I’ve been in financial services for 35 years. I learned from a mentor long ago, that some things you cannot do for yourself. It is not a sign of weakness to bring in someone who can help you be better. We are staffed with accountants, data analytics people, finance people, auditors. We have tons of IQ, good EQ, but that doesn’t mean we are experts in building teams.
I hired Lina because I thought we were underperforming as a team and were not dedicating time to focus on how we were performing. Getting offsite to focus on ourselves was really important. It was an investment in ourselves. If I had to do it over, I would have done it sooner.
I wanted every member of my senior team to operate every day as if they were the CEO of the company. We need to get out of our silos and operate as a team. To the extent that someone from the outside can help the team think one level up, two levels up – that is breakthrough. Lina and Alesia helped the members of the team to do that.
They have done such a nice job; we are going to be on a multi-year journey with them. There is optimism to know we are committed to continue that.
Lina and Alesia start off like they are the opposite of what you usually come across as HR consultants. They say: this is about results; we’re not doing this to be warm and fuzzy. Lina keeps us focused; when we discuss issues, she drives us towards closure. Lina makes it real.
C-Level Executive
Global Financial Services Company