Jim was recommended to me by our senior Human Resources officer who had been impressed by Jim's grasp of the organizational dynamics at the senior leadership level of our firm and had seen the value he provided within the bank in another division. Jim immediately gained my confidence by helping me understand and perceive what I could do to improve working relations with certain senior management. I was not getting the results I wanted. He was able to help me see different perspectives and points of view which helped me broaden options in thinking and acting - specifically behavior around influencing and persuading others in the value of certain tasks and goals I wanted to accomplish. He helped me appreciate others perspectives in ways I had not before – by inquiring and learning what was behind their viewpoints. My opportunities for collaboration increased as did many relationship skills including managing conflict and expectations of peers, superiors and direct reports.

Another area of great strength was Jim's ability to mobilize my peers and direct reports in designing, developing and delivering our senior sales team off-site retreats. Jim rallied our internal resources of seasoned professionals to create our most demanding yet most productive senior sales off-site in years. He accomplished this through his expert group facilitation and by keeping the team focused on what the leadership planning group aimed to accomplish including very specific learning goals. He strongly suggested much of the off-site consist of interactive work that recreates "real time" bank experiences with customers and staff, noting that this approach and process would yield the most value for all involved while away from the field. Jim was right and although we had thoughts and hunches regarding our staff's true learning needs before, after the role-playing and case exercises, we had the hard evidence we needed to develop continuing learning opportunities for our most senior staff. Jim also facilitated the post – offsite meeting where we developed our business' driving purpose as well as the prioritized strategies and tactics to achieve our aggressive financial goals. We also established a development plan for the leadership team.

I am currently at a new financial institution and because of the value he has provided in the past, I am now consulting with Jim on how to maximize the team efforts of senior leadership as well as various other teams and individuals within our firm.

Richard O. Jones
Executive Vice President
Provident Bank

I initially worked with Jim after a period of running institutional sales at a large financial institution. At one point I was faced with a number of management challenges where I had neither the experience nor frame of reference or perspective to effectively handle these issues. Jim helped me prioritize my decisions and focus my strengths and most importantly, helped me to contextualize the issues – understanding the organizational dynamics more fully. He has an uncanny ability understanding people and in short order helped me set specific performance and development goals for my staff.

Jim has a unique ability to discern the critical points of an issue. He asks the right questions that helped me to see different perspectives which made my role as a leader of a large group more manageable.

His instincts and knowledge about corporate life and politics were on target. However, he would never assume that he was right; he would always ask me what I thought and if he thought that there was something else at play that he was missing. My firm was purchased by an even larger international financial institution and Jim helped me with that transition by suggesting that I probe to clarify and understand the initially somewhat vague expectations of my new management. My actions that followed were pivotal in ensuring my success within the new firm. I consult with Jim regularly on issues of importance to me and my firm. I greatly value his judgment, expertise and perhaps more importantly, his ability to help me learn and grow. I recommend him hardily.

Managing Director, Deutsche Asset Management

Jim was originally brought into the firm to work with the senior management team -- the CEO, COO and CFO. The team was going through a trying period as the company tripled in size in a two year period and had grown larger and more complex, which changed the focus and targets of each person’s position from the role held before. Jim helped bring focus and perspective to all three team members, helping us to understand the changes around us as well as the dynamics between us. We saw things we had not seen before and we able to interact more effectively.

After working with Jim first hand, I asked if he could help in the development of two key employees who were in new situations themselves. One was the Controller of the largest subsidiary, and was a person who had moved up the ranks to that position. The other was the Corporate Controller, who was hired from her manager position on our external audit team. Although getting there from two totally different paths, both employees are now in highly visible, responsible positions, which include supervising employees. Both had supervised employees before, however their emphasis was on work flow and general supervision (attending work allocation, etc.) In their new roles, they needed to learn how to manage people and their functions more skillfully. Jim helped them manage and lead successfully: for the controller, he helped her understand the transition from being “one of the group” to being the group leader and how she now had to work with senior managers on a more peer level than in the staff support mentality she had relayed on in the past. For the Corporate Controller, he helped her understand that the people that now reported to her with dotted lines (which included controllers of several subsidiaries), were not motivated, educated or trained the same way as the external audit staff that she worked with her. Most useful was how Jim helped her understand and act professionally because of her new appreciation for different personalities in different roles in different organizations. In both cases, the leadership and management skills and techniques were greatly improved.

Richard Frant
Formerly, CFO, American Tack and Hardware
Currently CFO, Artistic Tile Inc.