Industries We Serve

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What We Do
Impact
What We Do
Impact

Industries We Serve

We've developed our approach to manager development by working with managers in many different industries, and along the way, we've learned where our work does the most good.

We've worked with companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, medical research, industrial chemicals, facilities management, consumer products, health care, advertising and publishing. We've also worked with law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms and marketing firms.

Through that varied experience, we've learned a lot about making good managers great. We've also learned a lot about different types of companies, including how they work, what they need and how their people learn best. As a result, we've learned how to fine-tune our approach for managers in different environments.

We've also learned about which types of companies benefit the most from our work, and we've discovered which types of companies we enjoy serving the most. Happily, the types of companies we enjoy working with the most are the very ones that benefit the most from our work.

STEP Industries

STEP is our name for the group of industries that we focus on serving: Science, Technology, Engineering and Professional services.

STEP Industries

Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional services

In recent years, we've done most of our work with companies in the following fields:

  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Biotechnology
  • Medical devices
  • Medical research
  • Chemicals
  • Facilities management

We've focused our work on those fields because our programs and services have proven to be especially helpful for those types of companies. The reasons for that have to do with the unique ways that STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies work.

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WORKSTONE

Character

Relationships

Execution

Motivation

Capability

Strategy

Tools

Techniques

Practices

Purpose

Meaning

Values

Skills

Habits

Expertise

Motivation

Engagement

Excellence

Attention

Intention

Interaction

Energy

Stamina

Resilience

Flexibility

Reflection

Drive

Integrity

Vision

Influence

Communicating

Presenting

Negotiating

Structure

Process

Review

Story

Authenticity

Power

Practice

Repetition

Mastery

Focus

Clarity

Decisiveness

Attitude

Approach

Insight

Leading

Connecting

Coaching

Values-
based
Leadership

Healthy
Business
Management

Practical
Tools and
Techniques

Tailored
Program
Materials

Shared
Learning
Experiences

Peer-group
Support and
Accountability

Inspiring
Followership

Creating
Buy-in

Humility

Confidence

Balance

Sincerity

Community

Trust

Principles

Practices

Performance

Autonomy

Ownership

Responsibility

Profitability

Sustainability

Responsibility

Knowledge

Experience

Understanding

Leadership
Fundamentals

Developing
Tenacity and
Humility

Supporting and
Asserting

Interpersonal
Skills

Succession
Planning and
Preparation

Negotiation
Skills

Selling
Skills

Business
Development
Skills

Customer
Development
Skills

Account
Management
Skills

Actionable
Assessments

Character
Strengths

Relationship
Skills

Execution
Skills

Negotiation
Skills

Creating
Rapport

Career
Planning
Skills

Building
Customer
Loyalty

In-House
Delivery
Support

Applied
Manager
Development

Expert
Group
Facilitation

On-the-Job
Manager
Development

Developing a
Culture of
Learning

Encouraging
Creativity &
Innovation

Understanding
Interpersonal
Styles

Understanding
Motivational
Drivers

Problem-
solving
Skills

Decision-
making
Skills

Time-
Management
Skills

Team
Management
Skills

Project
management
Skills

Character
Strengths

Controlling
Costs

Risk
Management

Communication
Skills

Solution-
focused
Coaching

Inside-
selling
Skills

Want to turn your good managers into great managers?

Contact us »

STEP Companies at Work

STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies are different from other companies. If you work for a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company, and if you've also worked for another type of company (say, in retail, finance, insurance, or traditional manufacturing), you know how different it is.

STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies generally have:

  • Teams of technical experts performing research and development
  • Expensive and risky technology investments that need to pay off, often in a limited amount of time
  • A small number of critically-important B2B relationships with vendors and customers
  • Teams of salespeople and/or account managers who need to thoroughly understand the company's technology and who also need to be good at building long-term business relationships
  • Business managers who coordinate complex activities among multiple departments
  • Complex, “matrixy” reporting structures that require managers to be especially proactive and accountable
  • A need for excellent communication and coordination among different parts of the company
  • Special concerns about regulatory issues and legal risks
  • A continuous, pressing need to find and pursue new opportunities

All of those factors call for great management. If a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company has trouble in any of those areas, it can have a strong impact on the company's overall performance.

