lodestone People Consulting can help your business obtain professionalized people practices.
Increasing Productivity through Engagement
Whether it’s merging a new acquisition into your platform, executive or other team dynamics, an organizational engagement survey and action plans, or general leadership advising on more effective Town Halls… organizational culture encompasses a lot, and our experts will help your company leadership through all of it… both the proactive parts and the “sticky problems” that can quickly drive efficiency down and turnover and discord up. Lodestone has seen them all and will help you navigate them.
Accelerating Performance
Our solutions increase organizational effectiveness to increase investment alpha.
Vision, Mission, Values
As the name implies, a newly hired C-suite leader often is looking for the fastest path forward to understanding his or her new organization, team, and business challenges. We start by providing every executive feedback on their assessment process, if we played a role in assessing them. We collect input from and on their new team and create a team workshop with the C-suite leader to accelerate their understanding and a 100 Day plan with respect to team norms, priorities, and cultural nuances.
Knowing Me, Knowing You ™
Half-day session after each leader has taken the Hogan leadership inventories and received individual feedback. The Lodestone facilitator walks the team through its “team mosaic” including shared strengths, any shared blindspots, and then the team discusses how to manage decisions, meetings, and workstreams with this new insight about team members and the team as a whole.
New Leader Assimilation
As the name implies, a newly hired C-suite leader often is looking for the fastest path forward to understanding his or her new organization, team, and business challenges. We start by providing every executive feedback on their assessment process, if we played a role in assessing them. We collect input from and on their new team and create a team workshop with the C-suite leader to accelerate their understanding and a 100 Day plan with respect to team norms, priorities, and cultural nuances.
Human Capital Audit
Sometimes a firm wants a quick and effective scan of their entire portfolio to triage Human Capital process optimization opportunities. Sometimes it’s within a specific company, usually one newly acquired. Lodestone has designed an efficient survey which can be deployed to human resources professionals and/or managers/customers of the Human Capital processes to uncover areas of opportunity. Additionally, when used with an entire portfolio, the audit highlights “bright spots”—which companies are leaders/particularly innovative in certain areas so that the portfolio leaders can learn from each other.
Frequently, a review of the audit results is partnered with an often inaugural Human Capital leader forum, bringing the portco HR leaders together.
Professionalizing for Efficiency
Growing companies need professionalized people practices in order to scale. Validated and efficient selection systems, performance management, training and development… these are all aspects of an organization that are common in large organizations but less so in mid-market. Until now. Lodestone will put these in place for your company to increase accuracy, efficiency, and employee engagement.
LEAD™
Lodestone’s flagship leadership development program is our Leadership Education and Development (LEAD™ ) in which we tailor a six-month or year-long academy to a company’s business needs. The program begins with assistance identifying high potential participants, assesses participants’ development needs, and engages the participants in a cadence of group training, small group coaching, and individual coaching. LEAD™ culminates with a presentation of the group’s action learning project—a project to make a material difference in a real and current business problem within their organization–to their company’s top executives.
Leader Essentials
Many portfolio companies, particularly amid high growth and scaling, have promoted and/or hired strong individual performers with good intentions of leading. But often they’ve never had any basic, formal training in leadership. As a result, Lodestone has developed a half-day session covering leadership essentials including leading vs. managing, how to have performance conversations, and more topics. This course can be customized to an individual company’s needs, including being offered in person or online.
Bespoke Training and Development
Whether for executive teams or other teams, many portfolio companies request a specific session for a specific issue: a conflict that needs to be managed, how to manage in a hybrid work environment, learning to be innovative… Lodestone consultants work with management teams to meet the specific need.
Leadership Advisory Services (LAS)
What others call “coaching” we call Leadership Advisory Services (LAS). The differences include: LAS is assessment data-driven, goal- and measurement-focused, and time bound to accelerate the executive team’s proficiency. LAS is about guiding the individual through strategic questioning and option consideration. In addition, LAS includes specific advising and guidance on not just personal career development, but also through real world work situations as they arise