FROM OUR PARTNERS:
ANNOUNCING OUR NEWEST PRINCIPAL, PERIN WEHDE

The Gunter Group is excited to announce that Perin Wehde has joined the firm in Denver, CO as its newest Principal.  

Perin comes to TGG with over 22 years of multinational consulting experience and brings significant expertise helping organizations develop visions and align strategies in order to successfully execute complex change initiatives that improve business performance. Perin is a passionate problem solver and an energetic, relationships focused leader that uses a listen-first approach to help organizations and teams drive towards a common goal. Perin’s leadership role will serve as another valuable addition to our Denver based team and our growing list of client partners in Colorado.  

When asked about the announcement, TGG Founding Partner Mike Gunter stated: 

“Welcoming Perin as Principal and as a member of our senior leadership team is a very exciting moment. Perin’s high level of experience and strong professional background in the consulting industry will be a great addition to TGG. Her skills, leadership, and natural alignment with the TGG culture will complement our focus and growth in Denver and additional new markets.”   

FROM OUR PARTNERS:
A DECADE OF SERVICE – JIM CALKO

The Gunter Group prioritizes and focuses on our “people first” mission, and it is with great excitement that we recognize Jim Calko for his 10 years of service with TGG. Not only is Jim one of our most tenured team members, he is also TGG’s newest Principal having been promoted to the position in the fall of 2022.  

Jim was one of TGG’s earliest hires when he joined the firm in 2013 after serving for over five years in The United States Army. Jim’s service and leadership in the Army immediately added significant value to our young organization. Since joining TGG Jim has served in a variety of roles including: Consultant, Internal Operations, New Hire Ambassador, Manager, and Agile Services Lead. Jim’s experience and diverse background has been an impactful building block for our growth and success over the past decade. His ability to successfully drive change within various client organizations and focus on leading teams through digital and agile transformations has helped a wide range of client partners achieve their short and long term goals. 

When asked about Jim’s time with the firm and promotion to Principal, Partner Tony Schweiss stated: 

“From our earliest days as a firm, Jim naturally aligned with our goal to help organizations achieve success by delivering great work through building great relationships. He has been, and continues to be a great extension of our organizational culture and values. TGG is honored and proud to have Jim as part of our senior leadership team. Jim lives our non-negotiables on a daily basis and shares our drive toward personal excellence, building a high-performing team, and maximizing client potential through world class client service.”

We want to congratulate Jim on his 10 years with The Gunter Group, and we look forward to Jim continuing to help lead our firm as we work together to help our clients, consultants, and communities thrive!

TGG CULTURE IN ACTION:
INCLUSION AND FLEXBILITY

At the beginning of 2023, we implemented a new paid holiday policy at The Gunter Group: we changed all our paid holidays to “floating holidays” so that our team can choose to celebrate the holidays that mean the most to them.

The genesis of our decision started last year when a team of our consultants came forward to the leadership team with an idea for a “Day of Service” for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. At the time, our holiday policy included 7 paid company-defined holidays plus one “floating” holiday, which could be used on any day during the year. 

The team that brought forward the idea about the Day of Service also asked the question of whether the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday should be one of our “official” holidays. This led to a much deeper discussion about not only our holiday policy, but also Inclusion. In other words, how could we make it so that our policy on holidays would be fully inclusive and reflect our core values and Culture as an organization? Why should the company dictate that employees take off Christmas Day versus Yom Kippur, Diwali or days during Ramadan? Or New Year’s Day instead of Chinese New Year? Maybe the discussion about whether to observe a particular holiday was missing the point.  

Our point of view is that Inclusion is not about a particular holiday, it’s about all of them. This is what led us to change our company policy so that TGGers can decide which days to observe based on what is most meaningful to them and their families.

Back to the Day of Service on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday: a large team of TGGers and their families came together to assemble and deliver 35 Sack Lunches, 20 Winter Kits, and 44 Hygiene Kits to the Blanchet House in Portland, an organization that supports people experiencing homelessness and that is “On a mission to alleviate suffering and offer hope for a better life by serving essential aid with dignity”. I am super proud of the team and the support they provided to such an amazing organization.

