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A Powerful Lever
“I find Suntiva's combination of doctoral-level psychology and business expertise to be a powerful lever for executive leadership.”
– Charles Dalluge, President, Leo A Daly International; Suntiva Board of Advisors
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Behavioral Psychology
How did Suntiva become a market leader in bringing doctoral-level psychology to the business world? And how is this relevant in today’s business environment?
20+ years ago, Suntiva’s founder, Dr. Hany Malik, was working at an international IT consulting firm, helping to implement large, complex IT initiatives. Over several years and many engagements, he saw that the increasing complexities of business systems – involving people, processes, and technology – were hindering the ability of leaders to implement meaningful change. As a result, Dr. Malik spent the next 8+ years earning his masters degree, followed by a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology, and wrote his dissertation on the concept of combining the disciplines of psychology and business management. The end result was Suntiva – founded in 2002 and dedicated to combining doctoral-level psychology with more traditional business domain expertise in the delivery of low-risk business solutions that can last.
Clearly, there are many consulting firms that provide expertise in the people side of business – the question that leaders must ask is whether that level of expertise is commensurate with the size, complexity, and importance of the mission or challenge at hand. In addition, it’s not only the depth of expertise that matters, but also whether that expertise can be applied in the context of the business – in ways that leaders, managers, and staff can relate to and then use on the job. Just as technical solutions often fail without a parallel focus on the people, change management and people-based initiatives will also fail when individuals cannot ‘translate’ the new skills to their day-to-day job and business interactions, especially when those skills or ‘organizational improvements’ are not clearly linked to measurable business results.
At Suntiva, we’ve found success in the magical mix that we have developed to combine the right levels of business/domain and psychology/people expertise in the delivery of low-risk solutions and lasting results for our clients – as proven by our 100% customer satisfaction rate. Our keys to success include the following:
The Right Mix of Expertise
We provide deep domain and Subject Matter Experts (especially in the areas of federal acquisition, information technology, and program management) that work hand-in-hand with our Organizational Performance (OP) Experts. The OP team includes management psychologists, Organization Development practitioners, Leadership Coaches, and others who possess deep expertise in understanding individual and organizational change. And, all of our OP consultants have extensive business background and understand the challenges of leaders in both the public and private sector.
Organizational Performance Methodology
We have invested years in developing a proven and comprehensive organizational performance model (Suntiva Org Performance Model - SOPM) that is based on best practices in the field of change management, as well as many successful implementations of the model with our clients. Our SOPM methodology guides the process of each management consulting engagement that we do. It is a step-by-step model that gives our consultants and clients a roadmap of how to implement successful organizational change; combining our technical and business consulting with change management and organization psychology principles.
Leading Change in the Business Context
Critical to success is the ability to work organizational/people issues in the context of the business challenge at hand. Suntiva consultants ensure that the change process is an integral part of the “real” work that must be done to achieve the desired end state. This is why so many “Leadership Offsites” create goodwill for a few days but ultimately don’t deliver lasting change – they don’t address human factors in ways that leaders can take back and apply effectively in their day-to-day role.
Learn more about our Organizational Performance services
