Situation. Ray Lane had recently become the President of Oracle and the global head of all of sales and consulting and needed to unify a global leadership team behind the corporate strategy.

What We Did. We started by designing and running a series of 5-day Leaders Forums that brought together Oracle’s top 250 leaders, 30 at a time. We exposed the group to some top gurus of corporate strategy, like CK Prahalad, and used action learning to apply the strategy to 4 of Oracle’s strategic accounts. However, with the support of the top 3 executives, we changed direction, going far beyond action learning, and used the forums to engage the top 250 leaders in the development of a unifying strategy for the company.

Outcome. This process changed the strategic direction for Oracle and led to Oracle’s dominance in the internet era that followed. What started as a leadership development initiative became the process for addressing the most critical business issues for the company.

Situation. Apple’s Enterprise Sales Division, one of the fastest growing, most profitable businesses at Apple, needed to scale their executive team’s ability to deliver this growth. Specifically, they needed to build executive capabilities in several of their key leaders, deepen the executive team’s ability to collaborate across business sectors, and collectively develop a plan for entering new markets.

What We Did. We coached 5 individuals on their executive team over a 1 year period. We facilitated several management meetings where the team identified business opportunities requiring organizational integration and developed models and tools for achieving this deep collaboration. We then worked in close partnership with the Enterprise Sales team and the Product Marketing division to design and run a 3 day Leaders Forum to rapidly and collectively learn key aspects of the Life Sciences industry and create a comprehensive go-to-market plan for Apple in this industry.

Outcome. The sales and marketing groups were able to create a joint plan in 3 days that they said would have taken them months to build through their normal work processes. The organization has executed this plan and has more than doubled its growth in the industry.

Situation. SAP’s $5 Billion acquisition of Business Objects necessitated the integration of two major product groups. They needed to build a market strategy for the newly merged product set, integrate two distinct leadership teams and develop the capability necessary to execute the strategy.

What We Did. We ran a Leader’s Forum where we brought their senior leadership teams together for a four-day rapid work process to develop the essential strategy for the business. We coached several of the members of the executive team to develop the key mindsets and skills needed to lead the new organization.

Outcome. The team developed the new market strategy in 3 days, got CEO approval during the forum and began execution the following week. The organization was able to make difficult market positioning and reorganization decisions because they had created deep, collective commitment to the new direction.