At The Gunter Group, we strive to create an environment to support our consultants, clients, and communities such that each can achieve excellence, realize their full potential, and thrive. We live by our Non-Negotiables:  Collaborative, Integrity, Intellectual Curiosity, Thrives in Ambiguity, Emotional Intelligence and Grounded Confidence. Our Non-Negotiables reflect who we are and who we will continue striving to be. We value engagement and creative ideas from our team, and we are always working to make TGG a better and better place to work!

TGG RANKED IN TOP THREE: 2022 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN OREGON

We are excited to share that for the eighth year in a row, The Gunter Group has been ranked as one of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon’ according to Oregon Business. 

The Gunter Group was recognized as the #3 Best Company to Work For in Oregon, in the medium-sized businesses category!

According to Oregon Business one TGGer stated, “This is the kind of company that I always wanted to work for, but didn’t think could actually exist. I feel cared for, appreciated, and there’s always support from every co-worker when it’s needed.”  

We are honored to be recognized on Oregon Business Magazine’s 100 Best Companies list again this year. 

Congratulations to our amazing team!

Be sure to visit guntergroup.com and discover what makes The Gunter Group so unique.

To learn more about the 2022 100 Best List, view the 2022 top ten video, and see the complete rankings visit: oregonbusiness.com

The 100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon is an annual showcase that recognizes top Small, Medium, and Large businesses in the state. More than 9,000 employees across a wide range of industries complete an employee engagement survey that encompasses areas such as: management & communications, decision-making & trust, career development & learning, benefits & compensation, and work environment. 

TGG RANKED AS A BEST SMALL FIRM TO WORK FOR IN THE NATION BY CONSULTING MAGAZINE

For the third year in a row The Gunter Group has been recognized as a “Best Small Firm to Work For” in the nation according to Consulting Magazine.  

It is an honor to share that The Gunter group was selected as the #6 “Best Small Firm to Work For” in the nation for the 2021 rankings and finished in the top 10 for the third consecutive year.

When asked about this year’s recognition TGG Founders Mike and Ashleigh Gunter commented, “We are so proud to be recognized again as a Top 10 Consulting Magazine Best Small Firm to Work For nationally, alongside so many other great firms. It is an important recognition for us because we believe it reflects the culture we have worked so hard to build, and our amazing team. What a great way to celebrate our 10th Anniversary!”

The Consulting Magazine rankings were announced on September 9th, 2021 at a dinner gala in Chicago. Only 18 small firms were chosen for recognition, based on an annual survey of over 12,000 consultants from approximately 300 firms nationwide. Award candidates were evaluated across six different categories of employee satisfaction including, client engagement, culture, firm leadership, career development, and compensation and benefits.

To learn more about the 2021 Consulting Magazine Awards and see the complete rankings visit: https://www.event.consultingmag.com/best-firms-to-work-for

The Gunter Group is a management consulting firm headquartered in Oregon, serving the west coast with offices in Portland and Reno, Nevada. Learn more about us and the services we offer here.

TGG RANKED IN TOP THREE FOR BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN OREGON

We recently learned that for the seventh consecutive year, The Gunter Group has been ranked as one of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon’ according to Oregon Business. 

We are excited to share that The Gunter Group was recognized as the #3 Best Company to Work For in Oregon, in the medium-sized businesses category!

The 100 Best Companies to Work For in Oregon is an annual showcase that recognizes top Small, Medium, and Large businesses in the state. More than 10,000 employees across a wide range of industries complete an employee engagement survey that encompasses areas such as: management & communications, decision-making & trust, career development & learning, benefits & compensation, and work environment. 

To learn more about the 2021 100 Best List and to see the complete rankings visit: oregonbusiness.com

OUR NON-NEGOTIABLES:
A LOOK BACK

A year and a half ago, we introduced a blog series on our company’s Non-Negotiables. At TGG, our Non-Negotiables are six traits and characteristics that guide us in our everyday interactions with each other, our clients, and our communities. They are the pillars on which we have built, and will continue to build, the company. 

The Non-Negotiables came about in a particularly organic way. We did not sit down in a “strategy session” to “identify our Non-Negotiables”. They came about naturally as we thought about the values that are important to us, how we wished to create, cultivate and maintain relationships, our culture, and most importantly….the traits and characteristics we saw really successful TGGers demonstrating. The Non-Negotiables became an articulation of how we were already living. 

