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Dr. Ivan Rosenberg has over 30 years experience as a management consultant and change agent, supporting organizations in which the leadership is committed to achieving breakthroughs in organizational performance.
In addition to leading his consulting firm, he is also Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Aerospace & Defense Forum, an international community of over 1600 and six chapters that facilitates business communication, collaboration, and commerce among A&D industry leaders.
Prior to becoming a management consultant, Ivan founded Distinctive Solutions Corporation in 1981, which develops commercial finance software for banks and other financial institutions. Under his leadership, the company raised more than $5 million in venture Read more
Every engagement is unique. The scope is agreed with the client during the initial consultation.
Ivan has worked with a wide range of clients, including:
Aerospace, Engineering and Scientific
• ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) (Santiago, Chile) www.almaobservatory.org/
• AVS Science & Technology Society www.avs.org
• Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. www.ball.com
• Buzz Aldrin Enterprises www.buzzaldrin.com
• Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation www.cfht.hawaii.edu
• Gemini Observatory www.gemini.edu
• Giant Magellan Telescope Organization www.gmto.org
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory www.jpl.nasa.gov
• NASA Flight Dynamics Facility (at Goddard Space Flight Center) http://fdf.gsfc.nasa.gov/
• NASA Goddard Space Flight Center www.nasa.gov/goddard
• NASA Langley Research Center www.nasa.gov/centers/langley
• Space Telescope Science Institute http://www.stsci.edu/institute/
• W.M. Keck Observatory www.keckobservatory.org
Professional Services
• Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld www.akingump.com
• California Manufacturing Technology Consulting www.cmtc.com
• Fineman West & Company www.fwllp.com
• Iron Mountain Off-Site Data Protection www.ironmountain.com
• Lockton Companies www.lockton.com
• Plus Delta Consulting, LLC www.plusdelta.net
• Red Mountain Machinery Company
• Universal Advisory Service www.uasinc.org
Consumer Products and Services
• American Flyer Messenger Service
• Barilla Japan www.barillaus.com
• Chorus Line
• Club Med Japan www.clubmed.com
• Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate
• Dacor www.dacor.com
• Limoneira Company www.limoneira.com
• Vinesse, LLC www.vinesse.com
Manufacturing and Distribution
• Ace Tank and Equipment
• Botanicals International www.botanicals.com
• Line 6, Inc. www.line6.com
Media and Publishing
• Entertainment Technology Center www.etcenter.org
• Furlined www.furlined.com
• Merritt Publishing
• Venice Consulting Group www.veniceconsulting.com
• Wave Community Newspapers
Technology
• Alisa Software
• Datalight, Inc. www.datalight.com
• FEI Company www.fei.com
• Legacy Software, Inc.
• Oak Grove Systems
• QLogic Corporation www.qlogic.com
Healthcare
• Amgen, Inc. www.amgen.com
• The Arthritis Foundation, Southern California Chapter www.arthritis.org
• Good Samaritan Hospital www.goodsam.org
• J.F. Molloy & Associates www.jfmolloy.com
Arts
• Mono County Arts Council
• Otis College of Art and Design www.otis.edu
Education
• The Country School www.country-school.org
• Disney Learning Partnership
• Emerson Bandini Elementary School
• The Galef Institute
• Hawaii Preparatory Academy www.hpa.edu
• The Northwest School www.northwestschool.org
• Rochester Institute of Technology www.rit.edu
• The Collaborative for Teaching and Learning www.ctlonline.org
• Southern California University of Health Services www.scuhs.edu
• University of California Irvine www.uci.edu
• University of Redlands www.redlands.edu
• University of Southern California www.usc.edu
Not-for-Profit Organizations
• After-School All-Stars, The Arnold Schwarzenegger Youth Foundation www.afterschoolallstars.org
• Alliance for Children's Rights www.kids-alliance.org
• Boy Scouts of America (Baltimore Area Council) www.baltimorebsa.org
• Boy Scouts of America (Western Los Angeles County Council) www.bsa-la.org
• Children's Bureau of Southern California www.all4kids.org
• New Directions for Veterans www.ndvets.org
• Space Frontier Foundation spacefrontier.org
• Tronie Foundation www.troniefoundation.org
• Turning P.O.I.N.T www.turningpointnation.org
• Western Center on Law and Poverty www.wclp.org
Professional Associations
• Beverly Hills Bar Association www.bhba.org
• Financial Planning Association (Los Angeles Chapter) www.fpala.org
• National Business Officers Association www.nboa.net
• Southern California Mediation Association www.scmediation.org
Economic Development
• Los Angeles Business Council
• Institute for the New California
Government Organizations
• Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino www.hacsb.com
• Orange County Fire Authority www.ocfa.org
• Town of Mammoth Lakes www.ci.mammoth-lakes.ca.us
The company focused on providing practical, hands-on, engineering consulting to small manufacturing firms. The prospect decision makers were company owners and founders, who generally knew their company’s operation extremely well and to a fine level of detail. Thus, the salespeople were technically proficient engineers who also delivered the consulting.
