Mike Jacoutot, Founder & Managing Partner and Mary Ann McLaughlin, Managing PartnerButler Street combines the diagnostic capability of a consulting firm with customized training content designed to be woven into the fabric of its clients. Most importantly, the company’s approach is designed to advance client relationships, improve team decision making, provide actionable insights and deliver measurable results.
Following is the conversation that Manage HR had with Mike Jacoutot, the Founder and Managing Partner, and Mary Ann McLaughlin, the Managing Partner of Butler Street.
What are the challenges that your clients face today?
Similar to other leadership positions, often high performers are promoted into positions of leadership without any formal leadership development program in place. In addition to sales, account management, and recruiting learning programs, Butler Street offers Leadership Effectiveness training in a blended learning program with eLearning courses. These eLearning courses can be hosted in Butler Street’s Learning Management System (LMS) or delivered as SCORM packages for client hosting in their own LMS.
Supporting the changes in technology, both from an internal and external perspective, requires the ability to implement and adopt new tools and processes to stay ahead of the competition. Butler Street guides organizations through internal surveys to measure engagement (Voice of the Associate surveys) and customer survey research programs (Voice of the Customer or NPS surveys) to understand client needs and wants as well as to identify opportunities for growth. These programs provide the facts and data to drive client and talent development and exceptional experiences. To allow leaders to effectively understand and coach account teams to manage and grow their most important accounts, Butler Street provides ClientFit®, software for account management similar to a FitBit for client retention.
Please shed light on Butler Street’s Leadership Development services on the basis of its methodology, features, and benefits involved.
It starts with a simple maxim—prescription before diagnosis equals malpractice. We have a three-step process to helping companies and their people grow: Diagnose, Develop, and Perfect®.
We deliver leadership training solutions tailored to our clients’ needs which has enabled them to grow 4X their respective markets
First, we help to diagnose gaps v. best practices, and then develop a custom leadership solution based on what our client does well and insert our best practices for gap closure through a very tailored leadership development program. Lastly, perfect comprises leveraging our twelve-week continuous improvement program to ensure the application of newly-gained knowledge and make certain the training sticks. The benefits we provide include a common leadership approach and methodology, a common leadership language, improved decision-making, higher employee engagement, and ultimately improved results.
What separates Butler Street from the other players?
In a word: Focus. Not only do we believe specialization leads to great effectiveness and results, our focus on two vertical markets: Human Capital/Staffing and Print/Digital, has enabled us to acquire deep domain expertise. And thus, we can deliver specific leadership training solutions tailored to these industries that have enabled our clients to grow 4X their respective markets.
What does the future hold for Butler Street?
We will continue to develop our e-learning and microlearning offerings as we are big believers that if a Millennial leader wants to learn how to deliver difficult conversation, “where I am is where I learn,” they can do so at a Starbucks at 10 PM on their mobile phone. This enables the leader to learn at their own pace rather than at the pace an instructor decides. We will also continue to expand our base of consultants geographically as well as internationally. To date, we have several multi-billion dollar global clients, which enables us to train in areas outside the U.S, including Canada, APAC, and EMEA.
The future of Butler Street is bright, thanks to our clients and their continued growth! Our blended learning programs have experienced exponential growth due to the effectiveness of the model. Butler Street has perfected the alignment between self-guided and collaborative learning experiences. New technologies are continuously being evaluated to elevate the learning experience and drive client acquisition, retention and expansion, and talent acquisition, retention, and development. Our teams are creating more immersive learning experiences, implementing new technologies for expanded virtual learning (such as Class), and developing a library of microlearning courses to flatten the learning curve and extend the retention and adoption of concepts through spaced repetition independent study and flow-of-work based learning.
The next phase of our e-Learning will include elements of Artificial Intelligence as well as virtual reality, which will enable us to place leaders in “live” situations to improve coaching.
