Our Approach

Consulting means different things to different people. For us, it is about being a trusted advisor that helps clients chart and walk the path to sustained success. We are not a solution looking for a problem—we see every leader and situation as unique. Our custom-tailored consulting engagements are based on deep listening and decades of experience across industries and issues. The solutions we craft are practical, realistic, and highly effective. We pride ourselves on having a seasoned and multidisciplinary team that can thoughtfully guide, support, and motivate leaders and organizations to achieve levels of performance they never have before.

What does a typical engagement look like?

While we customize and tailor our approach for each client, the work often follows a natural pattern.

step-1

Diagnostic Phase

Most clients come to us with a specific need or issue they want assistance with or expertise on. In many cases, our work often starts with a thoughtful and expertly-conducted assessment. Often this entails administering proprietary surveys, conducting interviews, and reviewing existing data and materials. This allows us to quickly and accurately get a sense of what we're dealing with, which is often different from the client's original diagnosis. Because we work across industries and issues, we're adept at identifying patterns, roadblocks, and seen and unseen tensions.

step-2

Design Phase

Once we understand the client and what they need, we design a process specifically tailored around the issues and insights we have identified together. The design of our work ranges widely, including everything from working with your customers to come up with collaborative solutions, to engaging a broad-based group of leaders in a change effort, to working directly with the C-team to develop a strategic roadmap.

step-3

Delivery Phase

With a sound assessment and design in place, we move to the delivery phase. Our work often involves creative problem-solving sessions expertly facilitated with all key parties. Our unique blend of experiential facilitation and expert counsel quickly helps clients shift their view of the problem and their relationship to it. From this process, new and powerful solutions emerge. Ongoing relationships take many forms. We often play the role of "retained advisor" that works closely with our clients for many years and other times our work is focused on major initiatives or projects.

Full Stack Approach

Trium offers authentic, integrated, transformational work, delivered by experienced consultants, and crafted to the specific needs of the client situation whether it is a full scale effort or a point solution. We refer to our full stack approach as a way of addressing the inter-dependencies and relationships across all components of an organization’s operating system.

A clear and shared purpose creates a unifying “why” and guides the energy of the organization toward meaning and impact. The world’s best organizations are united and motivated by a commitment to a clear purpose. When the why is clear, people will bring their best selves to work. For purpose to be meaningful, it must be developed collaboratively, shared widely, and constantly revisited as an organizational touchstone. We work with leaders, teams, and organizations to articulate a reason for being that matters.

What we do. Sometimes we start with a broad analysis of the “macro environment” to help our clients better understand the playing field and the unmet needs of key constituents. With that perspective in place, we often facilitate clarifying dialogues that lead to a new or revitalized purpose for the organization. Often this results in a tighter connection between strategic priorities and purpose so that there is a clear bridge between the why and the how.

A clear strategy sets the priorities for an organization, defines how and where to compete, and most importantly, how to win. It’s a focal point for action, galvanizing leaders and functions. When the strategy is clear, execution follows and energy is unleashed. When the strategy is full of mixed messages or divergent intentions, execution is compromised. Strategies must be co-created with the people tasked to execute them, otherwise they're never fully understood nor brought to life. Our approach isn't about putting it in a PowerPoint deck. We help leaders develop, clarify, and communicate strategy by engaging their teams in meaningful dialogues to create sustained alignment and a commitment to getting the job done brilliantly.

What we do: Work on strategy and execution can take many forms. Often, our work starts with clarifying a strategic vision for an organization and building a roadmap to achieve that vision. With the roadmap in place, we work with clients to define critical execution priorities and initiatives, shape those initiatives, and catalyze meaningful and measurable action around them. Often, this work leads to the creation of dashboards or scorecards, supported by OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Once all of those pieces are in place, we also help our clients create a compelling strategic narrative that can be communicated to the organization at large so that strategic and execution priorities are supported by shared context and understanding.

Putting together an organization isn’t simply about building an org chart and clarifying roles and responsibilities. It’s about building an integrated operating system that allows the pieces of the organization to work together for maximum benefit. It’s about ensuring that everyone understands where they fit, what’s expected of them, and what they can count on from others. It’s about clear handoffs and crisp accountabilities. It’s about putting together a shared mental model for how everything fits together and enables people to focus their energy to ensure that the sum is greater than the parts.

What we do: We partner with our clients to design organizational structures and processes that enable operation at pace and scale. Whether it's supporting a fundamental reorganization of the business, building a new governance model, or simply clarifying decision rights, our work on structure and process is always about supporting the execution of the strategy and making sure that roles, accountabilities, and handoffs always support efficient and effective decision making. A key distinction of our work often involves building skills around the language of commitment so that people have a sharper sense of what accountability really means.

Teams and their leaders are the lifeblood of any organization. Increasingly, leadership is not simply about setting direction & priorities; it's about enabling change and unleashing potential. Great leaders understand and master practices that inspire collaboration, connection, and innovation. Teamwork isn’t something that happens by accident. The best teams set crystal clear intentions, have rules and rituals for working together, and practice – they’re always working on becoming better together. Trium has deep expertise in supporting leaders at all organizational levels, from the C-team to emerging leaders, to help them execute more effectively.

What we do: For us, team building is not about rope courses or going out for beers, it’s about helping leaders understand the neuroscience, mindsets, and practices necessary for high performance. All of this is done in the context of real, collaborative business problem solving. Whether it’s people coming together for a C-team offsite, top 100 meeting, or leadership development program, our work with teams and leaders always results in higher quality dialogue, deeper levels of trust and cohesion, and vastly improved performance.

Culture may be the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. A powerful culture is difficult to build and even harder to replicate. Culture is much more than a set of values, it’s about enabling a way of being that creates a sense of connection and authenticity. It's about enabling teams to come together and behave in ways that ultimately speak to the common purpose of the organization. Culture is not fixed. It's not tops down. It’s something that's defined and continually recreated to meet the goals of the system and the realities of the business. Culture change is one of the most prevalent yet least understood disciplines in business. Trium has more than 20 years of experience helping our clients build meaningful and strong cultures by precisely defining the culture needed to execute any given strategy and equipping the leaders with the values, tools, practices, definitions and distinctions needed to effectively and intentionally shape and build distinctive cultures.

What we do: We’ve helped our clients design system level culture change and put in place all of the programs and practices that enable it. Often we start by defining a cultural narrative that clearly answers the question of how we need to behave to execute our strategy. Then we cascade the narrative through the organization often in partnership with key leaders and influencers. We also believe that culture change must be closely connected to the “vertical development” of key leaders so that they have the skills and mindsets needed to live the aspirational culture. Our work on culture is often connected to broader change efforts. In all cases, it helps people to understand who they’re trying to be and the behaviors their trying to embrace in their organization.

Case Studies Testimonials

A Full Stack approach to consulting enables:

Speed, Efficiency, Impact

We address multiple issues simultaneously, avoiding solutions that run into walls because they are not holistic.

Innovative, Creative, Workable Solutions

We work on both the presenting challenge and the underlying issues that led to the challenge, allowing for more dynamic paths to resolution.

Genuine Buy-In and Commitment

Our approach is designed to be inclusive and engages key stakeholders right from the start.

David Doctorow
CEO, Move, Inc.

“In my work with Trium, I've been struck by the unique blend of understanding and depth that comes from study, data and facts, with tremendous practicality.” Watch Video

If you’re ready to have an honest conversation about the gap between where you are and where you could be, let’s talk.

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