These days, Peter Cleveland is doing what he loves best - helping companies achieve their long-term strategic goals.

After 10 years as the managing partner of Ernst & Young's Ottawa office, Mr. Cleveland is striking out on his own. He recently launched a new business strategy firm appropriately called Cleveland Leadership Group Inc.

While he is still spending some of his time at Ernst & Young completing his transition phase, Mr. Cleveland is already hard at work helping companies achieve their vision.

"I help (companies) develop a strategic plan if they don't have one. If they have one that isn't working, I help them strategize. To make the change, I believe it takes three to five years to pick a company up drastically," says Mr. Cleveland.

His clients vary from technology companies to professional services and manufacturing firms. Most of the companies seeking his help are making money, but not achieving all of their goals.

The biggest problem Mr. Cleveland sees is the failure to implement strategic direction through all employee ranks.

"What I see most often is, if a company has a strategic direction, they most often fail to link that with front-line behaviour. In other words, what all of their staff and employees are doing on a daily basis to actually achieve that strategic direction. Very often, the companies do not reward employees for being aligned with working towards its vision."

Even the size of a company does not influence whether this is more or less of a problem.

"You could have a five-person organization that's just running from pillar to post and not aligned at all with its strategies or you can have a company that is $5 to $10 million in revenue with 25 to 50 people with the same issue," says Mr. Cleveland. "Very often the leaders of organizations think that by setting a strategic direction and telling everybody about it that it will happen, but until the day-to-day behaviour changes to align to that vision, most often companies will continue in the same direction. They might improve incrementally, but not if they want a significant shift in growth."

The root of the problem often comes back to human resources - selecting the right people for the right job. Mr. Cleveland thinks many companies have to consider bringing in outside skills in order to achieve company goals.

Evaluating employees on a systematic basis is another activity companies should embrace to achieve their strategic goals, according to Mr. Cleveland.

In his opinion, companies don't frequently measure how employees are working to achieve company goals.

"Usually you have to link with the skill sets of the people that you have. People rarely do that until they get large," says Mr. Cleveland. "A lot of the small- to medium-sized businesses tend to try and run with the people (they) have. Yet they have these lofty goals. You may have the right people, indeed you might have the right person for a particular job, but they may be doing some other job. So it's this constant re-evaluation of your core competence that's really key."

Furthermore, Mr. Cleveland feels companies do not evaluate their competitors enough. With company websites as they are now, it is easier than ever to assess what competitors are doing. Another simple strategy to learn about competitors is talking to common customers.

When Mr. Cleveland walks into a company, his strategy is to spend as much time as he can with the CEO to determine what the challenges and issues are. After that he interviews the key management players and helps them to develop a strategic plan. Those plans include specific responsibilities and action plans with timelines that Mr. Cleveland revisits when he joins his clients for monthly management meetings.

HANDS-ON APPROACH

Don Hewson, president and CEO of Hewson Bridge + Smith, is one of Mr. Cleveland's clients.

The marketing and communications firm has experienced rapid expansion to Toronto as well as a partnership in New York City. This growth prompted Mr. Hewson to explore what the company needed to achieve greater success.

"We've gone through a fairly rapid geographic expansion ... so we've been doing a lot of things right. But you talk to a lot of companies and they kind of get to a certain point and they ask, 'How do we take it to the next level?' Most people would be happy with where we are, but we want to take it up a notch," says Mr. Hewson. "Peter demonstrated great success when he was with Ernst &Young in terms of doing it himself, especially in a professional services environment. He understands our space and he is able to advise us on what he has done in his professional practice."

According to Mr. Hewson, Mr. Cleveland's hands-on work with his management team in developing action plans has been very positive for the company. In the past year, the company has achieved 85 per cent of the goals Mr. Cleveland helped put in place.

"He's very much a part of the team, not a guy who goes away, writes a big report, hands it to you and pats you on the back and says go for it. He's not that kind of guy. He sits in on our management meetings, monitors our action plans, it is like he is a mentor cum disciplinarian ... the great thing about it is he does transfer knowledge to you. It's a training program for the whole management team. He works on helping with all the performance indicators, but at the same time he is there to make sure that everybody is able to perform and helps coach them."

In addition to getting his new company off the ground, Mr. Cleveland started a new position with the University of Ottawa this past January. He is an executive in residence for its executive MBA program.

Executive MBA director Terry Kulka is thrilled to have Mr. Cleveland on board.

"From our perspective, the eMBA program at the University of Ottawa is designed around a core concept of linking our program and our participants to leadership in this community and give our participants access to strong executive role models," says Mr. Kulka. "Peter is a widely recognized and highly regarded leader in the Ottawa business community. So, he is the kind of executive we want to attract to the school of management and the eMBA program."

According to Mr. Kulka, Mr. Cleveland's main role will be to help design and deliver an executive development program. He will also help the school of management create better ties with executive leaders in town.

"(My) role there is to help the executive MBA program and the dean of the school of business, Micheal Kelly, to develop strategies to become closer with senior leadership in the community. I will be an adviser to the dean plus helping the executive MBA program reach out to senior executives, either by way of educational support or by way of just building relationships," says Mr. Cleveland.

In his spare time Mr. Cleveland is the co-chairman of the Ottawa Hospital Foundation and a CATA Alliance adviser. A published author of four books, he is in the infant stages of a new book on executive problem solving.

But perhaps Mr. Cleveland's greatest asset as he grows his own company will be his sense of humour and charm.

"In addition to being a very wise fellow, he is also a wise guy," says Mr. Hewson. "He's very funny. He is very disarming with people and non-threatening. Our management people feel very comfortable - they don't feel he's going to tell tales on them. (They) feel comfortable calling him and saying, 'I'm doing this and it doesn't work. Do you have any thoughts?'"