How We Came to Be

In 1982, we set out to train software development people in high technology firms in what we called "skills for the human side of technology". We suspected that technical people might have more difficulty with the "people side of the business" than with the technological side of their role.

And, while we discovered that we were right about that, we also discovered that it wasn't just software people who struggled with problems of human interaction, collaboration and working in teams. It was almost any technical professional who had a core discipline or point of view that they wanted to have considered, adopted or appreciated. In fact, we discovered that almost all of our clients had some area where they needed people to be more effective with one another and with groups.

Initially, we predicted that our biggest client group would be the information and technology dependent industries of banking and insurance. We soon found however that manufacturing had by far the biggest need, usually because they existed in the most competitive industries and were always looking for anything that would give them an edge over the competition. And so, in our first five years of existence, we developed client relationships with such manufacturing giants as General Motors, Ford Motor, Chrysler, Owens Corning, Hughes Aircraft, Lockheed, General Dynamics, General Electric, and Intel.

But as global competition has invaded virtually all industries, the challenge facing our manufacturing clients spread to almost all industries.