Are you the person c-Suite calls when they’re in trouble?

The General Manager in Product and Transformation

who always gets asked to turn around multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment programs and get products out to market faster?

Are you feeling the pressure?

  • You’re known as the person who gets sh*t done, that’s how you got this job in the first place, but your reputation is now on the line

  • The pressure to deliver is enormous, even though others before you have been allowed to fail without consequences

  • You spend your days tirelessly influencing and negotiating with stakeholders whose views, demands, and agendas are worlds apart

  • C-Suite is imposing yet another restructure onto the team, because they think it will help them go faster, but it’s a distraction from the work

Does it feel like everything, and everyone, is out of control?

  • You’re working long days, nights, and weekends to keep things progressing; but for the first time ever, you’re not sure you can fix it

  • You’re feeling underappreciated and alone in this challenge; like you’re the only one doing the work to hold everything, and everyone, together

  • Your health is suffering because you’re exercising less, eating foods of convenience, not taking breaks, not sleeping, and always sick

  • You’re neglecting your personal relationships since you’re so time poor and low on energy; family and friends are getting worried about you

Your big problem

The team you inherited have burnt through a lot of money over the past few years, and they have not yet delivered anything close to the product that the CEO promised to the board

Is not your fault

Research from McKinsey, BCG and Bain consistently tell us that over 70% of transformations fail because of reasons such as cost overruns, missed deadlines, and unmet expectations. That is, the products we’re building out of these transformations are just not doing the jobs that they are supposed to do. Only 26% of transformations create value, and a stunningly small 12% of transformations achieve their original ambition

You’re just here to clean it up

We can be forgiven for thinking that everything runs smoothly for the first few years and then all of a sudden a catastrophic event happens in the final year that causes the transformation to fail. This perception exists because it’s at this point that C-Suite realise the gravity of the situation. They start giving the program a lot of attention and bring in a fixer - you - to get things back on track. But in reality, the transformation and the products you’ve inherited have been failing since day one, and the mistakes have been silently compounding ever since

You’ve done it before

You know the fastest path to success is to sort out the people and the politics

But it feels more lonely and difficult this time around

You’ve never been taught in your entire product and transformation career how to deal with the people and the politics. It’s all been self taught as you’ve worked each job

But you just don’t have the time or the energy to figure it out on your own again for this job and this situation

You don’t have to do this alone

I’ve been where you are

Hello, I’m Lai-Ling

I wrote my first business cheque at the age of eight and I’ve gone on to have three careers in three decades, supported by three degrees from three universities

My first decade of work was spent negotiating with board members and operating customer and community focused hospitality businesses

My second decade of work was spent looking after complex financial products and building trading systems during the Global Financial Crisis. I was the person they threw at the multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment programs that needed to be turned around. I dealt with the people and the politics that stopped them from delivering their products out to market, achieving their cost out strategies, and getting revenue in the door - quite important when your well established global peers were disappearing overnight

My third decade of work was spent keeping big businesses competitive by transforming their operating models, ways of working, workforce, and leadership capabilities

Today, all of this experience comes together to benefit you

Let’s work together

Be the 30% that succeeds
Be the 26% that creates value
Be the 12% that achieves their ambition

Our services are designed with people like you, for people like you

Do this practical 2-day workshop if you want to influence a decision maker, influence a change in customer or colleague behaviour, or influence someone to buy something from you

Work directly with Lai-Ling to problem solve for your specific situation in a confidential setting. This is for you if you want to develop and execute on a game plan that is 100% tailored to you

Work with Lai-Ling to build a customised leadership development experience for the product and transformation leaders in your company. This is for you if you want to learn about people and politics

Wouldn’t life be wonderful if everything fit into nice, neat boxes? If you want to work together but need something different to what’s outlined in our services above, we might be able to work something out