1-hour online clinics on strategy and leadership

I was a bit careful with this information, but I believe that this week most of  us will understand that there is no return of our business as usual until September. Although Stéphanie and I are rather lucky in this period, with a significative part of our business already operating remotely, like many of consulting practices we still have more time on our hands than we usually do.

So we’ll open up what we do with many of our customers: slots of 1-hour online clinics that you can easily schedule with us by sending us an email at clinics@icopilots.com.

Here’s how it goes:

What is a clinic?

A clinic is a short 1-hour session where we discuss a specific problem you have and try to help you formulate a solution, or at the very least 3 options to tackle it.

It’s done online with WhereBy, Zoom, Skype or Facetime, which by now you should all be proficient with.

We’re currently working from the Amsterdam region, which is operating on Central European Time (CET) which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The clinic will involve a short preparation beforehand, so that we don’t spend 45 min getting into the subject (typically a short mail describing your project and the problem, with a few documents if necessary).

This format is our standard check-up when working with recurring customers on their innovation strategy or cultural change. But it also proved very efficient as a stand-alone rapid-fire session with an expert. This is what we’ll be aiming for.

Strategy and leadership?

We’ll be focusing on only two key problems related to the Covid-19 crisis for your business or project:

Stéphanie will help you to work your way out of managing your teams from a distance:

Remote Leadership: Proximity might have allowed for regular micro mutual adjustments in a trust-worthy cohesive team. But distance working can affect your leadership capacity to reach your team and your team’s ability to coordinate, communicate, perform towards your goal. This 1-hour clinic will help you figure out how to adjust your leadership to support your teams and develop new leadership strategies for when business will be back to normal.

And I will help you planning your next strategic moves in a market that has changed forever:

Navigating High Uncertainty: All markets are in severe turbulence and will change forever in the next weeks. There is no way to predict how with a high degree of confidence, but there are many ways to get out of the five stages of grief rapidly, adapt and redesign your business strategy for resilience and anti-fragility. The 1-hour clinic will help you figure out clear options, understand what key roadblocks to remove in your company and help your teams adapt to a new normal before competitors.

For these two topics we don’t want to overextend or overreach. Since 2007, the thousands of hours of experience we built up have been with essentially two kind of customers:

If you’re a startup…

1. Your startup is already incorporated.
2. You’re a team of 3 or more full-time.
3. You’re in B2B.
4. You are pre- or post- product-to-market fit (post is always better)

That’s it.

Why not B2C startups? Well, that would be a long article to explain, but let’s say that we don’t think we would have tremendous value for you right now…

Please keep in mind that we will address the only two topics of remote leadership and high uncertainty (not raising money, your website or MVP design).

Also, you might want to read this first too. Then send us a mail with some standard information on your startup (a pitch deck is OK) and the problem you’d want to discuss, and we’ll organize the session together.

This will be on a first come, first served basis.

Oh, and if need be, we still speak fluent French ; )

If you’re in a large corporation…

1. You’re in charge of a key innovation project, a market-oriented business unit or are a level-C executive with broad strategic influence.
2. Your company is at the very least operating in 3 different countries, or is a multinational.
3. Your company is heavily tech-driven or not (we have a wide market experience from IT systems to luxury).

If you’re a national or European administration you might not feel in the scope, but we can talk nonetheless.

We usually have to prepare a bit more for the call than for startups, but it’s easy to set up together. This includes any NDA you’d need (send it, we sign it, it’s done).

The 1-hour clinic ideally is a one-on-one meeting. This saves a lot of time and removes all personal or political games that you would usually have if collaborators are on the call. But this is negotiable.

You might also want to read this first to understand how we think about the central topic of digital markets, and assess our alignment.

How much does it cost?

Sure, let’s get there.

For startups it’s free, there’s no catch. We just have a bit more time ahead of us for the next few weeks and we think that some of you can use the help.

It’s not just pure pro bono though. What we’ll maybe get from this, is maybe discovering new innovation ecosystems or incubators that could be future partners. But again, for us just a side bonus.

For large corporations it’s free too but of course, there’s a catch 😎

We are actively looking for new customers for Q1, 2021. Offering some tools and insights in this format is an obvious opportunity to get in touch and let you assess our value for your organization. Plain and simple freemium strategy, which means we do commit to a deliverable, not a teaser of what we could do for you.

Next step

Well, I believe you have all the info necessary, it’s a very straightforward thing to do together. And hopefully a good opportunity for you.

Anything else you want to clarify use the same mail, or contact us through social networks.

With love.