If you do have problems in any of those areas, you're not going to solve them with a new enterprise software system. You need better managers. And because you need managers who understand all of the unique aspects of your business, you can't just hire a bunch of brand new managers with sharp-looking resumes. You need to take the managers that you already have and make them better.

Managing Isn't Rocket Science. It's Harder.

If you're a scientist yourself, you know that rocket science is actually pretty straightforward once you know the math. It's a well-defined, highly-precise science, and most of the time, the calculations are handled by computers.

Even when tricky engineering problems pop up, you always know where you stand, and you make logical, incremental adjustments based on reliable data until the problem is solved.

On the other hand, you just received a text message from one of your team leaders in response to a lengthy discussion about communicating more clearly. You thought the conversation went well, but you're keenly aware that this person tends to deflect responsibility and resort to saracasm. The text message contains only one word: "Sure!"

What are you going to do about that?

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STEP managers need a unique mix of skills.

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Unique Challenges and Opportunities

If you're a manager in a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company, you've got a lot of things to worry about, and you've also got a lot of ways to make great things happen. The STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP industries are full of unique challenges and opportunities.

Twelve Common Concerns Of Our Customers

  1. “We need to make sure we don’t fall behind our competitors.”
  2. “We can't afford surprises. I need to know what’s going on, and my people don't communicate well enough.”
  3. “My people spend too much time fighting fires and not enough time building relationships and looking for new opportunities.”
  4. “Our technical experts and our salespeople don't talk to each other.”
  5. “Our salespeople don’t understand all of our technical capabilities.”
  6. “Our account managers don’t think strategically about growing the business.”
  7. “Our people need to make faster decisions and be more proactive.”
  8. “We need our people to look for new ways to grow the business and control costs.”
  9. “We need to do a better job of capitalizing on technology investments.”
  10. “We need to increase our speed to market.”
  11. “Our people don't share important knowledge with each other, and we aren't developing enough well-qualified people for the future.”
  12. “We need to respond more quickly to changing customer needs and shifting industry dynamics.”

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Global by Design

Our programs work equally well for local and global teams.

Wizards and Rainmakers

For STEP companies, technical innovation is the magic that makes everything happen, and technical experts are the wizards that provide the magic.

Cancer drugs, gene therapies, pacemakers, anti-lock brakes and biodegradable plastics are all products of real, modern-day wizards. Those products and countless others like them improve our lives in ways that we can scarcely measure, and the value of those products keeps our most capable companies running strong year after year.

To a large extent, the success of every STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP enterprise depends upon the prowess and involvement of its wizards. The central role of wizards is the most defining aspect of STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies. It also provides STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies with their most distinctive challenges.

Wizards play a central role in every STEP company.

Wizards as Collaborators

No matter how innovative and powerful a technology is, it doesn't produce real value until it makes its way into the hands of paying customers. Of course, the people responsible for bringing in the paying customers are marketers and salespeople—rainmakers who work their own kind of magic for the company.

One challenging aspect of running a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company is the fact that it relies so heavily upon the contributions of both wizards and rainmakers—and they can't simply function as isolated teams. They need to work together.

The importance of their cooperation can be summed up in two related questions:

  1. What would happen if your research and development team fell completely out of touch with the needs of your customers?
  2. What would happen if you replaced your current marketers and salespeople with new ones who didn't know anything about your technology?

In both cases, your company's performance would surely suffer, and if you didn't correct the situation, you'd quickly have a disaster on your hands. The point is that if you run a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company and you want it to thrive, then you need your wizards and your rainmakers to work together closely.

You need your wizards to develop products that your customers truly need, and ideally, to develop those products in line with a broader strategy that correctly anticipates future customer needs. For that to happen, your rainmakers need to have the customer relationships and the strategic savvy to gather the right information from your customers, and they need to share that information with your wizards.

Your rainmakers need information from your wizards, too, because the rainmakers need to take your company's technical capabilities into account when they do their strategic information gathering. As the rainmakers continue their conversations with customers, information needs to keep flowing between the wizards and the rainmakers.

