66% of business strategies never get implemented mainly because of a lack of real alignment between the strategy, internal policies, organizational culture and leadership. To improve business performance an integrated approach is needed. In order to help my clients meet their business challenges, I have combined consultancy, training and coaching in novel ways that help organisations achieve better results.
INTERVIEW WITH SKY NEWS
Watch this brief video of my interview with Hellen Dalley from Sky News to find out about my ideas on what good leadership is and how you can develop it.
MY APPROACH
The results
“Douglas is an intrinsic part of the Europcar history of the last twenty years and his presence is still felt. His mixture of intellectual intelligence, practicality and his great sense of humour has contributed to give our organization a clear vision with respect to leadership and the path to follow in order to make our company the undisputed leader of car rentals in Spain”.
Mariano Ballesteros
Director of Human Resources
Europcar
“Doug was an excellent CEO Coach and did a superb job of managing a major cultural change project at RevTech Media. Highly recommended”.
Lachlan Harris
Founder and CEO of RevTech Media, FiftyUP Club & One Big Switch
“Doug McEncroe is a rare blend of talent. Unbelievable insight into leadership development and organizational transformation; senior team alignment; solid change management; and organizational development. In addition to his practitioner skills, I have come to value Doug’s insight, passion for his work, and prowess as an executive coach and facilitator. Highly recommend for executive and senior level work across multiple industries and cultures”.
Keith Caver
Former Director North American Customs Solutions CCL.
Presently, American Practice Leader, Tower Watson
“In Hewlett Packard, Douglas made an excellent contribution. His professionalism and his rigor contributed to the awakening of and advancing in the growth, development and personal satisfaction of all the managers who participated in the Leadership Development Project. Through a process of reflection and interior dialogue oriented towards action, he left his mark on all of them”.
Luis Carlos Collazos
Professor at ICADE, ex-Director of HR at Hewlett Packard and presently Director of HR at Hispasat
“I have known Douglas for nearly two decades. He was the first person in Spain to work with certain instruments and processes that are today very common, for example, 360º Feedback and Coaching. He has been and continues to be a reference point for me in the field of Leadership. I have had the good fortune to work with him on many projects, all of them fun but also very successful”.
Carlos Pelegrín Fernández López
Director of Talent
France Telecom Spain
“In DDI we always focus on improving the business results of our clients. Douglas has worked for us on important projects all over Europe from Geneva to Moscow. His depth of knowledge on leadership and his ability to link leadership development to effective execution of business strategy has been a key asset for us and has added great value to our clients. I highly recommend Douglas for senior executive and senior level work in any sector. Doug is a great partner and excellent faculty and coach”.
Martina Michel
European Head of Consulting Europe , DDI
“Douglas McEncroe has worked with various companies in which I have been Director of Human Resources, AT&T and Telefónica among them. His involvement has been important in Leadership Development projects of a very strategic nature and in projects that implanted 360º Feedback and coaching for senior executives, all achieving very good results which were positive for business. Managers who worked with Douglas highlighted his great professionalism, his commitment to the client and his technical mastery of his profession. Without any doubt I would hire Douglas’s services any time I had a project related to Leadership Development and Change Management, above all in organizations going through profound transformations”.
Plácido Fajardo
Former Human Resources Director
Telefónica and AT&T
“I had the opportunity of working with Douglas and his team at Cisco Systems when I was Director of Human Resources for the Mediterranean Region. His contribution was critical in Leadership Development projects and in Team Development with our Senior Management Team. His ability to combine a coherent methodology with an approach that is both pragmatic and practical for senior managers is very difficult to find in other Leadership Development consultants. I would not hesitate for a minute to use his services and his vast experience at any time I have a challenge related to the development of management capabilities, leadership or change management”.
Luis Massa
Director of Human Resources
AstraZeneca Spain (Formerly of Cisco Systems)
“Douglas McEncroe has worked for Vodafone Spain on various projects of enormous strategic importance for our company:
- Leadership Development Programmes for Heads and Managers;
- Executive Coach on the Management Development Programme One Way;
- Analysis of Senior Managers and Team profiles using Myers-Briggs.
IIn all of these Douglas has demonstrated great professionalism and thorough commitment and innovation and has added enormous value by the way he has contributed to the development of our senior directors and managers. His role was fundamental at a time when the first priority was development of our managers on a project in which more than 500 of our executives took part”.
Pedro Díaz Rodríguez-Valdés
Human Resouces Director
Vodafone Spain
The latest from my blog
Lead like Roosevelt
26 May, 2023
Many people rate Roosevelt the greatest leader of the 20th Century. What made him so great. There are many answers to this questions but let me tell you about just one of them.
In Michael Fullilove’s great book, Rendezvous With Destiny, he tells the story how Roosevelt thought out of the box in order to gain the quality of knowledge he required to take the best decisions.
In 1940 with the fall of France, Roosevelt knew that the survival of Western Civilization was at stake. He needed to know first hand the true situation of Britain left as they were, to fight the Axis powers alone. Could they survive? What was the leadership like? What did they need? What could Roosevelt do.
Public opinion in United States was still against entering the war, so Roosevelt had to find a way to help Britain and to edge the United States slowly towards direct involvement in the war.
An unorthodox approach
Roosevelt didn’t trust his ambassadors or the State Department to get him the information he needed, so he took the very unorthodox route of sending personal envoys in order to get a first hand picture of the situation and to build the relationship with Churchill. He used a personal friend, a businessman, a first world war hero and a political rival to do the job. This drove the State Department and his ambassadors crazy, but Roosevelt did what he had to do to get the results he needed. These envoys never had official titles, and the press never knew the exact nature of their mission, but they got the information Roosevelt needed, helped him build a trusting relationship with Churchill and assisted in getting the Lend Lease legislation through Congress and manage the logistics of getting the material to the British and indeed later on to the Russians. The Germans may never have been turned back without this assistance.
The number one problem of today’s business leaders
I have worked with many CEO’s and hundreds of members of Senior Management Teams. Their main problem is that they never get feedback on their own behaviour, are often not capable of communicating their thoughts to the rank and file and often don’t really know what is really happening in the day to day management of their companies. They are also often unaware of what their people think.
These senior managers often depend on Human Resources to help them learn all of the above, but the problem is that Human Resources, just like Roosevelt’s State Department back in 1940, have their own agenda and their own problems and therefore are not always the best channel for getting the senior managers the information they need.
Think like Roosevelt to get the information you need.
You need to think out of the box, look for other ways of getting the information, here are some ideas:
- Understand what you don’t know.
Be clear about what you need to know.
Find out what your people think about you and about your company.
Identify people who you could use to get information and give information.
Think of every possible source for finding your envoys, friends, retired managers, clients, consultants, suppliers, union representatives and popular opinion leaders.
Give your envoys direct access to you.
Empower them to get to the people they need to talk with.
Control the communication channels between them and you.
Be cautious with who you tell about what you are doing.Leaders need to know what’s going on, they need to build the relationships that will help them get their business strategy executed and, they need to be creative in the way they do this.
Roosevelt and his envoys helped save western civilization. What could you achieve with the right information?
