The importance of reflecting, recharging, and caring for one another

While we’re not out of the woods yet, Stanton Chase has weathered the pandemic well.

During the past year, the board and Stanton Chase as a whole made sure that we took care of one another. When we ask, “How are you?” we do so sincerely. When we speak with our clients and candidates, the situation they find themselves in is not entirely unlike our own. Perhaps it is this mutual emotional state that spurs us to help them achieve their respective goals.

An Adaptable Enterprise

In this challenging time, we’ve taken the opportunity to reflect on ourselves, each other, and those around us. This has included developing and strengthening strategic partnerships such as those between Stanton Chase and Hofstede Insights, Hogan Assessment Systems, and Nasdaq Governance Solutions.

A new Stanton Chase board was appointed following a biannual election. Our board consists of five Managing Partners from Stanton Chase offices around the world. Their Vice-Chair roles are finance, business excellence, practice groups, regions, and my position as International Chair. As a global board of an international member firm, our key actions during the pandemic focused on many critical topics, though all were ultimately rooted in people and purpose.

Adaptability is grounded in our culture; we are entrepreneurs and business owners. This leads to a common purpose – to be the best we can across all of our offices – to help each other achieve our goals and take care of one’s own.

As a result, we retained our most talented Partners and Consultants. We have helped them make it through the pandemic both professionally and personally. We treat our colleagues as people, with families, not assets that can walk out the door. Working from home was nothing new to Stanton Chase, though as a highly collegial group we of course missed in-person interaction.

Stanton Chase conducts four Partner Meetings per year: two regional and two global. At the Global Partner Meetings, we exchange best practices, look for opportunities to help our clients, and get to know each other better professionally and personally. When the pandemic hit, we already had our flights booked with a packed agenda planned for Mexico City. Like so many people around the world, we really want to see and hug each other. But for us this will likely have to wait till late 2022.

Because our colleagues were commited, we ensured continuity for our clients. During this period a clear pattern emerged; clients who previously worked with us stayed, too. Although video conferences are efficient (no travel time), they are far less effective in building trust with someone you haven’t met in person before. When a client works with Stanton Chase, they trust us and have confidence in our ability to deliver what we promised.

Now, almost halfway through Q3, we see the results of our commitment to people and purpose. Our numbers are up – we are holding on to our existing clients and new clients are finding our consultants across the globe. We are taking on the challenge of bringing them into the Stanton Chase fold, where our focus on aligning values with the culture of Stanton Chase and that of our clients allows us to make a real difference.

About the Author:

Jan-Bart Smits is the International Chair of Stanton Chase.