No matter how successful, every organization has goals they’re trying to reach, processes that need some reworking, and issues to clear up; continuous improvement is the name of the game. But even the brightest minds can struggle to implement big ideas across an organization and achieve those goals. Luckily, that’s where Execution Maximizer (EM) enters, ready with an EM Roadmap to guide executives to success.
Jim Alampi founded EM in 2009 with the goal of helping CEOs realize their vision and produce results through a process that’s focused on execution. This led to the development of the Execution Roadmap, which focuses on developing a clear vision shared by the executive team and the entire company, including core values, purpose, mission, a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal,” and SWOT (or strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). These are mapped out over three-year focus areas, one-year initiatives, and ninety-day tactical priorities. The key, Alampi explains, is that improvement is possible through clear, cohesive planning and organizational alignment. “The barriers to profitable growth are amazingly predictable and transcend industries and types,” he says. “The process is simple, though not easy to execute, and the CEO is the key.”
The Execution Roadmap aids CEOs in aligning their organizations and producing the needed improvements in execution. However, to ensure that EM can make that impact, the organization focuses just as much on their own EM Advisors as their clients. “To really work on the issues that will make our clients successful, we believe that they benefit from advisors who have the insights and tools required for success,” says Rom LaPointe, EM’s CEO. “EM Advisors offer the highest level of one-onone, focused, and company-relevant advice available.”
That advantage comes from the fact that EM Advisors have worked with a variety of leaders and can apply the valuable insights that they’ve gained throughout that time and in their own careers in business leadership. They also function as a community, sharing insight with each other to create the best possible pool of knowledge and receiving the highest-quality support, which provides even greater benefit for the organizations EM Advisors work with.
“I have the opportunity to help companies achieve what they want to achieve and, at the end of the day, become a better company,” says Jeffrey Kimball, one of the organization’s advisors. As a former CEO himself, Kimball was able to see firsthand the impact EM can make. After working to implement a Roadmap, the longterm commitment led to common tools, language, and goals across the company, as well as measurable results. The organization saw a three-times return due to EM’s ability to help them focus on excellent execution. Kimball was so impressed that he joined EM as an Advisor in 2012, deploying the process for sixteen of his own clients. “I used the process in my company and got tremendous value out of it,” Kimball says. “So when I tell people that story, they want to try to bring that into their organization.”
Simply put, EM Advisors are driven by a passion for business and for ensuring that their clients can achieve their goals. “I love working with businesspeople,” says John Howman, an EM Advisor, entrepreneur, consultant, and former chairman and CEO of technology and science organizations. “When I was twelve, I got Lee Iacocca’s autograph, not Ernie Banks’s.” Candidates with C-suite experience are selected to become certified EM Advisors, a valuable signifier that showcases that they are more than facilitators or coaches. Instead, they are trusted advisors capable of working with C-suite clients because of shared experience. Once executives become EM Advisors, they gain access to insight sessions, conference calls, and an EM Advisor Success Portal, a web of support and tools that they can use to ensure they’re always delivering the best-quality guidance to clients.
“I have the opportunity to help companies achieve what they want to achieve and, at the end of the day, become a better company.”
– Jeffrey Kimball
EM Advisors are able to provide an outsider’s perspective paired with expert understanding, a muchneeded combination for companies that can be too locked into their own processes. “There’s real value to having an external facilitator or business advisor bring an outside perspective to the table and shine a light on the fact that they might have been too internally focused,” Howman says. EM can also provide the precise perspective needed for each unique organization as its team of advisors represents leadership experience and expertise in a wide variety of subjects. Howman also notes that when he begins working with clients, he starts off by engaging in 360-degree surveys to assess where the client’s organizational strategy stands. “I use the CEO’s answer as the baseline, and it would be amazing if more than 25 percent of the time I see significant alignment among the leadership team,” Howman says. By working with EM, organizations can work to bring the entire company together under a single vision.
Often, that vision comes from a financial focus. However, the desired outcome of working with EM isn’t always tied to a dollar amount; others rely on the EM Roadmap to clarify operations and processes and to unify culture. “Because we focus on execution, we know that there have to be ways of measuring the impact of our work with CEOs,” LaPointe says. “That impact will often be tied to a dollar figure but will always entail some measurable result.” Whatever unique challenges and goals an organization might have ahead of it, EM has the right Advisor to help guide the way—and a Roadmap to make it all possible.
