As our consulting engagements always have been international, our clients – Fortune 500 companies, global NGOs, governments – agree it does not matter whether I base from Lausanne or New York.  I am delighted that my fascinating work with them is boundary-less.  While beCause Global Consulting continues to provide a spectrum of services – design strategic action plans; create multi-sector alliances; provide executive coaching; integrate corporate social responsibility; improve organizational and governance structures; etc. – our particularly unique specialty is to help clients develop and execute effective stakeholder engagement processes that directly impact achieving their goals.  You can hear my most recent interview on Radio Frontier, Geneva, about our pioneering work on Strategic Relational Engagement (SRE).  See what clients say about... more

My recent interview with CSR Leaders, Master Bridge Builder Nadine Hack Is In The Lead, focuses on the importance of strategic relational engagement (SRE).   I’ve distilled the essence of SRE from four decades during which I’ve helped clients, taught executive education participants and worked with leaders globally on how to most effectively sustain relationships with all types of stakeholders.  This past month, as I visited with four generations of my family members, I was reminded that the essence of how we initially relate comes from how we were raised.  But, I also observed in my behavior and others that each of us has the freedom to expand our personal narrative and learn how to relate in broader – sometimes healthier – ways. ... more

For decades I have worked with leaders from every sector helping them develop and execute strategies to better engage myriad stakeholders in order to achieve goals.  In the past decade, the explosion of social media has increased everyone’s inter-dependence and thus this work only has become more important.  So, now I’m asking you to engage in a different way: on social media platforms.  Please post comments on and/or links to my on-line articles, including two published by Huffington Post: Improving Stakeholder Engagement Increases Productivity, Profit and Sustainability (SRE); Engagement Leadership and Enhanced Relationships Fundamental to Sustaining Effective Business (EL); one published on THAP, The New Rules of Social Engagement and a series published on ReWiring Business.  I’m interested in your thoughts... more

This past month I’ve dedicated several hours each week to become more engaged on social media platforms.  For decades I’ve guided clients on how to engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders.  Since Sept 2010, as Executive-in-Residence at IMD, I’ve taught participants in executive education programs comparable skills and written articles about it.  As I’ve always focused on the importance of connectedness and how to achieve it, I felt the need to spread my wings in this time of social networks and, as with all else of value, learning is in doing.  Just as I’ve “met” and now actively engage with interesting people since I’ve been on Twitter, I am discovering a whole new community on XeeMe and I am... more

When I was about 20 years old I spent a contemplative day with a friend who told me later that the entire day I’d said three words, “life, death, friend.”  Four decades later the significance of those words still sticks with me.  I shared them recently with the same friend who had just emerged from a coma after a serious bicycle accident and went through a remarkable recovery resuming his teaching.   I now add one word: family.  I think those four words pretty much sum up everything of importance, perhaps with “empathy” thrown in for good measure.  Just last week, another friend, John Payton, President of NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a giant in human rights law, died unexpectedly.  With... more

During February among many wonderful IMD executive education programs I worked with Bill Fischer, IMD Innovation Management Professor and Idea Hunter maestro assisting executives examine and refine plans for their future.  Next week with IMD Finance Professor Arturo Bris during IMD’s Advanced Strategic Management program we’ll help other global executives tackle their challenges.  We engage with participants before, during and after these on-site programs and, I continue to write about the strategic value of engaging stakeholders with my latest series published by ReWiring Business.  Share what you have found to be effective and/or challenging in engaging stakeholders.

After visiting my family back in Switzerland to welcome in 2012.  Look forward to ongoing work at IMD with leaders from around the world.  Will continue to focus on how to effectively engage stakeholders.  2011 filled with dramatic change like seismic shifts in tectonic plates in many places – literally (Tsunami, Fukushima; earthquake, Philippines; volcano, Iceland) and figurately (Arab Spring; Eurozone; Occupy Movement).  Yet, not enough change in other areas (Durbin, climate change; Uzbekistan, human rights). Post comments about what you think was important in 2011 and/or will be vital for 2012.

We have been surrounded by a circle of family and friends from the moment my dad had a stroke, through his death, funeral and in the days we’ve been receiving guests since.  Each night members of our extended circle of family and friends have prepared beautiful dinners – particularly special ones for Rosh Hashana and Shabbat – and we’ve been joined by anywhere from 30 to over 100 family and friends to eat these meals and share stories.  One night my mom asked is it wrong to say we just had a lovely evening?  I told her, no, though we are mourning dad being gone – a grief that will continue to hit us in waves – we are blessed to be enclosed in such... more

The best strategic plans and/or state-of-the-art technologies are only as good as the people who actually execute them. Long-established research shows that people yearn most powerfully for human connections. More recent scientific studies using mathematics show that an ability to cooperate is the secret of humanity’s success. So, when we help our leaders and teams know how to engage with a broad stakeholder spectrum we give them tools to reach their greatest potential. Neuroscience research supports that deep relationships with stakeholders are vital to success. Studies show that the combined levels of engagement of your employees and customers have an outsized effect on your performance. Thus, creating and sustaining SRE – multi-directional, emotionally deep, profoundly trusting relationships that unleash people’s... more