Howard M. Guttman

Howard M. Guttman is the principal of Guttman Development Strategies, Inc., a management consulting firm specializing in executive development, management development, and organization development.

GDS focuses on aligning senior management teams, developing the strategy and implementation of "horizontal" organizations (brand teams, matrix structures, global teams), and executive development. Mr. Guttman and his staff of 18 consultants are known for creating programs and processes that are pragmatic, results oriented, and produce observable change. His style is direct, and he enables clients to clearly see the distinction between symptoms and core organization issues.

Among GDS's U.S. and international clients are major corporations such as Campbell Soup, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Masterfoods U.S.A., Motorola, L'Oreal U.S.A., Pfizer, Philip Morris, Sara Lee Corporation, and The New York Times. Mr. Guttman has also consulted with numerous universities and non-profit organizations around the world.

Mr. Guttman's corporate experience includes Johnson & Johnson and Automatic Data Processing. At J&J, his last position was director of human resources. Previously, at J&J, he served as national manager of human resources development and general manager of headquarters personnel. At ADP, Mr. Guttman was senior organization development consultant responsible for internal consulting and executive training.

Mr. Guttman holds an M.S. from Case Western Reserve University's School of Applied Social Sciences. He has been a professor of organization behavior and management consulting at the Graduate School of Management of Rutgers University and an adjunct professor of behavioral consulting at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Graduate School of Psychology.

Mr. Guttman is the author of When Goliaths Clash, Managing Executive Conflict to Build a More Dynamic Organization, published by AMACOM in April 2003. He has appeared on MSNBC, New Jersey News 12, WMAQ Chicago, and Comcast Network's "One on One." He is a frequent contributor to professional journals such as Executive Excellence, Harvard B-School Working Knowledge, Harvard Management Update, Human Resource Executive, The Journal of Business Strategy, Leader to Leader, Management Review, and Pharmaceutical Executive. He has recently been made a contributing editor to Executive Excellence.

Articles by Mr. Guttman have also appeared in broad-interest newspapers and magazines such as American Airlines' American Way, Amtrak's Arrive, Business News New Jersey, Investors Business Daily, NJ Biz, The Newark Star Ledger, and U.S.A. Today.

Mr. Guttman frequently addresses academic and corporate audiences on such topics as "Executive Development", "Consulting at the Board Level", "Accelerating Organizational Development", "Strategic Training Initiatives", "High-Performance Team Development" and "Conflict Management as a Core Leadership Competency."

Putting "Performance" Into High-Performance Teams:

Whether a team is cross functional or departmental, issue specific or focused on broad management concerns, whether it is senior level or operates on the plant floor?its members get paid not merely to get along, but to get results. In today's business organizations, every team, on every level, needs to be a high-performance one.

In this session, Howard Guttman introduces the concept of the "Team-Development Wheel": a four-stage cycle through which teams move on the road to high performance. Mr. Guttman describes the characteristics and payoffs of each stage. He explores the roles of both the leader and team members in moving from Stage 1 to Stage 4, where the team operates, in effect, as a mini "board of directors." Mr. Guttman isolates four "alignment musts," without which high-performing teams?and organizations?are not possible. He provides a template for team self-assessment and lays out a strategy for driving accelerated levels of team performance.

Conflict Management As A Core Leadership Competency:

As organizations move from hierarchical to horizontal and from silo to matrix structures, the role of leaders is rapidly evolving from commander and night watchman to coach and conflict manager. Influencer, coach, catalyst for creative disagreement, alignment driver, and force for strategic results, are the new, often overlooked requirements for leadership success.

Based on his extensive experience working with senior executives at major corporations such as Campbell Soup, Coach, Johnson & Johnson, Masterfoods U.S.A, Motorola, Pfizer, and Sara Lee, Howard Guttman examines the new context for leadership success, one that puts prime emphasis on the ability to manage conflict. He provides a view of leadership behaviors that challenges much of the prevailing wisdom, along with a "Litmus Test for Leaders," enabling them to test their personal proficiency at managing top-team conflict. He also identifies the pitfalls?the Solomon trap, the Pinocchio effect, and five others?that impair a leader's ability to get results in today's dynamic and complex business environment.

Human Resources' New Role In Conflict Management:

Today's organizations are less hierarchical, more matrixed, and dependent on teams for many of their business results. The ability of leaders to influence, rather than wield power, is now a defining capability. As they learn to enroll their team in problem solving and decision making, leaders need a new set of skills to manage differences in viewpoints, foster open confrontation and issue resolution, and encourage a sense of ownership.

In this session, Howard Guttman provides HR professionals with practical tips for grooming current and future generations of leaders to be effective conflict managers: from serving as role models to acting as "mirrors" and process coaches. He brings the discussion to life with examples from his work with senior HR professionals in a variety of companies such as Colgate-Palmolive, HBO, L'Oreal U.S.A., Philip Morris, Sara Lee Corporation, and The New York Times.

Executive Coaching - Lessons From The Firing Line:

In this highly interactive and provocative session, Howard Guttman alternates between a presentation format and a hands-on, group experience, as he pinpoints coaching best practices and overviews a dynamic new, results-centered coaching process that applies both to one-on-one executive coaching and to the coaching of teams.

Mr. Guttman provides an opportunity for participants to "feel" the impact of key coaching concepts and techniques, raise their awareness of their current approach, and test their understanding of alternative coaching strategies. He goes beyond the basics to cover coaching process and pitfalls, the criticality of relevant data, cause identification, and ways to overcome resistance to change. He illustrates his points with a rich repertoire of examples drawn from his-and his colleagues'-coaching experience with senior-level executives and upwardly mobile middle managers.

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