Organization Development Consultants (ODC) Inc., a Brookfield-based consulting firm, has acquired New Berlin-based Quantum Performance Institute (QPI). Jerry Woodrow, the sole owner and employee of QPI, has joined the ODC team as acting chief executive officer. Woodrow did not disclose the financial terms of the transaction.
The acquisition comes at a time when businesses in every industry need to step up to a leadership challenge, according to Daniel Schroeder, a co-founder and principal of ODC who writes a regular column on human resources for Small Business Times.
A combination of factors, including global competition, fast-paced change and aging baby boomers, is increasing the demand for both strong corporate leaders and strong leadership development, Schroeder said.
"The mere fact that there are fewer Generation X and Y (professionals) than baby boomers creates both opportunities and challenges," Schroeder said. "Businesses have to be much more intentional with regards to leadership development at this time."
Woodrow’s experience in taking companies to the next level through business coaching, assessment tools and development will serve as the catalyst for ODC as it tries to make a larger mark in the training and development market in 2006, Woodrow and Schroeder said.
"We are going through an organizational analysis, and Jerry is leading the way to building a new infrastructure," Schroeder said. "We want to be a total performance organization ourselves, where we don’t rest but continue to march forward."
ODC has offered a package of interrelated, interdependent services that includes assessments, organizational development and training and development since Schroeder started the company with Nicholas Claditis in 1994.
"A leader has to have personal, strategic and technical skills," Schroeder said. "Managers and directors have to be capable people, they have to be catalysts. Chief executive officers and executives have to be good strategists. Individuals have to have technical acumen."
The package of services turns a company with lackluster leadership and low quality of processes into a well-run system, or what ODC calls a total performance organization, Schoreder said.
"The idea of the total performance system is recognizing what a company does in one area helps another," Schroeder said. "We want to build systems. The systems approach is a huge driver in business today."
Finding and developing strong leaders is a challenge, Schroeder and Woodrow said.
"It is increasingly clear that leaders hired for their resume fail because of their personality," Woodrow said.
Leadership drives an operation and defines the culture of an organization, Schroeder said.
"We call corporate culture the other bottom line," Woodrow said.
"Positive gains are realized at the other bottom line," Schroeder said. "This is where the operations and the processes satisfy and exceed the expectations of customers."
The other bottom line is also where leadership is needed most, they said.
People affect the quality of the processes, which affects the customer satisfaction, which affects the revenue of the company, Schroeder said.
"Satisfied customers come from highly efficient processes driven by the human component," Schroeder said. "People are a precious asset and are the drivers of a business."
The recipe for building skills as employees are hired and businesses grow has to be company specific leadership development, Schroeder said.
"You cannot use a cookie cutter approach to leadership development," Woodrow said.
ODC focuses on the human capital approach to leadership development, which is a paradigm shift from the traditional management and numbers approach, Woodrow said. ODC consultants assess companies as a whole and separate it out to its individual parts and then use value propositions to increase processes and profits, Schroeder said.
"Assess is a keyword to both of us because it means to sit down with or beside," Schroeder said. "It characterizes the relationship with client performance and the idea of adding value."
With the addition of Woodrow, ODC is adding value to its product and processes by partnering with companies such as Brookfield-based Health Corp., Schroeder said. Heath is a management consulting firm that specializes in using graphics to develop client reports.
With Health, ODC hopes to demonstrate a return on investment for its clients and build a quantitative performance statement that will translate the other bottom line into the financial bottom line, Schroeder said.
"We want to be able to show the bottom line return of ODC, the average dollar amount returned to the bottom line of a company after the training program," Schroeder said.
As a total performance organization, ODC plans to continue to forge alliances and partnerships with other local companies and organizations, Schroeder said. ODC has partnered with Edgewood College in Madison since 2000 to create action learning and performance-based instruction, Schroeder said.
ODC has six employees, including Woodrow, Schroeder and Claditis, along with six project consultants on a freelance basis, Schroeder said. ODC will continue to improve its own leadership skills as it transforms its culture into a total performance system, Schroeder said.
"Knowledge plus skills equals performance," Schroeder said. "The driver that makes that happen is leadership."
Organization Development Consultants Inc.
Founded: 1994
Principals: Daniel Schroeder, Nicholas Claditis and Mary Birk
Locations: 16655 W. Bluemound Road, Brookfield, and 1020 Quinn Drive, Madison
Number of employees: 6
Web site: www.od-consultants.com
