We’re 30 years old this year.
Thinking back to where Shelly and I got started in 1996, in our garage, sharing a cell phone and a laptop, I never thought I’d be able to say that. When you’re young and keen on changing the world for the better through building a unique kind of consulting business, longevity doesn’t really enter your thought process. The promise does.
Shelly and I had both had previous experience with other kinds of consulting approaches. These techniques mostly focused on the consultant, of course, and tend to feature in Dilbert cartoons. We knew, however, that the biggest wins were always generated when consulting assignments were focused 100% on the client, helping them solve their own problems and becoming more self-reliant through the process.
Ethically, that’s the right thing to do, too, of course. So, we built an approach that might be described as ‘bottom-up’ leadership.
It is a self-evident truth that, in any organization, the people who know the most about what the client needs and how to help the organization serve those needs are those who are closest to the client or customer: the frontline staff. Sadly, in many ‘top-down’ driven organizations, the last person who will be asked for advice about how to serve the client better is the frontline staff or, indeed, the client themselves.
To mobilize that largely untapped potential, we developed a simple methodology that turned the organization on its head and facilitated highly effective, team-based, frontline design teams to help our clients resolve a myriad of tricky issues: from the strategic to the tactical. Empowered by visionary senior leadership teams, we saw these cross-functional front-line teams, some of which included clients/customers, achieve breakthrough results in improving turnaround times, and quality, cost and customer service performance.
Concurrently, these teams also became ‘leader generators’ where very junior people, who were previously largely excluded from these big projects, emerged as confident, capable leaders implementing complex business improvements in concert with their peers and clients. Some went on to occupy very senior positions within their organizations because of their learnings from these assignments.
Through trial and error, some would call it living our learning, we discovered that most frontline workers would happily engage in these assignments and do very well. The key success factor, however, was clearly the leadership level culture. When senior leaders were aligned with our belief system and trusted and empowered their staff to develop solutions on behalf of the business and their clients, we could generally expect to succeed. A culture of safety and trust that promotes engagement, learning, and experimentation needs to be nurtured by visionary senior leaders. Where the opposite was the case, results could be disappointing. So we just became better at screening clients into the ‘Berlineaton Way’, as one client christened our approach.
Many of our clients told us that this unexpected people-development benefit was the most valued outcome of our projects, which clearly differentiated us from other consulting companies. As a result, they happily referred us to others and invited us back to help with other projects.
Over time, to respond to client needs and diversify our business, we branched out into a wide range of sectors and developed additional services. We’ve engaged with over 30,000 people across Canada in hundreds of different public sector ministries/departments, private sector businesses, not-for-profit enterprises and foundations, and Independent Schools. However, underpinning all our engagements was our brand promise, reflected below:
Our Vision:
- A world of courageous endeavours.
Our Mission:
- We serve alongside visionary, empowering leaders committed to delivering stronger futures for their organizations.
Our Approach:
- We start where people are at
- We manage change by building on success
- We focus on improving performance
- We promote self-reliance
So, at the 30-year mark, I wondered if we practiced what we preached.
As we do with our clients, I engaged our newest employees, our frontline staff, and asked them to tell me what their experience has been like working here. Over the past year to 18 months, they have been involved in several assignments in a wide variety of sectors and communities. Here are some of their observations:
- We build deep, non-transactional relationships with our clients by listening first, asking the right questions, and equipping them with the tools and confidence to solve their own challenges. Our role is not to prescribe answers, but to enable stronger leadership and better decision-making.
- Our goal is for clients to walk away not just with a finished project, but with stronger teams, more confidence, and a real sense of ownership over the results. Independence from consultants is a measure of success, not a risk.
- We share our tools, facilitation methods, and ways of working openly. Clients value this openness because it shows we are focused on helping them succeed, not protecting ideas or expertise.
- The trust Berlineaton places in its people is visible to our clients. We are empowered to lead conversations, hold complex rooms, and engage credibly with experienced leaders because our senior leadership entrusts us with real responsibility.
- We work with people across many sectors, communities, and generations. This helps us understand different perspectives and adapt our approach to meet people where they are.
- Clients trust us because they feel heard and respected. They choose to work with us again because our work helps them lead and solve problems long after our engagement ends.
- Few roles give you the chance to sit in a boardroom with CEOs and senior leaders one day and then lead thoughtful conversations with students at an Independent School the next. That range of experience is challenging, meaningful, and rare.
You might note that a word that shows up a lot in that bulleted list is ‘trust’.
From the 30-year milestone, looking back to where we started, I’d call that ‘mission accomplished’.
Onwards and upwards!