Our Non-Negotiables are reflected not only in our day to day interactions, but in our recruiting, our professional development, and our feedback process. They are our framework for holding ourselves accountable in our work and relationships, and it is our greatest point of pride that our team consistently reflects them.

Our six Non-Negotiables are:

1. 1. Collaborative
2. 2. Integrity
3. 3. Intellectual Curiosity
4. 4. Thrives in Ambiguity
5. 5. Emotional Intelligence
6. 6. Grounded Confidence

When we began this blog series, we asked different members of our team to write each of the six blogs, and we are really proud of how they turned out. The authors reflect a group of individuals with different backgrounds, varying years of experience (and time with the company), diverse perspectives, and different working styles. We also sat down and filmed the historical context of our Non-Negotiables and how they guide our focus as we grow our firm. 

Little did we know that half way through this blog series, we would find ourselves in the middle of not only a global pandemic, but also significant societal upheaval in the ongoing fight for equity, inclusion and racial justice. 

We knew how our Non-Negotiables guided us in “normal” times, but how would they hold up in such uncertain and stressful times? 

The answer is that we have relied upon them even more heavily. We focused on taking care of and supporting each other (Integrity, Emotional Intelligence).  We engaged even more deeply, and in many cases with more flexibility and an even stronger sense of service, with our clients (Thrives in Ambiguity, Intellectual Curiosity, Collaborative, Grounded Confidence). We also revamped our recruiting and evaluation processes to further embed these characteristics and traits (all six).  

We believe the increased level of depth and focus on our Non-Negotiables has been motivating and rewarding for our entire organization. It has also furthered our commitment to putting people and culture first in times of prosperity and uncertainty alike.

Our Non-Negotiables continue to be the most accurate representation we have of our company’s culture. They reflect who we are and who we will continue striving to be as we build our team and company.

We hope you have enjoyed this blog series as much as we have enjoyed sharing it. We encourage leaders and teams to think critically about the aspirational and lived culture you desire for your organization and orient everything around bringing it to life.   

About the Author:
Mike is passionate about client service and leading people. He enjoys watching people grow, develop, and discover their true path. Mike is a visionary and forward thinker with extensive multinational experience and a proven track record of serving clients. With more than 25 years of business leadership and consulting in a wide variety of challenging and ambiguous environments, Mike got his start in the industry at Deloitte Consulting and has since held executive leadership positions in consulting, supply chain services, and public education organizations.

HOW A FIRST DAY SHAPED A CAREER

I showed up nervous on my first day at The Gunter Group. 

That morning, my manager and I went for a walk along the Willamette River. After some getting-to-know-you chatter, I turned the conversation to the job: “What do you think my first 30 days should look like?” 

My manager, Matt Bader, considered my question for several more steps. He answered, “All I want you to do is learn. Treat every experience as a teachable moment. Just worry about that, and the rest will come.” 

All the growing I’ve done at The Gunter Group has flourished in the garden of that conversation. Every experience has been a learning experience. I’ve had the opportunity to create internal development tools, write copy, build surveys, facilitate engagement sessions, spin up a center of excellence, and support an enterprise ERP implementation. All of these experiences have been new in some way, and all have been opportunities to learn lessons that make me better at my job. 

My time as a consultant has confirmed this one truth: the only thing guaranteed in every experience is the opportunity to learn. 

I’ll pause to make an important distinction: the act of learning is different from the opportunity for learning. In 2020, TGG consultant Stephen Bacon led a series of coffee chats about change management responses in the time of COVID-19. Stephen’s most important message to professionals in the pandemic: There is no guarantee that we will learn from this. We have to be intentional. Learning is not guaranteed, but opportunity is. 

This message is timely: the pandemic introduced most of us to a new reality. We are now familiar with remote work, the shrinking pool of small businesses, chart-topping unemployment, constricting budgets, and lifelines of federal aid. The one guarantee among all these earth-shattering elements is an avalanche of learning opportunities. 

This raises the question: how do you take advantage of these learning opportunities? Here are a few pointers I find helpful: 

Foster the Right Mindset: New experiences can be hijacked by negative emotional responses. It can be easy for learning to get lost in the fog of fear, anxiety, exhaustion, rebellion, flight, etc. At TGG, “Thrives in Ambiguity” is one of the non-negotiable characteristics we look for in team members, and it is our target response in adversity. But it can require a mindset shift to see a new, ambiguous experience as an opportunity to thrive. A good approach: reframe your natural fear response by saying “this is an opportunity” every time a new challenge pops up.

