Setting P.A.C.E.  How to take a company to the next level

Like expert jazz groups, successful small companies create sweet music because a limited number of players are motivated by the founder’s vision. They know the team’s strengths and limitations, cover for each other, become experts at shooting from the hip, changing direction on the fly, and multi-tasking,—in short, they are prepared and capable of doing whatever it takes to win audience approval.  But when the group adds people, the freewheeling style that propelled them to success, starts creating performance problems.  

 Failure during a group’s first growth transition is probable because of poor cash management (it takes more to supply and house an orchestra) and because as new players come aboard they have no way of getting on the same page.  Everybody is too busy and there’s no induction process—the groups vision, values, and operating methods exist only in the heads of the leader and the original team.  Jazz bands and smaller companies are capable of gaining huge audience appeal—provided they remain small. The decision to grow means letting go and it should not be taken lightly. 

 Unlike their free wheeling jazz counterparts, musicians in large groups follow a prearranged score.  Playing in an orchestra demands absolute compliance to the written music.   The conductor can’t allow members to blow, bow, or drum out spontaneous licks whenever the spirit moves them.  Performance excellence demands that each position play exactly what has been written for them.  In a large orchestra, collaboration fosters passion and pride, even though individual assignments may not always be challenging or exciting. The composer, conductor, and each musician has a specific role to play—and everybody trusts their colleagues to play the assigned part.  Many talented jazz musicians will never make it in a large group because they are either unwilling or incapable of adhering what is written.  

Leaders wanting to take their group to the next level must in effect “replace themselves” with:

• Values-directed leadership that will foster corporate energy, will to win, and a desire to belong

• An autocratic environment that; operates from a plan, demands peak performance,  process compliance, and continuous improvement. 

 P.A.C.E. workshop benefits:

• Eliminates outdated industrial age attitudes and habits

• Introduces a doable continuous improvement process

• Defines high performance cultures

• Builds a strong management team

• Develops Leadership at all levels of the organization

• Differentiates:

• Management Authority...plans, roles, and processes that set targets, align performance, and get results

• Personal Leadership...vision, values, and signaling skills that fosters will to win and the desire to belong

• Introduces the performance potential of values-directed leadership

• Clarifies and action-orients the organization's cultural-values

• Presents vision as the future tense of values

• Teaches the signaling of strategic intent and appropriate response to challenge

Setting P.A.C.E. is also available through a network of certified facilitators or in a self-deliverable video format with leaders guide and participant materials.

"Art spent a day helping us clarify our core values. We also discovered that leadership was not a management position but an essential activity for everybody. Once that sank in, our management, sales, service and administrative teams were never the same. In three short months our existing processes came alive with newfound energy and we became the nations #1 dealer as measured by Ford`s Customer Service Index. Nothing I have attended before or since delivered so much, of such value, so fast."
Ford Dealer