Egon Zehnder International

Aligning Marketing Strategies with Culture

The Collaboration Culture
Egon Zehnder International (EZI) is the third of three cases about professional service
enterprises that intentionally align their marketing strategies with culture. The EZI
story is absorbing because it demonstrates that marketing strategy can exist at a
much more systemic level than promotion (which many firms employ as an adjunct
initiative). Indeed, the following story makes it clear just how deeply EZI integrates its
marketing strategy with its collaboration culture -- and vice versa. One could even
argue they are one and the same.
Collaboration is increasingly important in the business world. As weve entered our
remorse phase after witnessing professional ethics breaches from all too many
supposedly world-class companies, weve been subjected to an increasing din:
Proclamations about new ethics guidelines. Fanfares about professional standards.
Crescendos about trust. In the midst of all this noise, more and more businesses are
touting their effective team work and their seamless collaboration. Yet, in many cases
these words simply add to the cacophony. Most likely, these words are part of the
promotional programs that many firms employ to reassure clients, or persuade them to
return to the fold.
In fact, most of us in the professional service world have only a dim notion of what true
collaboration is. We say we get it. But beneath our all-too-quick nods of
comprehension, most of us still expect professionals to behave like they did before.
Egon Zehnder International, with its heartfelt belief in the selfless goodness of people,
and its insistence on conducting itself accordingly, gets genuine collaboration.
Collaboration is reflected in the way partners and associates behave. It is reflected in
the way the firm is organized, in the way work flows, and in the way people are
compensated. And it is reflected in the firms unique approach to its marketplace.
THE EZI STORY
Why dont you come to New York to meet our Executive Chairman, Dan Meiland? said
EZI partner Justus OBrien in December 2002. You could conduct your case interview
in person. The author was intrigued; its not everyday that a request for an interview
generates an invitation to really look inside a firm. So she traveled to New York. And
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
there she witnessed a pitch-perfect demonstration of the very topic she sought to
profile: the deep alignment of Egon Zehnder Internationals marketing strategies with
its highly collaborative culture. During the interview, she watched Meiland and OBrien
embody all the aspects that make Egon Zehnder Internationals collaborative culture so
seamless, so systemic and so truly unique compared to its executive search
competitors. There were no breathless fanfares about the firms teamwork methods.
There were no chest-thumping proclamations about faddish collaboration technologies.
Instead there was a quiet, heartfelt account of an ethos upon which the firm was
founded and which today helps it thrive even in the face of profound economic
disruption in its sector.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
In 2002, EZI was ranked the third largest retained executive search firm in the world.*
With 2001 worldwide revenues of nearly $300 million (USD), its 300 consultants operate
in 58 offices in more than 35 countries. Clients range in size; they include the worlds
largest organizations, emerging growth companies, government and regulatory
organizations, and prominent educational and cultural institutions. More than two-
thirds of EZIs engagements come from these existing clients. Industry practices
include Financial Services, Consumer, Life Sciences, Technology and Telecoms, Energy
& Process, Engineering and Automotive, Services, Insurance, Private Capital.* There
are also professional practices including executive search board consulting and director
search, Management Appraisal and Venture Engine.
From the earliest days since it was founded in Zurich, Switzerland in 1964 by Egon P. S.
Zehnder, the firm began building the fundamentals of todays true collaboration:
equality, collegiality, non-competitive internal sharing and non-hierarchical
organizational structures. In many ways, Zehnders initial philosophy set the firm on a
road not taken by its executive search consulting brethren. This philosophy, born forty
years ago but continually renewed, serves as the firms de facto marketing strategy,
and has enabled EZIs achievement of its leadership position in the global marketplace.
To understand how the promulgation of EZIs culture so deeply embodies its go-to-
market approaches, lets look at how EZI does things: the five behaviors and practices
that bring Zehnders viewpoints to life.
1. Operating with a single, firm-wide, profit center, rather than a matrix of separate
profit and loss centers. By operating with a single profit center, EZI reduces the
potentially negative effect of revenue and profit competition between practices
or offices. (EZI employs this method even though it organized into sector
specialties in 1997.) We take the long view. If a particular part of the world or
business sector is in a slump, that is not the fault of the consultants who are
located in that geography or who specialize in that particular sector, Meiland
explained. Weve agreed to be true colleagues; we will carry others when
necessary.