Remove Obstacles: The book Atomic Habits by James Clear suggests that the first thing you can do to break a bad habit is to raise awareness of triggers and reduce your exposure to them. If fear is one of your responses to a new challenge, try to understand where that fear is coming from, and respond accordingly. Narrow your focus to the present by writing down what you can do today, and ignore everything else. This builds valuable and purposeful momentum.

Pay Attention: Do you journal? Because you should journal. The most common objection to journaling is the time commitment, a problem that is easily solved. Start small: every day before closing your computer, write one sentence about something you learned that day. Really, that’s all it takes. Months later, when you can look over 100 different things you learned, you’ll be grateful for the 10 seconds of effort you put into it each day. 

Be Honest: It’s easy to make mistakes, but even easier to make excuses. “It wasn’t my fault, I just ran out of time,” or “We couldn’t have predicted the curveballs we had to face.” The more you make excuses for mistakes, the harder it is to learn from them. Radical honesty can help. When something goes wrong, it’s actually better for your career if you own up to the mistake and learn from it. Otherwise, all you learn is the skill of shifting blame away from yourself at all costs. 

Take Risks: Access to more opportunities means access to more learning. Volunteer for that internal project, raise your hand to own that action item, throw your hat in the ring for that new job. Expose yourself to new challenges, new colleagues, new activities; this will not only expand your skill set, but also your appetite for growth. 

Like most other habits, learning is not a talent: it’s a skill. A skill you can cultivate, and with a little time and patience you’ll start to reap the benefits. 

A great place to start is by reading some other articles on our TGG blog! Here are three of my favorites: 

• Understanding employee engagement and how to leverage it
• Agile project management’s future: beyond the basics
• Ebola, change management, and embracing the people-side of things

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:
5 SUCCESS PILLARS FOR NEW CONSULTANTS

Last week, a panel of seasoned consultants from The Gunter Group were invited to provide their insights into the field of consulting to members of The Oregon Consulting Group at The University of Oregon. 

The Oregon Consulting Group was founded in 2014 through The University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business with the mission to help students gain valuable real world experience, while solving tangible problems for companies and non-profit organizations. The Oregon Consulting Group consists of 35 students, across 20 academic disciplines who complete 18 projects every year. 

During the event, The Gunter Group team had the opportunity to analyze and advise on 3 consulting projects focused on a diverse range of topics including: 

Additionally, to assist The Oregon Consulting Group members as they embark on their careers in the consulting industry, The Gunter Group team shared 5 success pillars for new consultants:

1. Curiosity – With every client engagement develop a curiosity for what clients do and what they need to reach their potential. Consultants have a valuable opportunity to be fresh eyes on a situation or problem, and doing so with genuine curiosity lays the groundwork for authentic engagements focused on client success.

2. Creativity – When working to solve client problems, one size does not “fit all.” Different problems require different tools. Utilize different vantage points and perspectives when diagnosing problems and identifying solutions. Investigate with ingenuity in order to further develop a creative mindset.

3. Flexibility – Be agile. Avoid falling into the trap of being locked into one approach for the situation at hand. Consultants should be prepared to morph and adapt to the client’s needs. This flexible mindset maintains the overall mission of “providing tangible value” to the client and maximizing results.

4. Growth – In the absence of professional experience early in their career, consultants should be resourceful in ways they can provide tangible value to their team and firm at large. It’s important to “know what you don’t know” and as a result, seek out opportunities to foster new skills and knowledge.

5. Communication – Be a diligent listener to teammates and clients. Focus intently on the words people use and commit to being fully present. When presented with an opportunity to share, be succinct and purposeful with commentary.

At the conclusion of the event, TGG Senior Consultant, Stephen Bacon shared the following:

“The chance to give back to a group of aspiring consultants was a privilege for our entire team. Hearing students’ fresh perspectives on client problems was a learning opportunity for all of us and we can’t wait to see what these student leaders accomplish in their careers ahead.”

Our consultants are grateful for the opportunity to share our experience and expertise with the bright and talented members of The Oregon Consulting Group. We wish the students success in all their academic and professional pursuits!