The CycloPraxis Group

Success Stories
Interviewing
Founders Succession
Project Staffing
Diversifying
Startups without builders
Consultant Assignment
New Charter for Non Profit
Founding Professional Retiring from Practice
Effective Career Choices

Interviewing
A CycloPraxis Group professional was asked to help with the interviewing for a marketing position at a leading edge software startup. The startup was seeking an individual to develop a successful first prototype around a vaguely defined, very wandering idea. The founder wanted a “self starter, can do, focused individual.” The CycloPraxis (CP) practitioner knew the required individual would be a builder.

The interviewer conducted traditional, one-on-one interviews with the two candidates. Each time, the interviewer began with selected behavioral interviewing questions such as, “tell me about a time when you initiated a program around an idea you had”. Candidate 1 and 2 both gave good answers. By carefully listening with a trained ear, Candidate 1's answers were typical of projects that might occur during the capitalizing stage of a business and were described with capitalizing adjectives. Candidate 2's examples were from earlier in a business's lifecycle and were accompanies with far greater personal accomplishment.

The interviewer then then proceeded to a series of questions designed for cyclopraxis determination—for example, “From what you know so far about this job, what level and type of risk taking is appropriate?" and, "how predictable should your day be in order for you to work at your peak performance?"

Following the complete set of CP-related questions and answers, the interviewer reached the clear conclusion that candidate 2 was a true builder, while candidate 1 showed all the signs of being a very capable capitalizer. The interviewer strongly recommended candidate 2 for the particular position in question.

Founder's Succession
A Cyclopraxis Group professional was hired as an advisor to a startup seeking to move from angel funding to venture Funding. The CEO/Founder was excellent as a technical evangelist and champion for the young company's product ideas. But the company was struggling with execution due to --
    multiple product ideas lacking a clear prioritization
    little attention to gathering of customer inputs
    inattention to marketing
The resulting business plans were technically rich, yet woefully imbalanced. Venture capitalists were signaling a lack of interest without some major changes in leadership. As is often the case, the CEO/founder was holding tight to his creation.

By explaining the principles of CycloPraxis, the CEO/founder gained a clear appreciation of the contribution they had made [authoring] and the necessary next steps [building]. They objectively mapped their own strengths against the upcoming building tasks and realized that there would be leaders better suited for the challenges ahead. Over the space of a few months they cheerfully stepped aside and brought in a strong builder as Chairman and executive leader.

Project Staffing
After hearing a lecture at university MBA class, the department head for web customer acquisition of a multibillion dollar firm called for additional discussion about successfully staffing his projects. Working together each of 20+ positions were categorized by the nature of the work. Lifecycles for individual projects seemed to map using the same logic as lifecycles of products and services. There were roles for author, builder, capitalizer, and extender contributors. However, the existing staffing was not optimally deployed resulting most frequently in capitalizer assignments being inappropriately distributed.

After several discussions, the project workflows were rewritten and the staffing was re-aligned to match their strengths. The consulting relationship continues and the department head is successfully adding additional staff with talents aligned to the necessary work.

Effective Diversification
A large software company sought to catch the Internet wave of the late 1990's. The CEO had several reasonable ideas, but the selected development team struggled to commercialize in a timely manner. Assessment of the team revealed high capitalizer and high author populations. Builders were absent and the authors were all promoting their individual favorite approaches rather than a unified team approach.

In recognition of the situation, a Builder Praxis VP was recruited to lead the effort. The leader infused the organization with additional builders in marketing, development, and sales. Authors were given the choice to either contribute in builder fashion or to seek re-assignment elsewhere in the firm. The Capitalizers were placed under Builder managers and given very specific assignments which contributed to overall delivery. Human Resources played a key role in helping employees accept the unusual nature of the work that was expected.

In the end, the marketplace decided that the product was too advanced for the state of the Internet infrastructure and was scaled back to more modest proportions and a more modest sized team. But the effectiveness of the CycloPraxis approach was proven when not a single employee -- author, builder, and capitalizer alike -- voluntarily accepted an invitation to return to a more traditional part of the firm.