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
2. Selecting and retaining employees whose interests dovetail with those of the
firm. Among its practices, the firm:
a. Hires only those consultants who have significant business or consulting
careers prior to joining the firm. This ensures a level of professional
experience and maturity that true collaboration requires.
b. Hires only those with postgraduate degrees. EZI believes that intellectual
collaboration, between its own consultants and with its clients, is of
paramount importance.
c. Seeks multilingual or multicultural candidates who are comfortable
working collegially across a host of invisible boundaries, with businesses
that operate in the global economy.
d. Screens its candidates for an indication of certain behaviors, notably
evidence of a collaborative attitude. We use a systematic interviewing
approach to get beyond a candidates resume-speak, said OBrien. Its
very results- and details-focused. This screening is accomplished by
arranging for candidates to be interviewed by 25-40 people in multiple
countries and offices.
e. Pays EZI partners less in tough times in order to keep the firms pre-
partners feeling secure and content. When the money is tight, partners
would rather choose to tighten their own belts. We have a strategy to
grow organically, declared OBrien. We have historically tended NOT to
lay people off; we dont believe it makes strategic sense. This practice --
certainly a ringing endorsement for the long-term view -- contributes to
EZIs high retention rate.
3. Training to foster deep collaboration. EZI pegs its current investment in training
as the highest among any of the global executive search firms. Presently pegged
at more than five million US dollars per year, EZIs training program is geared to
inculcate new associates into its collaborative culture. The firms training
program is aimed at three junctures in the employees early tenure at EZI. The
first occurs within six months of joining the firm, when all new consultants go to
Zurich for a three-to-four day training session. The primary purpose of this
gathering is to orient the new people toward EZIs methods of conducting
searches and management appraisals. Trainers employ a significant amount of
role playing to emphasize the importance of collaboration. The second training
program typically takes place by the new consultants 18-month mark. At this
two-three-day session, they learn EZIs Performance Oriented Prediction (POP)
interviewing techniques (which are based on a proprietary method developed at
the University of Michigan). POP techniques are deeply grounded in the spirit of
collaboration. At the third juncture, usually within a consultants first two years,
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
EZI offers a three-day training program, also held in Zurich, around interpersonal
skills and influencing skills among consultants. Consultants are taught to
recognize and interact with different personality and preference profiles. EZI will
soon offer a new element to this training: client relationship building. Other
training programs focus on teaching EZI consultants the newest tools and
techniques for collaborative problem-solving, and coaching techniques for office
leaders.
4. Enacting open-book compensation. Every EZI partner knows every other EZI
partners compensation. For that matter, anyone who cares to ask will be told
about EZIs open approach to compensation.
Like others at EZI, this ideology -- the ultimate illustration of collaboration -- was
Zehnders brainchild. He reasoned that money is simply a by-product of ones
work. In order to be focused on the most appropriate goal solving the clients
problem one has to be focused on doing the best work. Money must be a
distant consideration. EZI disdains the common professional service firm
practice of compensating professionals on their individual performance (mainly,
the size of their client billings and their selling prowess). Instead, compensation
is seniority-based and transparent.
EZI pays its partners through a combination of salary, equity shares of the firm
and annual profits. There is some variation among partner salaries across
countries because of variations in the cost of living; people dont expect to be
paid the same base salary in Kuala Lumpur, say, that they would be paid in New
York, wrote Zehnder in a First Person article for Harvard Business Review in
April 2001.*
Beyond salaries, the distribution of equity and profits is consistent across the
firm. Regarding equity ownership, each partner has an equal number of shares
in the firms equity, no matter how long his or her tenure. Because 10 to 20
percent of the firms profits are plowed back into the firm each year, the shares
value continuously rises. When a partner leaves EZI, the shares are sold back.
(Departing partners keep the difference between the value of the shares they
bought originally and the value of the shares on the day they sell them back.) In
this fashion, seniority is rewarded.
Distribution of the rest of EZIs profit (80-90 percent) is also influenced by
seniority. It falls into two pods. The first, divvied up equally to all partners, is a
sixty percent distribution of profits. The second, 40 percent, is divvied up
according to seniority (up to 15 years of service). After 15 years of tenure, the
level stays the same.
5. Evaluating potential partners for their collaboration effectiveness. Everyone who
gets hired to be an EZI consultant is assumed to be partner material. These
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
pre-partners, in order to have been hired by Egon Zehnder International in the
first place, have already been pre-screened as excellent collaborators.
Nevertheless, EZIs evaluation process further underscores the importance of
collaboration. Each pre-partner is evaluated (annually and at the time they are
considered for election to partner) on three fundamental criteria: execution
excellence, generating clients, and collaboration with EZI peers and clients. After
five years of tenure, potential partners may be considered for partnership. A
review committee of six people spearheads the process. At EZIs June partners
meeting, the partners agree which pre-partners will go through the review
process. In September or October a member of the review committee will be
assigned to a subset of pre-partners. Each will spend one to one-and-a-half days
reviewing everything those pre-partners have done. The committee reviewer will
collect references from anyone with whom the pre-partners have collaborated.
