About Bridges & Our USP

    The firm has its European location in Munich, Germany and was founded by The Net Company, Inc., U.S. We help our clients compete in turbulent times. The three components of our strategy coaching are its formation, tactics and execution, respectively “what to do, where", "who does it, how" and "doing it, making it happen." (cf.BrPPT)

Intense C-Suite Executives with No Time 

    For a brief overview of the firm´s approach for those who prefer slides, click on BrPPT.  Bridges PPT.  (If a presentation does not open with one browser, e.g. Explorer, try another, such as Firefox or Safari.) The foundation of our services is the Bridges Q-Methodology, which is explained on its subage.  Alternatively:

 a) Click on USP - 1, unusual selling proposition, to find out about our client selection and results based fees, one page.

b) Go to "Mission" on the horizontal bar and read the first part of it, less than one page, at which point you will see a second message for you, signposted red.

Diligent Executives with Some Time

    For a complete table of contents, click on "site map," the second of the tiny symbols at the very top of the web page on the right. (The other symbols are for "homepage," "print," and "RSS feeds."   A summary table of contents is given below. 

About this Website 

Website formation and ownership

     The website is being updated, especially the sections Services and Papers. The author, artist, cartoonist or photographer is identified whenever known. Please advise, respectively, Bridges or Gayan Web Design of any errors of commission or omission.¹ Bridges does not use copy protected pdf files. Within reason² feel free to use content from this website. We only ask you properly to cite Bridges and, as applicable, the original copyright holder, and also not to change the material. "Reason" is defined in footnote 2 below. 

    Visitors to websites often stumble around them because there is no plan to lead them through the website or any call to action. Confusing can be even a small website, such as this one (ca. 140 webpages with 400 pages of content versus the million plus pages of some large sites). Hence a website guide is provided below, after which there is a Website "Key Points" Table of Contents and a concluding note about Information Overload. We suggest these perusal steps: 

(1) Read below about our USP, click on to Why Bridges and also read our concise Mission, Vision and Ethic subpage.

(2) Scan FAQs, Expertise and Papers, pausing to read whatever interests you such as “How to Select a Coach” (at FAQs).

(3) Examine  Who We Are and glance over the Wins and Losses at Testimony. 

    Now proceed to two action steps:

(1) Fill in the contact information on the Strategy Questionnaire, or call for an appointment!

(2)  Reflect on who else could be interested in Bridges -- and direct them to our website!

A Website "Key Points" Table of Contents & Summary

The Bridges USP

    What sets us apart from our competitors is our emphasis on measurable results, on the basis of which we bill, and our accepting only one client per industry.

-- Results based fees --

    The majority of our fees, frequently as much as 80%, is contingent on success. Fees may entail a percentage of revenues earned or of savings realized. They may be paid directly or satisfied with equity, stock appreciation rights, or a seat on the board, preferably when board members are remunerated with stock. Billing is typically on an engagement basis, although an hourly fee (e.g. on a 40/60 contingency basis) may also be arranged. Who defines the success metrics? The client.

-- One client per industry --

    Trust is imperative for coaching, earned over a period of time and synallagmatic.* Now would you want to deliberate strategic decisions with a firm that would turn around to work for your fiercest competitor? Of course not. Therefore Bridges will not accept an engagement from a second company in the same industry unless its former (or existing) first client gives explicit permission.

* Synallagmatic: imposing reciprocal obligations and characterized by mutual rights and duties (and implicit to quanxi, the basis for negotiating and running enterprises in China).

The Strategy Star Audit

    This is a ninety minute one-on-one meeting at the Bridges offices – or a telephone (also conference) call – where you ask -- and are asked --  questions related to your company´s strategy. It is explained at Services, and can be conducted in English or German:  Die Unterredung über die strategische Unternehmungsführung bzw. auch über die (internationale) Vertriebstaktik kann entweder in der englischen oder der deutschen Sprache geführt werden.

Client Selection

    At Bridges there is a second dimension to USP, Unusual Selling Proposition. This second "USP" is an initial Uncomplicated Screening Process as presented in the Strategy Questionnaire. Because of our results based billing and one client commitment, we are selective about engagements. Among the clients most likely to be a good fit for Bridges are EBOs for multinationals and internationally oriented start-ups. The drive is not merely to seize, but to create opportunities. The CEO or director is willing to change the rules -- or the playing field --of the game; switch to --or invent -- a new game.

Mission, Vision and Ethic

    These are concisely treated on the subpage of that name. We intend their being taken seriously.

Eminent Referals

    If we do not think we can help you, we will tell you so, and try to refer you to someone who can. The common denominator to these referrals is a passion to deliver value, driven by creativity and high energy.