For many years sales had been stagna... Read more
A well-known real estate brokerage firm had agreed to acquire and merge into its operations one of its large competitors. Historically, up to 50% of the real estate brokers and agents of an acquired company leave for a competitive firm. (This exodus is referred to in the industry as “breakage.”) Brokers supervise agents, who tend to be loyal to their brokers rather than their firms, and they ... Read more
Mechanical engineers at the organization had long been permitted to use whatever mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD) software package they wanted. As a result about 40% of the engineers used Package A, another 40% used Package B, and the remaining 20% used a variety of other packages.
Using multiple MCAD packages doubled or tripled the cost of purchase, maintenance, and support. For at lea... Read more
The company had been steadily declining when it was purchased by a group of entrepreneurs. The new owners’ plans for substantially expanding and growing the company were based on providing an extraordinary quality of service to the franchisees, and through them to their clients. While the economic bleeding had been stopped, the existing culture would not support these plans. For example, inte... Read more
The 16 senior executives of the company met twice a week. On Tuesday afternoon they met for a few hours for an informational discussion on topics of interest. On Friday they met to make decisions.
The Friday meetings, which almost always took the entire day, gave rise to universal frustration. Arguments over issues would go on for hours, often without resolution. Issues thought to have bee... Read more
The StarLight mission was designed to demonstrate technologies that would, for the first time, be able to detect signatures of life on Earth-size planets orbiting nearby stars. The mission design called for two telescope spacecraft, stationed up to 100 meters apart, to simultaenously collect light and transmit it to a central third spacecraft that would process the data. To be able to detect an... Read more
The company had experienced steady growth over its long history. Its organizational structure was based on traditional functional areas, e.g., manufacturing, engineering, finance, sales, marketing, etc.
About 1½ years prior to engaging Frontier Associates (FAI), two senior executives had attended a conference at which the benefits of a team operation were extolled. Upon their return, the two e... Read more
The Alliance for Children’s Rights is Los Angeles County’s only non-profit free legal services organization devoted solely to protecting the rights of impoverished and abused children. Serving nearly 5,000 children annually, the Alliance has programs serving children who need adoptive families, are in the foster care system, need health care coverage and services, have learning or development... Read more
A robotic space mission was projected to be 30% over budget and 18% over weight. After two years of design, the projection should have been at least 30% under budget to allow for contingency. Since inception, the project team had consistently worked to reduce overruns. Despite their best efforts, the projected final cost and weight continued to rise, not fall.
On a Friday afternoon the Proje... Read more
The Housing Authority of the County of San Bernardino (HACSB) is an independent government agency that provides housing to at-need families and individuals in San Bernardino County, CA, the geographically largest counties in the US.
