The Excelerate Code: How We Show Up for Our Clients

Curiosity gets right to the core of who we are. It requires humility—about what we already know and what we have yet to learn—and it is the indispensable first step in learning. Maintaining that openness keeps us one step ahead, always ready to probe deeper, to not stop until we get to the root of the question, not just its simple answer.

When people lose their curiosity, they tether themselves to the surface and that is an untenable place for us.

We get and stay curious so that we can learn and then excel because greatness waits for nobody.

We are passionate about leadership: Enterprise thinkers with a flexible, fully formed point of view that positions us to see what others might miss. Anybody can show up and do what they’re told—shake the right hands, check the right boxes, and provide the expected deliverables. But for Excelerators, part of serving our clients is challenging assumptions, bringing a different perspective for them to consider, and digging a couple levels deeper to uncover a problem’s root cause. 

Sometimes, the best way to support a client isn’t to align to their assumptions and follow their lead but to humbly suggest another direction, to come in as a leader who is ready to serve.

Our clients hire us to be proactive and prepared, to reduce uncertainty by guiding their decisions and anticipating roadblocks. This means we show up for meetings a few steps ahead and keep those meetings on track and on time. We stand teams up and spotlight the decision before them while remaining in the background. We log all decisions, and we make action items as clear as possible because, as consultants, we are there to create an environment where the right decision can be made at the right time.

We do this by first anticipating and then following through.

It is normal to feel uncomfortable with ambiguity.

A primary role that we play with our clients is to reduce uncertainty. This means we must be brave and push through the anxiety to ask the right questions and structure the right conversations that help our clients find the right path forward.

For Excelerators, operating in ambiguity means accepting that we won’t immediately find the optimal solution while trusting in ourselves enough to know that we ultimately will. We are willing to take a swing because we know that on the other side of that effort, there is a better place. We do that by consistently bringing a point of view that drives momentum towards that better place.

Anybody can walk into a dark room, quickly light a candle in the corner, and say, “It’s not dark in here anymore.” But Excelerators aren’t afraid to sit in the darkness while they figure out a way to bring enough light into the room that everybody can see. And that requires consistent bravery.

There is nothing an Excelerator loves more than a conference room full of engaged people and an empty whiteboard. Here’s why…

Even if we had all the answers, which none of us do, we would still only see the world through our own eyes. This is why diversity is not a political buzzword but rather a business imperative: collaboration brings together individuals’ backgrounds, experiences, life histories, and points of view. But for collaboration to produce its best results, we all must be present and engaged.

This requires more discipline today—where we all log into virtual meetings, juggling two screens and multiple demands on our attention—than it did when we all sat around a conference room with nothing but a table between us and a whiteboard on the wall.

The digital meeting era undoubtedly has its benefits—efficiency and agility, for example, to say nothing of work-life balance. The challenge, then, is to show up to virtual meetings the same way we do in-person ones: distraction free and engaged, ready for collaboration. Because two heads are better than one.

Our clients don’t hire us to tell them what they already know; they bring us in to drive a better outcome. We are there to do right by the initiative, the team, and the mission, and oftentimes that requires respectful dissent.

This could mean challenging a long-held assumption, pushing back against an ill-considered initiative, or calling out dysfunction when we see it. Sure, not everyone will appreciate that—people are passionate about their ideas and want to see them implemented and succeed—but, as a challenger brand with a focus solely on the outcome they are seeking, it’s our job

To be clear, this isn’t just a trick of the trade to stand out in the crowd. Some people build their entire brand around dissent—problematizing, what about-ing, and just asking questions. But for Excelerators, dissent must come with a clear, data-driven rationalization, and we must be prepared to defend why it will enable a better outcome.

We don’t just disagree to stand out, we stand tall and push back when the greater good of the initiative demands it.

Advancing our clients’ business is, at the end of the day, the only way to advance our own; to empower our clients to Go Faster. Smarter our consultants must be empowered to make business-advancing decisions. But this doesn’t mean that Excelerators operate solo without guardrails.

It means we trust and expect Excelerators to make quick and carefully considered decisions armed with the right information while respecting the decision-making rights and authorities within their environment.

This can only be achieved by clearly and consistently communicating our company values, which guide our consultants through the daily decisions they must make. 

As an extension to those values, articulating The Excelerate Code is rooted in these same goals. And it’s how we deliver empowered, enterprise thinkers to our clients.

We are always a work-in-progress because we never stop growing—we should always be improving ourselves, adding to our experiences and skillsets, and learning our lessons along the way.

This is true collectively: To specialize in business transformation, we must stay sharp, advising clients on best practices and innovation at the cutting edge. And it’s true individually: Excelerators operate with a growth mindset, striving to be the best versions of ourselves…and then a little better.

To support this growth culture, we built an internal learning system (Excelerate University!) and we conduct after action reviews when things don’t go according to plan, and sometimes even when they do, because every event is an opportunity to learn and to grow.  

And if we are not growing, our impact is shrinking.

There’s no go-live, product launch, or growth outcome without contingency planning because, invariably, something goes wrong with plan A (and B and C!). This doesn’t mean the strategy was bad, just that there’s no way to predict all potential outcomes.

And to be prepared, you need a balance of preventative pragmatists and promotive optimists. Of course, promoters (optimists) can be more energizing —always focused on the art of the possible, always saying “Yes, and…”—but preventative thinkers are just as important, and it’s in contingency planning that they really shine.

We need people who wake up in the morning and think, “What can go wrong today…and how can we mitigate it?”  We need people who anticipate challenges and already have a couple of solutions in mind before they come into view.

That’s not pessimism, it’s practicality.

And that practicality enables us to pivot, to go from Plan A all the way to Plan G, to ensure successful outcomes for our clients.

When we interview job candidates, grit is one of the most important qualities we seek—we are looking for people with the fortitude and confidence to endure, and even shine, in the face of setbacks.

Because in our work, setbacks are inevitable. We are taking on some of the biggest business problems imaginable, and our clients don’t bring us on unless the challenge is substantial.

In this environment, pedigree cannot shield us from setbacks, which come for a Yale PhD just as swiftly as they do an alumnus of a school you’ve never heard of.  Pedigree tells us where you come from and where you’ve been, but it doesn’t tell us how you will advance through the fire.

Grit does.

Grit pushes transformations across the finish line. Consultants often only show up for the strategy formulation: they come in, pontificate, run some data, share some thoughts, and then hand it off to somebody else to implement. That’s not us, we don’t stand on the sidelines.

Excelerators work on front lines every day, side-by-side with our clients, sleeves rolled up, translating thought into action and getting real work done.