Strategy Metaphor

    Strategy metaphors range from the ant and the grasshopper (Aesop, Greece, ca. 600 BC) to the cash cow and the dog (Bruce Henderson, BCG, 1970) and the hedgehog and the fox (Jim Collins, Good to Great, 2001). To hold your interest, to make the -- sometimes demanding -- content more memorable, and to have some fun with the writing, this website contains quite a metaphorical menagerie.     

    Elephants slip and slide across an icy bridge. Underneath it are a leaping goldfish and the circling fins of, what, friendly dolphins or menacing sharks? Eventually the bridge is crossed by, bit by bit, by a veritable Noah´s Ark ensemble. Besides elephants, travelers include a lion, cow, dog and owl, accompanied by a brightly colored insect contingent of ants, bees, butterflies, cicadas and dragonflies on the one hand; gloomy, grey cockroaches, flies and spiders on the other. 

©*

Information Overload, a note to busy people, CEOs, C-level officers, senior partners, entrepreneurs, indeed to anyone who finds this website a trifle long and somewhat difficult to navigate.

    Walking into the million-volume library of a world-class research university, the freshman´s eyes roll back in his head. He staggers, stumbles, and crumples to the floor. The paramedics are called and he is rushed to the hospital. "Information overload" comment the grizzled graduate students. "Some of the victims never do come out of the coma." 

    Graduates of such elite universities are able to walk into a bookstore and stare at an offering of three or four hundred business titles without even getting dizzy. A few can even search for books and information without ill effects on Amazon. com (1,748,230 titles), Wikipedia (10,000,000 + articles in ten languages, a third of them in English), or even on www.abebooks.com (140 million books) -- as of 2010, with all three sites growing steadily.

    Professors advise that the open sesame to such research is to delimit the search parameters to manageable proportions. Bridges advises: "Be selective!" Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), for example, wrote up his research in psychology in a style charitably described as leaden. Yet his work is important. To review it thoroughly, you need to go through the 53,735 pages he published in his lifetime. That is the equivalent of one hundred 530-page textbooks. Of course one would not attempt to do that in one sitting. Similarly, one would not attempt to go through the 1000+ page websites of a major management consultancy such as Bain, BCG or McKinsey, in one sitting.

    In comparison with such efforts, the Bridges website is modest. It admittedly exhibits "a perilous penchant for a prolix plethora of paginal subordination with a proclivity towards sesquipedalian logodaedaly."* Nonetheless, the website is intended as a resource. It seeks to provide useful, and also entertaining, content according to the guideline of "First, provide value."

* In normal English the sentence is: "We admit that the Bridges website has a dangerous inclination for too many wordy subpages. These show a tendency to coin long new words arbitrarily."

Hidden Agenda

     Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613 -1680, not to be confused with his contemporary of the same name, a Catholic Cardinal, also French) once remarked that the wish to appear clever often hindered one from becoming so. This aphorism is worthy of note whenever there is an agenda of self-promotion (true of just about any web site). It may be rendered in German as: „Der Wunsch, klug zu erscheinen, verhindert oft, es zu werden.“

    Successful Germans, such as CEO´s, tend to view askance self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. Therefore a private aside is addressed to them here: Die Verlockung zu renommieren mit dem bißchen Wissen, das man hat, ist häufig für den Laien unwiderstehlich. Es ist uns etwa peinlich, dieser Versuchung zu erlegen - eigentlich dauernd, was auch manchen Schreiberlingen widerfährt.

 Suggestions 

    We welcome suggestions on how to improve content and make the site easier to navigate, more "user friendly." A German version of the website will be begun in the course of 2012, 2013 (2020?). Please comment at Feedforword under Contact. (The term was coined by Marshall Goldsmith, cf. Eminent Referrals.)

 
1 Bridges prohibits the posting of any information that infringes or violates copyrights or intellectual property rights in accordance with the stipulations of Gayan Web Design. If you believe that any material on this website infringes your rights, you should notify for written content Bridges and for images Gayan Web Design of your claim in accordance with the DMCA procedure explained at: Contact, Imprimatur/Impressum, Terms of Use Boilerplate, Paragraph "Infringement Notices and Takedown." The relationship between Bridges and Gayan is clarified at Contact under "Gayan Web Design.

"2 Within reason usage: You are not allowed to sell the material, no matter how you repackage it! Do not make any changes without the express written permission of Bridges. That means you should be sure to include any (third party) copyrights the material incorporates. The indication of sources should be clearly visible.

Note that the images are licensed and should not be downloaded other than for personal use. The License Agreements prohibit other usage, including republication, and reproduction. A number of the license agreements are GFD-GNU ones. Unfortunately these have extremely restrictive print conditions. For details, please see Permissions at Contact. 

                                         * © Allan Baxter, photdisc, Getty Images; Gyan Web Design (2009, 2010)