Client Testimonials
“The Growth River team helped us clarify the approach for our multi-year transformation. The 7 Crucial Conversations is a unique model for understanding businesses as social systems and how organizations grow and innovate in a team-based way. And it is a powerful transformation accelerator – the kind that has the potential to move an entire enterprise forward.”
~ Penny Pennington, Managing Partner, Edward Jones
“I wanted to share that you have given me a powerful lens for my business thinking. I use the concept of primary constraint regularly to help me think about what is next for me or for others who ask for my counsel. It is not limited to the primary constraint, but extends so much more. I feel much more confident because of your coaching. Confident as I have a new way of thinking.”
~ Cliff Pollan, former CEO, Sococo, Postwire, Lumigent Technologies
“I’ve worked with Growth River for more than 15 years in some very complex and politically volatile business environments including post merger integrations and turnarounds. If you are looking for change leadership experts to work with your executive team through the toughest challenges, there is no better choice than Growth River.”
~ Michael Tease, CEO, AMG
“Since learning the Growth River Process, we’ve improved the crispness of our decision making. Now we run into the storm, rather than try and steer away from it.”
~ Randy Jordan, CEO, Hope Worldwide
“Growth River’s approach to structuring the system-of-roles allows us to groom and develop leaders, which allows us to orchestrate success and scale over time. As stellar as our value proposition is, we will never be able to scale with this alone.”
~ Pat Bodin, CEO, Firefly
“Our organization had a great mission, great experience and great people. But we were adrift and not evolving in a good way. Growth River redirected us onto a new evolutionary trajectory that builds on our strengths and dispatches our weaknesses in a meticulous, organized way. We are more organized than ever, talking the same language, and growing in ways I never thought was possible is such a short period of time“
~ George Gann, Board Chair, Institute For Regional Conservation
“The change leadership experts from Growth River are world class. They have provided us with a powerful shared language and structured approach for achieving team and business breakthroughs. As a result, we have made our businesses more competitive, our teams more collaborative and frankly my job as a CEO more effective and satisfying. This is the rare consulting firm that will actually provide you with the common sense tools, experience and support required to successfully scale an agile company. Working with the Growth River professionals in the US and Europe has been a great personal experience and a great business investment.”
~ Nigel Lange, Acting CEO, SIRTEX Medical, Ltd.
“The business unit strategy meeting on Thursday stood in sharp relief to anything we could have done just a few short months ago. Such was the contrast that I had a hard time focusing on the content at the expense of admiring the evolution of the team and the forum that held it. I was, as was each member of the team, consciously aware of the transition we are making. Each of us organically became aware of at least one more behavioral change that we could make to better ourselves and our efforts as a team member.
I want to acknowledge Growth River’s role in getting us here has been mission critical. Said differently, we couldn’t have done this without you and consider the approach to be elegant, exciting, transformational. We are truly on our way.”
~ Robert A. Preti, PhD, President, Hitachi Chemical Advanced Therapies
“The alignment work we did with Growth River created clarity and accountability as well as changed our culture. It has increased credibility with our donors that has led to more funding and partnerships. Rewording our vision and mission as well as developing a system of roles has enabled the staff and board to be clear about our strengths, constraints, and priorities. We are able to create stronger value to our clients for the services we provide. The surprise result is the increased credibility with our donors that has led to more funding and partnerships.”
~ Sharon Bass, Executive Director, Volunteer Center Of Lubbock
“Growth River doesn’t tell us what our strategic direction is, they help us think in strategic ways so we can answer our own questions. And that’s probably the most significant thing they do.”
~ Marty Rosenberg, Founder, Ethos Partners
“I think we’ve got the purest form of partnership between a consulting firm and a client. Growth River is literally part of the team in every sense…synergy is a word you use when you’re trying to force something—with GR there’s almost a oneness.”
~ Alex Hunter, President, Ethos Partners
“Of all the strategic planning work I’ve done in my career, this work was the most real, the most influential, and most changed how I thought about my organization and about my leadership.”
~ Laura Shubilla, PhD, co-CEO, Philadelphia Youth Network
“Growth River taught us that if we were not having conflict, we were not dealing with the difficult issues inside our organization. They helped us to reframe conflict as creative tensions to drive growth.”
~ Laura Shubilla, PhD, co-CEO, Philadelphia Youth Network
“People have been performing at a much higher rate, more efficient in our delivery, we survived a financial crisis that we probably would not have, all the result of using our resources in a very directed way. This is because the team can now play with each other.”
~ Stacy Holland, co-CEO, Philadelphia Youth Network
“When I think about the value of Growth River’s services, it’s really at every single stage of our growth.”
~ Steve Sun, CEO, GENEWIZ
“We have been growing at 40% every year for the last several years. And the benefits I have personally received from working with Growth River can not quantified by dollars. It’s worth every penny.”
~ Amy Liao, COO, GENEWIZ
“I’ve been in leadership and team development all my career and you blew my socks off.”
~ Karen Kolsky, Chief Neighborhood Network Officer, School District of Philadelphia
“Impact on performance of Growth River services? Here’s a story from last week. The CFO said, ‘if I gave you $10m more, what would you do?’ Within 24 hours we had an answer, and everyone on the team knew how we arrived to that determination and what the money meant.”
~ Fran Burns, COO, School District of Philadelphia
“They’re very straightforward — not a lot of consultant speak. And when I would challenge them, they’d respond in ways that made sense.”
~ Paul Taylor, Founder & President, Taylor Technology
Growth River has provided St. Catherine’s Center for Children with the tools and understanding we need to become a high-performance organization.
Understanding role clarity has created an environment that promotes individual and collective ownership and responsibility. Maintaining organizational alignment allows us to accomplish more, with less wasted time and fewer lost resources.
Confronting barriers and constraints not only makes us more efficient, but also prepares us for challenges that lie ahead. Whether you work at a high-tech start-up creating innovative products or a not-for-profit offering old-fashioned human services, your organization will benefit from Growth River. I know we did!”
~ Frank Pindiak, Executive Director
St. Catherine’s Center for Children