The Agency served about 32,000 residents and had been innovative in finding ways to provide housing, including developing low-cost housing on its own. Nevertheless... Read more
You are requesting how to do a culture change, better thought of as an organizational transformation. There is too much to say about this topic to keep within the 1900 character limit. Send me your e-mail address and I will send you a set of 6 articles I wrote on the topic entitled "Beat the Odds: How to Beat the 70% Failure Rate of Organizational Initiatives"
Some highlights:
- Don't approa... Read more
The thing that keeps you going through the current and short-term ups and downs is a long-term view. Not just the reason for the transformation from the CEO's point of view, but what's in it for the workforce that has to actually implement the transformation. And by "what's in it for them" I don't mean more money, or job security, expanded market share, or higher stock price. Generally what mot... Read more
My guess is that organization structure has little or nothing to do with the exodus - the core reason likely stems from inadquately dealing with the cultural fit (or lack therof) between the the acquiring and acquired company. Too often the acquiring company (particularly when much larger) imposes its processes, language, culture, etc. on the acquired company. A culture is perceived as the "righ... Read more
First one needs to be clear about how a "team" is different than other types of groups. Based on the book "Wisdom of Teams", teams are distinguished by having 4 attributes: 1) rules and guidelines are well-defined, e.g., who is on and not on the group, meeting rules, who decides, who has to be consulted, etc., 2) a common commitment (something inspiring), 3) a common promise, the work-product, c... Read more
In my experience there are people in many cities who are well positioned to help non-profits find Board members. For example, in Los Angeles that person is Carl Terzian. As part of his PR firm's services, he matches up firms and companies who want to find non-profits to support and non-profits that need board members. For example, for most business service firms, like law firms and accountants,... Read more
I agree with Bill Shirley. The focus should be on "What model and process will we use to transform the organization?", not just on communication (although that plays a critical role). Transformation for an organization is like chrysalis for a caterpillar.
In our view, transformation is something that one can only do for oneself, although conditions that with high probability will produce that r... Read more
It sounds like your organization doesn't have a compelling purpose or a strategic plan for its accomplishment. By purpose, I mean, the difference in the world that the organization was created to make. It's mission is then how it will contribute to the accomplishment of this purpose. Then cultural values (guidelines on behavior seen as required to accomplish the Mission), Strategic Goals, strat... Read more
A problem to watch for (speaking as both an IT consultant and a management consultant) is the use of the concept "change". The reason 70% of such initiatives fail is because the leadership communicates (and thinks) "change". However, there is no resistance to change. The resistance is the meaning attached to the word. When I say "We need to change" or "I'm going to change you.", what is heard ... Read more
I agree that performance appraisals rarely change behavior in the long run, and do not have a driver role in culture change. Culture change is altering the paradigms, the truths, of the members of an organization, and that does not happen with evidence or convincing or threatening - it happens when people see both the benefits and the possibility of a future that is different than the one they ha... Read more
Thank you so much for organizing our strategic planning retreat! You truly electrified our department!
The educators we work with needed help in engaging all the key players in their schools and districts in innovative but challenging school improvement projects.
Frontier provided exactly the tools needed at just the right time to propel projects forward. You also gave new ways of approaching intractable problems that will undoubtedly pay off far into the future.
The Breakthrough sessions that you led were right on target; they were challenging, enlightening and motivating. They've enabled us to break through some seemingly impossible barriers and have inspired our people to accomplish the goal you helped us establish.
As you know, we've used outside consultants in the past. Some have been very helpful, some haven't. You outshine them all. Please don't hesitate to use me as a reference. I'm a fan!
Frontier Associates presents a compelling case for a corporate culture that values and practices management through structured conversations.
I have watched the Frontier team effectively demonstrate, teach, coach, nudge, implore, and debate their ideology to a cadre of proud, opinionated, combative, and brilliant technologists more effectively than any consultants this audience has encountered. And where the proud were humbled, results appeared; the culture yielded; the opinionated began to hear each other; breakthroughs emerged.
We hired Frontier Associates to create our company's first Strategic Plan. We got much more than that. For starters, our executive team "gelled" and we gained a better appreciation for the individual biases we bring to our enterprise. As a result, we immediately got more aligned around the direction our company was going. When we introduced the plan to the entire company, we observed similar results.
In the plan itself we have a blueprint for where we want to take the company and what it stands for. In the process of our focused pursuit of the plan, we have energized the employees of our company in a way we have not seen in our first 7 years of business.
Frontier Associates and Ivan Rosenberg brought me unique insights to the possibilities of organizational transformation. Their combination of theoretical clarity and practical application of the principles they teach is a powerful tool for any leader courageous enough to use them.
We really appreciate that you didn't try to change us, and you didn't pretend to know more about our organization than we did. The way you worked with us took what was at our core and made it stronger.
You helped us get to a place we had been trying to get to for several years. We already had a talented staff and a caring board; Frontier provided the spark that that took us to a new level.
