OUR NON-NEGOTIABLES: GROUNDED CONFIDENCE
At The Gunter Group, the leadership traits and characteristics that define us are our Non-Negotiables: Collaborative, Integrity, Intellectual Curiosity, Thrives in Ambiguity, Emotional Intelligence, and Grounded Confidence. These traits and characteristics guide us every day in our interactions with clients, each other, and our community.
GROUNDED CONFIDENCE is an integral part of our company culture. It is in the fiber of who we are and how we lead. This approach to leadership is built on self-awareness and a recognition that we do not have all the answers but also confidence that we have the ability to overcome incredible challenges.
As a veteran, the concept of grounded confidence was a product of necessity to navigate the challenges of leading in the military. It became something that I intentionally practice and work hard to exemplify.
Being dropped into a deployment situation is inherently hard to describe. Nothing is intuitive. When you first deploy you have to reconstruct the fundamental context for how to function on a day to day basis from scratch. The foundational questions are endless, leaving you feeling vulnerable and exposed. It is an incredibly humbling experience.
Yet you have no choice but to persevere and tackle the unknown. And while the feeling of encountering the unknown is almost always uncomfortable, grounded confidence is knowing that you have the strength to move forward and lead for the betterment of the mission at hand and the people by your side.
TGG employs a number of veterans. Although nothing is the same as deploying to a foreign country, our TGG veterans embody the many parallels between the leadership traits and characteristics necessary for success in the military as well as in consulting. Grounded confidence is a key area of overlap.
We look to grounded confidence to grow our firm because we fundamentally believe that people who share this quality can accomplish great things together. By surrounding ourselves with people who flourish in the unknown, we sustain a culture that supports us in overcoming obstacles.
Whether at a client site or working with internal teams, we work collaboratively and support each other in the unknown to solve the most complex challenges. In doing so, we maximize the value we can provide our clients and the opportunities to grow and hone our own leadership skills.
The ability to lead with grounded confidence resonates with our clients. We don’t pretend to have all the answers. We don’t lead from a place of ego or superiority. Our clients’ problems change and the best solutions vary, so we opt to lead alongside our clients through unfamiliar terrain and challenging circumstances with grounded confidence. Together, we solve the most demanding problems.
OUR NON-NEGOTIABLES: COLLABORATIVE
At The Gunter Group, the leadership traits and characteristics that define us are our Non-Negotiables: Collaborative, Integrity, Intellectual Curiosity, Thrives in Ambiguity, Emotional Intelligence, and Grounded Confidence. These traits and characteristics guide us every day in our interactions with clients, each other, and our community.
At TGG, COLLABORATION is in our DNA. It’s a foundational principle for how we work together and with our clients, and how we have built our firm. We believe creating partnerships is the best way to achieve goals, whether it’s delivering a complicated project for a client or supporting each other in getting our work done.
When we opened our doors in 2011, we knew that our early success would rely on collaboration and empowerment. As a result, we built a culture where each of us believes in raising each other up and sharing in the decision-making process. We look to each other to work with that same spirit of collaboration and partnership.
Naturally, we’ve grown by bringing in team members that share this value. At TGG, we believe in the value of diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences.
Through a strong spirit of collaboration, our team learns from each other’s experiences. By growing our consultants, we grow our firm. When we learn from each other, develop strong relationships, and support each other, we create a positive work environment and foster a culture of trust. We are proud of the fact that our collaborative approach has led to high employee engagement scores (in the 95th percentile).
Sharing our experiences also helps us to prepare for client engagements and address the complex challenges that they face. Our clients resonate with our collaborative approach as we listen and partner closely to help them develop and implement solutions.
Collaboration is a foundational leadership quality at TGG. We establish trust through meaningful connections that build authentic relationships with our clients and each other. Through these open and collaborative relationships, we’ve been able to help our clients accomplish amazing things. We don’t presume to know what our clients want or need or have a pre-canned methodology to sell. We prefer to build relationships and actively partner with our clients to solve problems.
At TGG, our leadership qualities are non negotiable. Whether with a client or on internal teams, our approach is always the same: develop strong relationships and collaborate to solve the problem.