New concept firm helps CEOs come to grips with people issues

Oct. 21, 2010 - PRLog -- New concept firm helps CEOs come to grips with people issues

While many companies throughout the nation struggle to maintain market share in an unsteady economy, occasionally there are those who break through; firms that evolve to the point of pure innovation. So pure in fact, that it is hard to find the words to describe them.

“We knew we had something different,” explains Excelerant Co-founder and Managing Partner Elise Bouchner, “when CEOs began jumping out of their chairs exclaiming ‘I want some of that.’ ”

A smile spreads across her face as she recalls her firm’s transformation from The Training Source, a two-person virtual office with co-founding partner Christina Harper, to the seven-person team they are today. What Bouchner and Harper have created along the way with three other specialist partners, is a whole new animal.

Much in the way that CPA firms assist companies with high-level financial advice, or law firms assist with legal expertise, Excelerant steps in to provide strategic business guidance for the people side of a business. It is a new concept that has found traction in a variety of industries.

“For decades,” Harper explains, “corporations compartmentalized personnel issues and relegated them to human resource departments. There was much work to be done at that level, but not much of it was at a strategic level. The common solution for problems was to send people off to training. That’s when we knew our original name had become antiquated.”

“Today’s chief executives are recognizing that the human element touches every segment of their business in critical ways,” adds Bouchner, who left a successful employment law practice to begin the firm with Harper, a developer of a corporate institute for an international manufacturer. “For instance, we’ve had execs call us in for help with succession issues, only to discover deeper people issues that would have prevented the succession from ever happening.”

“Another group approached us to resolve senior management issues,” says Harper, “but those managers were actually the owners themselves, unintentionally stuck in a long-term power-play. It’s pretty tricky resolving something like that and designing a new platform for them to move forward.”

The stickier the better, as far as the team is concerned. They have taken top producers that CEOs have all but given up on due to personality problems, and converted them into leaders worthy of a love fest. “One conversion like that,” comments partner Phyllis Arceneaux, CPC, a certified coach’s coach, “and we have a client for life.”

“That kind of scenario is actually pretty rare among our clients,” add Bouchner. “For the most part, they are prosperous and progressive companies already on an upward growth track.”

“A good measure of our success relates to our ability to help our clients think strategically about their workforce issues from the bottom up -- or top down, for that matter. We’re helping them ignite real change to accelerate their growth with a long-term view to the future. We literally help them map it out and then guide the implementation. It’s allowed many execs to reclaim their lives and detach from their Blackberrys or iPhones because they’re not putting out fires on a daily basis. People are held accountable and the newly integrated structure works,” states Bouchner.

The beauty of Excelerant’s approach may well be the blank slate they bring to the table for each client.

“We spend a lot of time learning their business and design a plan that is unique to them.  Companies are pretty organic, that’s the nature of the people side of things,” states Harper, who has been hired to serve as a substitute CEO when one of her clients was out recovering from surgery, a role a CPA or attorney probably could not be asked to fill.



SYNOPSIS STATEMENT:
Founded in 2003 as The Training Source and rebranded this year, Excelerant is a group of certified professionals who provide strategic direction to chief executives for the people side of their international, national or regional corporations of 50 or more employees.
www.exexp.com