Shem Cohen

Strategic Planning

Creating a sound strategy for an organization demands quality data generation/analysis and that leaders make tough decisions on hard choices. A great strategy isn’t the product of plugging in the right numbers and pulling a lever to get the ‘right’ answers. Successful strategy is created through leadership’s understanding of markets, customers, position, competition, organizational capabilities, resources and, ultimately, through rationalizing the trade-off’s involved across important decisions and in making the tough calls.

A strategic plan that sits on the shelf isn’t a strategic plan. It’s a paperweight. Bringing the plan to life through engendering the clarity, focus and commitment of those needed to implement is the key. People need to buy-in. To do this they need to be engaged at appropriate and meaningful levels and in ways which bring them to say, “This makes sense for the business, this is something I want to be a part of and help to make happen”.

Shem Cohen specializes in the design and facilitation on-target, efficient planning for clients which deliver exceptionally high returns on ROI. Whether leader’s wish to create strategy and cascade targeted goals throughout their organization, test their thinking with stakeholders from across their system or engage their people in full partnership to determine company direction and actions needed to achieve the vision, Mr. Cohen orchestrates the right process to engage planners in the most productive and time-efficient ways possible. The results are a strategic plan which represents the best thinking (and intuition) the organization has to offer, effective partnerships and the commitment of people to see it successfully through.

Change

Upwards of 70% of organizational change efforts fail to meet value goals due to lack of executive sponsorship, inadequate project management, failure to create effective partnerships or an inability to secure stakeholder buy-in. Two-thirds of merger integrations fail because, while the numbers may look good on paper, successful integration can only happen when people create the shared meaning, goals, agreements and commitments which evolve two companies into one. Successful change is about people and, as Marv Weisbord says, ‘what they’re ready, willing and able to do’.

Shem Cohen offers clients best-practice change methodologies built on a framework of orchestrated stakeholder engagement and collaborative planning. Mr. Cohen’s notable track record rests in a methodology which:

• Taps the knowledge, experience, values and desires of people – individually, in and across groups and collectively
• Effects crucial learning across boundaries so that people understand the whole before trying to change any of the parts
• Identifies and positively influences key levers across the organization’s technical,political and social domains towards desired change
• Facilitates common ground on direction & energizes the organization around common goals and values
• Engenders a true commitment to act

Whether change is needed to restructure divisions, develop and implement new technologies, improve systems and processes, improve teamwork or transition leaders, Shem helps clients reduce complexity, plan productively and leverage the human side of enterprise towards implementing successful, value-adding change.

Intervention and Team Building

Life and relationships can get quite challenging. We all are called upon to navigate complex realities and confront issues on many fronts, manage opposing interests and sometimes profound differences. Whether there are concerns preventing teams from achieving their greatest performance potential… executives from engaging each other productively… partners from seeing a future together… family-business members from sharing Thanksgiving together… or regional and corporate offices not integrating as they should to create value, the complexities of interdependence, shared rewards and the human side of organization will invariably, at some point, create situations which beg resolution.

Shem Cohen brings a unique mix of skills and experience to clients to help people engage fully, align their goals, interests and values and create lasting solutions. Mr. Cohen’s work rests in his abilities, developed over the past 30 years working with people/groups, to create optimal conditions for people to come together in honest and productive deliberation, collaboratively re-direct their trajectory and create their own best solutions – often in situations where people didn’t think this was possible. Shem achieves these outcomes through a deep understanding of organizational and human systems, his extensive experience as counselor, diplomat, mediator and facilitator and, at the core, being the person Shem is in the world as someone who truly cares about helping others to create more meaningful, successful and fulfilling lives.