With the appropriate information in hand, the partnership review committee then
decides which pre-partners to recommend for a vote. Partners are elected by a
2/3 majority in January; from there, the process begins again.
6. Supporting collaborative effectiveness. A review process works well as long as
everyone understands clearly what to evaluate. EZI has established multiple
mechanisms to support collaboration effectiveness.
a. A collaboration timetable. When EZI begins a new search, consultants are
expected to share the position spec within practice groups, by e-mail.
Within one week, the consultant is expected to convene a huddle of five
to 10 colleagues, by phone and/or in person, to brainstorm in real-time
about the search.
b. Technology that supports collaboration. EZI uses a proprietary relational
database (called ADAPT) that was developed in 1998. Every contact and
every search is on this database. All fields notes, e-files, calendars, and
folders are cross referenceable, open to all, and simultaneously viewable.
But having a database and using it are two different things. At many
companies, seeking to enable shared knowledge, the IT department or an
IT committee has established an internal database or intranet designed to
foster employee collaboration. But in too many cases, few people actually
take advantage of the available technology. But at EZI, using ADAPT is a
norm, woven into the culture; people know they really cant be successful
without deeply relying on this database for their work with their
colleagues.
c. Executive search back-ups. EZI assigns two people to every search a
lead and a back-up consultant. This mechanism is derived from the firms
collaboration philosophy that a team is more effective than a single
person.
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
d. Research collaboration. Each office has a research capability and each
practice has a practice specialist (researchers who have deep knowledge
of a particular sector -- retail or packaged goods, for example. These
research teams are available across the globe; twice a week they
participate in virtual gatherings with consultants and other researchers on
conference calls to discuss specific searches, required capabilities, or the
need for help.
e. Bonding opportunities. EZI fosters layers of opportunities for its
consultants to develop collaborative bonds. While every practice group
sets its own norms, a typical global practice group will meet off-site twice
a year, usually during partner meetings, plus one other time a year for
regional practice meetings. These meetings help EZIs consultants to
build familiarity and trust together. Absolute confidentiality is required
and in-person relationship building is deeply supported (with the firm
investing significant amounts in travel). In addition, every three years EZI
features a firm-wide conference, usually tagged on to a partner meeting
in June.
. . . And That Has Made All The Difference
Many professional service firm leaders could assume that the most effective way to
align their marketing strategies with their culture would be to use external awareness-
building vehicles. Well talk about our unique culture on our web site. Lets develop
relationships with selected media that will reflect and further support our cultural
theme. They wouldn't be all wrong in making this decision; these are effective steps
to take. After all, theres nothing like telling the world something to make you first get
it right internally.
Arguably, though, promotion is the outer ring of other marketing strategies that must
precede it. Egon Zehnder, already thinking globally about EZIs marketplace from the
day he formed the firm in 1964, made three critical and deeply strategic decisions that
serve as the ultimate alignment force behind EZIs culture. The net effect was to
further sharpen the firms cultural difference from its executive search rivals, and to
more obviously attract the kind of talent that would embody the collaboration model
that Zehnder had envisioned.
Fixed-fee pricing. The vast majority of executive search firms invoice their
clients a percentage of the successfully placed candidates annual salary. In
1960s, this percentage was about 10 percent; at this writing it hovers at around
30. Zehnder rejected the percentage approach. EZI therefore became the first
retained executive search firm to charge a fixed fee for its professional services.
No commissions. No bonuses. No matter at what the level of the candidates
salary was pegged.
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
This practice was immediately more acceptable to EZIs European clients,
skeptical as they were about the professionalism of search consultants who
commission-priced their services. Their embrace of EZIs fixed-fee pricing helped
it build a significant European-Asian base of business that remains a strong point
for the firm.
EZIs no-percentage method also had an underpinning of egalitarianism and
globalism that the firms clients favored for two other reasons. First, we want to
demonstrate that we have no monetary interest in recommending a higher-paid
candidate or excluding an internal candidate from within the clients own
organization, explained Meiland. Our fixed-fee is comfort to our clients. The
second reason relates to the generally higher pay scale of Americans. If we
were a percentage-based search consultant, and we recommended an American
candidate above other equally qualified non-Americans, one might surmise we
were simply trying to obtain the higher commission. With our fixed-fee
approach, we won't make more money by recommending Americans. This
practice is an effective demonstration that we will recommend the best candidate
regardless of our own reward.
