Our consulting philosophy

Gaining security in insecurity

People are said to be healthy when all organs are functioning properly and sufficient surplus energy is available for them to react flexibly to crises and unforeseen circumstances, and when they embrace change and contact with their social environment. Those who are able to strike a balance between organised and disorganised aspects and phases or change remain healthy. Being healthy means recognising more than a single option and being able to make decisions. This definition of health is also an apt description of situations in organisations.

Organisations are successful and productive if routine and hardship are not mutually exclusive. Instead, management and staff have adequate surplus energy (money, motivation, creativity, knowledge, agility...) at their disposal to flexibly cope with crises, external insecurity and complexity, without permanently losing sight of the equilibrium between internal organisational needs and external requirements. Organisations lose this balance and become "ill" if they cannot maintain genuine contact with their environment, become mired in antiquated patterns and hierarchies and concentrate solely on themselves. But they may also become ill if they are no longer able to develop solutions from their own resources and allow themselves to become dependent on external trends, fashions and miracle cures.

For several years now, we have observed the tendency of organisations to focus too strongly on "what's coming from outside" or "what everyone else is doing" when they try to secure future viability. Excessively adapting to alleged recipes for success to become "bigger and faster" often leads to a loss of inner substance; the internal control competency and credibility so necessary in times of crisis get lost along the way. Frequently, the result is a series of incomplete reorganisation and modernisation projects, burnt out staff, stifled creativity. What can be done to re-establish the equilibrium and feel solid ground under one's feet?

Strengthen balance and self-direction

COMO is of the opinion that one of the most important competencies for organisations and their staff will be their ability to self-regulate. Also in times of dynamic market and competitive developments, this means striking a flexible balance between external and internal orientation, innovation and stability, customer and staff orientation. Equilibrium cannot be prescribed top-down, but is acquired through complex processes of self-direction and self-organisation. Similar to a tightrope walker keeping his balance by constantly compensating through movement, organisations and their members can only become independently secure in insecurity through conscious action and continuous self-observation, through the willingness to allow for error and irritation, and to learn from them.

You cannot buy change

Changes don't just happen. Instead, it is often as a result of crises and painful experiences that we let go of old behaviours and develop new, more productive patterns. Transformation processes in organisations rarely proceed harmoniously, but require clear and consistent management decisions in addition to participation. Of course, reorganisation techniques and instruments can be implemented "from the top" or "from the outside". But they won't be effective unless all those affected are actively involved in the design of such reorganisation, change themselves in the process, and make use of their own learning experiences.

As a globally active consulting firm, COMO knows the trends and instruments of today's change management. Nevertheless, every consulting process is unique because every organisation has its own values, paces and secrets. To allow for this uniqueness, our consultants don't always work with the mainstream. Instead, they may go against it from time to time as required - it all depends on the customer's needs.

To this end, COMO combines specialist and process competence in its consulting. COMO consultants don't go to their customers as better managers, but are experts in initiating learning processes and designing the basic conditions in such a way that these contribute to self-change in the organisation and an increase in internal solution expertise.

Respecting differences and making them pay off

COMO has acquired consulting experience in many countries and cultures. Through contact with these cultures, we have learned first-hand that differences irritate and that they breed ideas. We use this knowledge in our consulting processes. When we talk about cultures, we not only mean national cultures, but also different organisational and life cultures. Our customers are teams from DaimlerChrysler as well as a community center for immigrants in an inner-city slum or a homeless children's project in Guatemala. In structuring consulting processes, we think it's very important to grasp the different ways men and women see things and make productive use of these differences. Gender mainstreaming is not just a consulting issue, but also a formidable challenge in our own firm.

Our key competencies are a broad knowledge of different organisational cultures and social milieus, the capacity for respectful observation, the ability to cope with ambiguity and an interest in the unknown. We integrate these experiences and capabilities into consulting: we provide new impulses through our external view, we support our customers in discovering their own blind spots, in comparing themselves with others (for a change), in allowing curiosity to flourish and in developing the joy of (further) learning.

High consulting quality and advantages for the customer

We talk about consulting quality when solutions developed in collaboration with customers result in the greatest possible advantage for the greatest possible number of people. This means integrating different target dimensions during the planning and design of change processes or projects and creating an equilibrium. Simple solutions that only function by ignoring interests or aspects are neither sustainable nor effective. The way we see it, cost reduction as the ultima ratio of future security leaves something to be desired.

At COMO, consulting projects are executed by interdisciplinary teams. In the case of difficult consulting situations, we use colleagues who aren't involved in the project for coaching purposes. We regularly organise events for the purpose of concept training and further education, where we expand and reinforce our skills. In addition to their expert professional training, all COMO consultants have completed many years of training and further education in the areas of systematic and structure-oriented consulting, transaction analysis, mentoring, conflict management and mediation. Most COMO consultants have quality management training such as EFQM or DIN ISO 9000. The exchange of expertise in subject-related networks and professional organisations ensures that we continually remain abreast of the latest developments. As a result, we are able to strategically implement the most varied of consulting methods in the team.