For a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company to perform at the highest level, its wizards and its rainmakers need to work together closely enough to sustain what is effectively an ongoing, forward-looking conversation between your wizards and your customers. If you manage a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company, then you know that it's easier said than done to get your wizards and your rainmakers to work together that closely.

In our experience, wizards and rainmakers actually tend to repel each other. Getting them to work together in close harmony is first and foremost a management challenge—one that calls upon managers to develop more sophisticated skills—and it's a challenge that we've helped many STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies master.

STEP companies need their wizards and rainmakers to work together closely.

Wizards as Managers

In STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies, it's common for wizards to be promoted into management positions—much more common than in other industries. In some cases, wizards become the managers of their technical teams. In other cases, they become business managers or operations managers, or they move upward into more senior management positions. If they're versatile, they might move into sales (to work as rainmakers) and end up becoming sales managers.

It makes sense for a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company to move its wizards into management positions because the company needs to have managers who understand the technical side of the business, and it needs to have them spread throughout the company. Also, the company needs to reward its wizards for loyalty and good performance.

Making wizards managers is a good way to fill key positions with people who understand the company and its technology, and it's also a good way to keep wizards and their valuable expertise working for the company.

Making wizards managers can prove to be a hazardous undertaking, though, and the need to do it represents another unique and important challenge for STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies.

The fact is that most wizards never receive good instruction about how to manage people and how to manage business, and most wizards aren't naturally drawn to developing the kinds of skills that all good managers need. As a result, many wizards struggle in the role of manager.

Once in a while, the struggle is obvious, appearing in the form of dramatic personality clashes and significant performance problems. Sometimes, the struggle shows as defensiveness, arrogance and impatience. Most often, though, the struggle is subtle, expressed only as shyness, hesitation or the appearance of being overburdened.

STEP companies need their wizards to serve as managers.

For wizards, managing can be a frustrating and even threatening experience. Wizards base their careers upon years of intense technical study, and they tend to derive confidence by demonstrating their impressive, clear-cut expertise. When wizards become managers, they suddenly find themselves performing a role that they don't fully understand. Technical accomplishments are no longer the sole or even primary measure of success. Now, people look to them for things that they can't provide with confidence, such as coaching, leadership, support and structure.

The good news is that almost all wizards can become good managers, and many of them can become great managers.

When wizards do learn to manage well, the benefits are often dramatic. Teamwork, productivity and financial performance improve. Employee engagement increases. Customer satisfaction and loyalty increase. The company becomes more innovative, develops greater expertise and grows its customer base.

The wizards benefit personally, too, sometimes in profound ways. Managing—a job that's been a disheartening source of frustration and insecurity—becomes an inspiring source of satisfaction, pride and meaningful contribution.

Almost universally, wizards share a set of traits that contribute to their strong potential as managers:

  • High intelligence
  • Natural curiosity
  • Talent for learning
  • Breadth of knowledge
  • Strong ambition
  • Determination and grit

It's true that many wizards start out lacking skills in particular areas, such as inspiring followership and understanding different interpersonal styles, but for most wizards, their natural strengths more than make up for any areas that need to be developed.

To bring out their full potential, though, wizards need to be given the right guidance and the right tools within the right structure. It's exactly that combination of guidance, tools and structure that we provide through our programs.

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Almost all wizards
can become good managers, and most of them can become great managers.

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The Next STEP

We help STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies perform better and serve their customers better while also serving their own people better and serving their communities better. We do it by making good managers great.

Wizards and rainmakers play definitive roles in STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP companies, but every STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company includes more than only wizards and rainmakers. It includes people performing a variety of indispensable functions. Managers control, coordinate and enable all of those functions.

Senior leaders create the overall strategy of the company and oversee the implementation of that strategy. Upper-level managers and operations managers bring the strategy to life. Business managers play a pivotal role in coordinating core business activities across departments. Mid-level managers control and support activities within individual departments, such as R&D, marketing & sales, account management, procurement, production, delivery, and customer service.

By improving the capabilities of specific managers at key positions in the company, a STEP
Science
Technology
Engineering
Professional servicesSTEP company can raise its level of performance and service throughout the entire organization.

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Next: Impact »

Improving managers in a handful of key positions can raise the performance of an entire STEP company.