No individual selling bonuses. We always put our clients interest first, states
the EZI corporate brochure. Zehnder believed that EZI must hire people who
are true team players, people who get more pleasure from the groups success
than their own advancement.* The manifestation for this ideology was
Zehnders decision that no EZI professional would be paid any kind of
performance bonus not a cent of it -- for selling an engagement to a client.
Instead, every professional would be paid a pro-rated slice of the firms total
profit. At first, this principle was followed for reasons of professionalism.
Zehnder didnt want his consultants to be motivated by the wrong incentive; he
felt business developers too often sinned in their pursuit of a sale. The only
emphasis, he felt, should be on organizing to solve the clients problem. Most
firms pay a bonus of 30 to 40 percent of the fee for a project that individuals
generate, confirmed Meiland. But we dont want people pursuing the wrong
goals.
As time passed, it became clear that this model was also reinforcement for the
firms collaboration culture. A culture of individual rainmakers, EZI believes,
builds internal competitiveness and eventually a kind of psychological fire wall -
- between peers. This is a detriment to a firms overall business health, and
dampens the deep trust and collegiality that EZI seeks from its professionals.
When the technique of awarding individual selling bonuses is not an option for
anyone, however, people tend to share information more willingly. They can
work together in a more team-oriented way. The potential for geographic or
practice area business development vagaries is negated.
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
No hiring from competitors. EZIs no-selling-bonus ethos is unheard of in its
sector and in the professional service arena generally. Historically, many
professional service firms, in their efforts to foster a rainmaker business model,
built well-defined schemes for awarding monetary bonuses to the professionals
(typically, but not always, these are equity partners) who sell the firms
engagements. Even today a majority of professional service enterprises maintain
this practice. EZI finds that its global executive search competitors employ this
individual selling bonus approach. Once search professionals have been
exposed to this method, however, EZI believes, they are unlikely to be truly
comfortable in EZIs uniquely egalitarian culture. The firm is so certain of this
notion that it will not hire any consultant from other executive search firms who
has participated in a commission- or percentage-based compensation model of
selling.
There are still more examples. Zehnder, even though he is the firms founder, made a
deliberate choice from the beginning to pay some of his managers more money than he
paid himself. Moreover, EZI has chosen to remain a privately held firm; it has also
avoided a practice that until recently was pervasive throughout the executive search
sector: giddy-up, instant-growth acquisitions.
COLLABORATION: TROUBLE FREE?
One wonders, How can these guys be so harmonious, so generous? Doesnt human
nature drive us all to try to advance over others? Indeed, EZI leaders acknowledge, a
commitment to collaboration requires a strong will and even a big wallet. There were
times in the past when EZI partners had to finance the salaries of their global peers
whose regional or country-specific economies had stumbled, making their ability to add
to the firms profits impossible. Yes, we have had to remind ourselves about our
values, acknowledged Meiland.
THE RESULTS
For the executive search sector, the last decade of the twentieth century saw
unprecedented revenue gains. EZI, like others, grew steadily. It has been consistently
ranked among the largest global retained executive search firms in the world.*
But the beginning of the new millennium did not smile with favor upon the executive
search arena (especially in the United States). After ten consecutive years of
uninterrupted growth, the retained executive search industry in the U.S. posted one of
its worst years ever as combined revenues for the 25 largest U.S. firms declined 30
percent or more than half a billion dollars ($523.5 million) in 2001. And for the top six
global firms, combined worldwide revenues for this entire group were approximately
$1.8 billion, representing a decline of 23.7 percent or $600 million from the previous
year's total of $2.4 billion.*
Excerpt from Marketplace Masters 2004 Used by Permission
Suzanne Lowe, Expertise Marketing All rights reserved
Praeger Publishers
Egon Zehnder International was among those firms experiencing a revenue downturn.
But, in a surprise to everyone but EZI professionals, its 2001 annual worldwide
revenues were down only seven percent. This kind of financial performance
demonstrates EZIs global strength and its ability to maintain a balanced revenue
stream even in the midst of dizzying sector growth rates or precipitous sector
downturns.
But EZIs results demonstrate more than financial prowess. In the executive search
industry, the average turnover rate among partners is 30 percent. EZIs attrition rate is
dramatically lower, averaging only two five percent annually.*
EZIs worldwide stature is the envy of many professional service firms, regardless of
field. Its consultants are published in leading publications like the Harvard Business
Review. Industry observers talk about EZIs competitive resilience with admiration.*
Its research is respected worldwide. Its consultants are sought out by leading
academics and governments for their insights and new methodologies. And its global
clients return again and again.

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