We believe that the best results come from intensive collaboration. Only when we really know our clients and their challenges well can we help optimally. This leads to beautiful and lasting relationships. Summiteers Paul van Bekkum and Dolf L'Ortye explain why intensive collaboration is the key to success.

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Make plans

When we start with a client, we want to know what's going on from everyone in the organization. And not just from a small group of decision makers. What is going on? How concrete is a problem exactly? And how does the rest of the organization look at it?

Paul: “We often see that plans are expertly devised by a small club and then handed over to the organization. This is often difficult for the receiving party because they were not or only sparsely involved in making the plan. As a result, it does not 'live' enough. However, we want everyone involved to also understand a plan and to live through it. You have to make time for that. And sometimes this leads to redesign because important details are not included. That's only good, because it creates understanding and support with the people who are going to do it later.”

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How do we work?

We always work with our clients. This means that we are not making a piece in isolation. We deliberately do not develop a strategy on our own island in the left wing of the building. This also applies to the execution of a strategy; it is ineffective if you approach it separately from the organization. How, then?

Dolf: “We create combined teams, where our advisors work intensively with the employees of the customer organization. Sometimes it works very well to mirror: there is a program manager on the client's side and a program manager ours. One person understands the context and has access to the organization, while the other brings change expertise and an outside view.

In this work, you are really collaborating intensively. Because we pay a lot of attention to development on the job (including with the client), you quickly go in-depth. That creates beautiful, lasting relationships and we find that very important. Our work has little volatility.”

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From paper to reality

Implementing a (big) plan, and getting it from paper to reality, only works for us if we can work together, or “team”. That is why teams of our clients regularly come to our office to work with our people. And of course, we also like to work on location with our client. You can't (usually) go from paper to reality in a day.

Dolf: “It takes time, living, doing, refining. “Together with the customer in the mud”, we sometimes jokingly call that. How beats what: it's simply more complex. The 'what' on paper is exactly that, paper. At most, it can be an exciting prospect, but it only gets really exciting when you do it.”

Want to know more about how we work? So read this article about strategy execution.

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Can we help you?

We create movement, make something complex understandable, something big manageable, a (vague) idea concrete and make something difficult succeed. Can you use help with this? Take contact with us.

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