Eminent Referrals

I. GENERAL REFERRALS

With performance (results/outcome) based fees

    Strategy Consulting (engagement teams) - Bain & Company; its results fees are curiously buried at Join Bain on its website. 

    Strategy Executive Coaching - at the risk of immodesty, BridgeS E C. Psychology based Executive Coaching (e.g. leadership, 360⁰ feedback) - Marshall Goldsmith, discussed at II. below.

With standard fees

    Strategy Consulting (engagement teams) - McKinsey & Company, BCG, Monitor and the boutique strategy consultancies.

    Strategy Executive Coaching - those individual executive coaches who have C-level experience.

    Psychology based Executive Coaching* - PDI Ninth House, discussed at "The Four Lords of Coaching - and Coaching R&D" at FAQ.

* In Munich the leading firms with an emphasis on psychology-based coaching for executives include (in alphabetical order): www.coaching-fuerst.com, www.ert-coaching.de, and www.vonschumann-consulting.de.  All have nicely done websites and the principals of the firms also have significant business experience.

II. SPECIFIC REFERRALS 

1) Marshall Goldsmith, leadership coaching                                                 2) English Communication Tools, English and presentation training              3) Jeffery Gitomer, sales training                                                                   4) MacLabor, Apple computer services. 

    They all provide eminent value, frequently far superior to that of their direct competitors. BridgeS E C has no cross-marketing arrangement with any of them. They have come to appear on our web site the old fashioned way: they earned it.

    Nevertheless, no one is perfect (and certainly not Bridges, cf. "Losses" at Testimonials). Hence under drawbacks we also add what we perceive to be some of their weaknesses. Note that excessive strength can easily become a weakness. As Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970, the U.S. psychologist renowned for the Hierarchy of Needs) noted, "He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail."

    In addition to the four referrals made below, recommendations are made at "Negotiation Strategy" at Expertise and in the Papers “Offshoring DP/IT Projects" and "A Web Site Primer."

1) Marshall Goldsmith, PhD - Behavioral & Leadership Coaching, primarily U.S. www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com                     

The CEO desires leadership or lifestyle coaching.

The free access to his multimedia library of coaching materials is useful for you.

Comments: Marshall Goldsmith has a doctorate in Mathematics and began his career with a rocket start as a 29 year old Dean. He has coached 80 of the Fortune 500 CEOs and authored 22 or 23 books. He offers on his library website extensive coaching material, which one may download at no charge. He recently wrote the business best seller What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. The lead reviews on Amazon.com of it are noteworthy.   The favorable review gives an excellent summary of the book and the critical review, entitled "Doctor, cure thyself," makes some highly interesting points.

    Internationally Marshall Goldsmith is primarily active in public speaking. He made an excellent, hour-long coaching presentation to kick off the leading@Google series at YouTube. You will not regret having set aside the time to view it.

Marshall Goldsmith bills on the basis of results! He is paid only if the executive improves in the eyes of those who work with him, determined by a system to measure specific behavioral changes.

Drawbacks: Even though he coaches up to eight CEOs at a time, he is still booked up at least six months in advance. Therefore his eagerness to coach CEOs outside of the U.S. is presumably limited.

Bottom line: the master of leadership coaching.

2) English Communication Tools - Business English and Presentation (Eng. & Ger.) Training www.english-communication-tools.com

C level officers (CEO, CFO, CIO, COO) board members, partners) wish to polish their English skills in general, or their presentation skills (in English or German) in particular.

The company wishes advisory services on energy issues.

Comments:  Christopher and Denise Magyar are professional English trainers and master public speakers (in both English and German). Both have served as district governors of Toastmasters, a public speaking organization founded in 1924 that now has 12,500 clubs and 250,000 members in 108 countries. They also have special expertise in the energy sector, with experience ranging from research on behalf of coal and gas based firms to projects for a nuclear energy conglomerate. Their website exhibits the virtue of simplicity and attractively and concisely presents their services.

Drawbacks: Constant public speaking engagements and their commitment to Toastmasters detract from the time they have available for training.

The Bottom Line: The Munich masters of public speaking. 

3) Jeffrey Gitomer - Sales Training, U.S. (& London), Sales Caffeine E-zine and his CRM "Ace of Sales," cf.  www.gitomer.com and www.trainone.com

Comments:   Jeffery Gitomer`s most important sales mantra (he has more than one) is: "First, provide value." He is the source for that part of the Bridges Ethic statement. He is the author of a series of short, snappy sales books, some of which are reviewed in the Gitomer subpage below.

    First go to his website, which is admittedly a little loud (the newsletter is quieter). Click on his "sales rant" while you are at it. Then subscribe to his weekly sales E-zine (electronic newsletter) Sales Caffeine. Unsubscribing is easy enough should it not be for you.

    Second, consider his "Train One" program (www.trainone.com) as a double benefit for your sales force: improves their sales skills and their English and also his CRM "Ace of Sales."

Drawbacks: In 2000 Jeffery Gitomer went public on a conflict with U.S. Airways. The conflict became so severe that he was denied flying privileges for 11 months. Eventually he apologized with real style, and was reinstated. Still, reading between the lines, one suspects that for his employees, Jeffrey Gitomer is a baron running his fiefdom. He is certainly a competent and very personable one who is hugely successful -- and with a correspondingly sized ego.

    Surprisingly, he is against sales systems. He has even made disparaging comments about the SPIN sales technique. (SPIN and Solution Selling are generally viewed as the methods of choice for enterprise sales. SPIN is discussed at the subpage "Tools & Techniques" at Services.) This attitude seems contradictory as he does, in fact, market a sales system himself, "Train One."

    Also he suffers somewhat from the "Master Carpenter" syndrome: "He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail." (Abraham Maslow, 1908-1970). Gitomer reaches for his hammer, in his case, the sales sledgehammer, to respond to just about any situation. As 99% of the time a mighty blow for a surge in sales would be welcomed by one and all, this weakness is not too onerous.

Bottom line - the master U.S. sales trainer -- who also regularly holds seminars in London and sometimes on the continent as well.

4) Maclabor GmbH - Apple computer services, Munich, Germany www.maclabor.com

You use Apple computers.

Comment: The president and founder of the firm, Hans Peter Kroll, a Dipl. (i.e. M.Sc.) engineer, is the embodiment of "First provide value." He thrives on technical challenges, happily repairing computers and recovering data where other firms have categorically stated the task was hopeless.

Drawbacks: He is more interested in technical challenges than in building his firm. Therefore he is continually faced with the dilemma more common among start-up entrepreneurs than established businesses, viz. rushing from one fire ("burning Apple") to another.

Bottom line: an extraordinary Apple expert, the Munich master, with very fair pricing and a real desire to help.

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