Startups w/o Builder's Focus
A small group of engineers and sales professionals aligned around an idea. For the most part they had spent their careers in Extender Praxis assignments in various companies offerings that were late in their lifecycle. In order to understand the likely ride ahead of them, they asked for a presentation on the principles of cyclopraxis. After a few follow on sessions and a a few months to contrast their effectiveness against cyclopraxis predictions, they contacted The CycloPraxis Group and asked for assistance in locating a Builder COO to lead their commercialization thrust.

A pair of food scientists discovered a novel processing technique for an exotic grain. They saw commercial potential, but lacked business experience. They realized they needed additional members of the team and initially sought those with the same values and working style. The CycloPraxis group pointed out that they would need some Builder Praxis and that these contributors would bring a very different style -- foreign to their own tastes. The scientists accepted the advice and recruited the appropriate praxis. After an intense season of business planning, they are now in the midst of an aggressive funding campaign.

Consulting Company matching employees to customers
A 25 person consulting company with a diverse bullpen of consultants was experiencing an unusually high number of customers calling to say they were finding it difficult to work with their particular consultant. However those same consultants had been quite successful in previous engagements and received strong letters of commendation. While assessing the consulting companies situation, The CycloPraxis Group learned that there were Author, Builder, Capitalizer, and Extender consultants amongst the 25. The CycloPraxis Group recommended to the consulting company that they match the praxis of their consultant to the lifecycle stage of their client customer and that they avoid mismatches. In other words, an extender praxis consultant should not be assigned to an engagement with a client company in the building phase.

The consulting company followed the recommendation and made a number of immediate re-assignments. There was some pain in the transition as the re-learning had to be financially absorbed by the consulting company. However, customer complaints dropped and the consulting company's reputation in the industry was preserved.

New Charter Proposal for Non-Profit
A member of The CycloPraxis Group participated in with a Non-Profit that was seeking to re-examine its charter in light of decreasing membership and changing national demographics. After a half day of discussions, the group was highly frustrated. Most of the discussion was to air frustration with proposals that aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of the very service that was becoming in less demand. Novel ideas were dismissed with a "we couldn't possibly accomplish this within our ranks".

The praxis of the participants was quietly assessed -- 90% extenders. Suddenly there was a praxis rationale for the discussion patterns of the morning. The afternoon began with short tutorial on praxis and the suggestion that one of the novel ideas be selected and assigned to a builder praxis participant for a pilot run in one of the local chapters. The meeting ended on a high note.

Subsequently a pilot was launched. There was warm reception by the Non-Profit's end customer. The need for well executed change management practices was also identified as necessary for the Non-Profit's membership.

Founding Professional Retiring from Practice
As the founder and senior partner of a small law practice neared retirement, the firm suddenly found itself unprofitable. Capitalizer senior partners had left years earlier leaving expert extender praxis partners. The senior extenders hired additional junior partners who were also extenders. All members of the firm, except for one remaining capitalizer, were more interested in showcasing their expertise than in efficiencies or profits.

The one remaining capitalizer was the highest producer and was talking about leaving. This would have produced a crisis in both servicing customers and in profitability. Meetings amongst the attorneys routinely failed to resolve the discontent. The principles of CycloPraxis were explained and the Capitalizer attorney better appreciated the situation and agreed to continue to contribute for another 12 months.

Effective Career Choices
Following a layoff by a large business unit in the extending lifecycle stage, hundreds of professionals were forced to seek new employment. Most of the displaced workers naturally gravitated toward similar large organizations in the extending lifecycle stage. Several quarters later they were once again targets of downsizing. The late lifecycle businesses in this industry were undergoing some significant structural changes. The CycloPraxis Group was called to make a presentation on why the employment picture was so glum in the late lifecycle stage industry and on what differences an employee might expect from employment at other lifecycle stages. A few weeks after the presentation, the CycloPraxis Group received feedback from several of the displaced workers. CycloPraxis had given them the tools to re-evaluate their career and they were starting 2nd careers with building stage businesses. CycloPraxis had helped them see that their work preferences aligned with the builder praxis.

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