Management Teams and Organisation Issues in Private Equity Investments

Key Learning Outcomes:


The course is intended to assist attendees significantly raise their level of capability in dealing with management and organisation issues in investor-backed companies, both pre- and post-deal.


Attendees of this high impact 1-day course will gain an understanding of:

• How – and to what degree – management issues impinge upon investor decisions and returns.
• The wide range of factors which affect individual, team and organisation level performance – and how to approach them in the right way.
• The different types of interactions investors have with management teams and how to improve them.
• The key skills, tools and templates to deal with a variety of typical situations in a structured and confident manner. Ways to make ‘invisible’ management practices available for discussion and improvement.
• How simple practices can reduce risk, improve overall performance – and reduce the headaches investors experience in dealing with these issues.
• How to be better buyers and beneficiaries of any outside support you may get from recruiters, MDD providers or post-deal advisers.

Course Outline

Introduction

• Introductions, reviewing individual objectives and comparing experiences.

Why are management/organisation issues important for investors?

• Some data and anecdotes on the costs of failure and the implications of performance variations in management quality and practices.

The factors which drive individual, team and organisational performance

• An overview of the ‘hundred factors’ – and how to deal with the complexity.
• Why surprises happen – and why organisations often have low effectiveness.

Thinking about these issues


• The ‘what’ and ‘how’ of performance.

• The evidence gap; the knowing-doing gap and the talking-behaving gap.

• Quantity matters.

• Bangs and bucks.

Investor-management interactions and how to improve them.


• Situations and interactions across the deal cycle.

• Quality and quantity of internal efforts – what other investors do.

• Dealing with 3rd parties.

• The views of management about investors.


The key skills for learning about individuals, teams and organisations


• Mapping the business needs – with exercise.

• Using and combining methods – with exercise.

• Calibrating and synthesising what has been learned – with exercise.


Rules of thumb


• What evidence and experience have revealed about key aspects of managerial performance for investors and more generally.


Specific applications and techniques – three cases


• Recruiting a sales director.

• Assessing a management team during a deal.

• Diagnosing an under-performing organisation.


How to learn more and improve your skills

Final Q&A on areas of particular interest