Boldly Go Clients Have
- Accelerated technical and operational goals
- Re-designed business processes for greater productivity
- Increased collaboration and trust
- Maintained momentum using plans, structure, and shared vocabulary
The new VP of a leading design center in San Jose CA brought me in to help turn around a 300-person engineering team that was missing schedules and delivering worst-in-class product performance. His department heads were strong in their fields, and individual engineers were working very hard. All of them were demoralized at having lost credibility with their customers.
We designed a process that allowed the management team to step back from the day-to-day firefighting and take a critical look at the big picture. Together, they extracted clear priorities for correcting problems at the design center and developed action plans that let everyone see the part he or she would play in achieving the key deliverables. Working as a team, these managers took ownership and coordinated the necessary changes.
Six months later the division’s products were recognized as best in class and were being designed into every one of their customers’ new products. They earned their victory by learning to work together in a new way, and they acquired powerful tools that have kept their design center at the forefront of the industry three years later.
“I can’t get ‘em to go home!” That’s what I told Colleen six months after I brought her in to help me implement a leadership transition. She’s helped us immensely. Specifically, we restructured the org chart, replaced some people and promoted others, straightened out an expensive software system, and started reporting KPI’s. Right away, we saw greater morale and productivity.
Colleen invested the time to understand what made our company tick and helped me build capability at all levels. One year later, we tripled a key performance indicator. We are in a much better position to navigate ahead, and I’m confident my company will be able to grow even faster in sales. I am grateful to Colleen for helping us make the right changes at the right time.
Charlie Pigeon
CEO, Tige Boats, Inc.
My team was having an issue responding to the dynamic changes in unit forecast and mix in a timely way. This resulted in slow response to customers and loss of revenue opportunity, and interfered with our cost reduction efforts. We determined that our business process needed to be revised to capture the opportunity to add accuracy and speed and to make tradeoffs visible for both revenue and cost.
Colleen brought together two dozen people from three countries for a business process mapping offsite. Some of the key players, who had worked together for 10 years, were meeting face to face for the first time.
Using giant sheets of paper taped to the wall, they teamed up to start mapping two key cross-functional business processes. They also formed five project teams to resolve data availability and other requirements of the redesigned business processes.
A few months later I ran into Colleen at the airport and told her, “That project you did saved us 30X last quarter compared to our investment in your workshop.” It also provided a foundation for the future.
Colleen brought focus to a key opportunity for my team and put in place the structure and process for ongoing collaboration and accountability. Her insights and leadership resulted in a step function change for the organization.
Dave Rauch
Senior Operations VP at a global manufacturing company
Colleen Cayes is a premier executive consultant who drives real, sustained change in the way teams, functions, divisions and companies operate. I have had the pleasure of working with Colleen on many projects that would not have been successful without her leadership and direct guidance. She brings a wealth of business tools and hands on experience from her years as an executive in various Silicon Valley high tech firms. She is direct, professional, process oriented, detailed, extremely well organized and diligent in her follow-up.
M.K, VP Component Quality
Major Silicon Valley Hardware Manufacturer
What Colleen brought to our thought process was organization, organization, organization. She was very astute in helping us see where we were putting the cart before the horse. She helped us go back and assemble the cart’s pieces first. As a result, we’ve accomplished two major goals—providing for the non-profit entity plus being a financially viable business opportunity.
K. Pigeon, Executive Director
Therapeutic Riding Program at the Sagebrush Equine Training Center for the Handicapped, Sun Valley, Idaho
I have been witness more than once to the immediate impact Colleen brings to a situation. She is a personal force who jumps into the real-life fray with her clients, galvanizing them to conquer high-stakes challenges and injecting high-octane organization for sooner-rather-than-later success. Her clients avoid massive investment in time- consuming organizational re-design schemes and expensive training programs that take people away from their work.
J. Miller, Sr Manager
Consilium Group LLC
