The Responsive Organization: Transform Your Organization to Thrive on Change

Change keeps accelerating. Half of key business decision-makers say constant, disruptive change is now a major challenge. Dizzy from a kaleidoscope of fashionable strategies, from digital transformation to hybrid work to disruptive innovation, leaders need a new approach.

It's time to embrace a holistic approach to change — to re-architect your business to be fully responsive. A responsive organization, faced with change, doesn't just withstand or flex — it embraces change and continuously exploits it for competitive advantage.

The responsive organization stands on three pillars.

First, a customer-centric mindset. Gather data relentlessly; spread insights across the organization.

Second, operational excellence. Redesign processes for both efficiency and flexibility, with change in mind.

Third, enterprise agility. Evolve continuously to deliver more value to customers.

You'll learn from groundbreaking organizations that embraced these qualities. Like the credit union where cross-functional teams identified and then eliminated a key customer pain point: blocking questionable charges on debit cards. As it transformed processes and flexed systems, customer satisfaction spiked and service calls dropped by half.

Read how a massive health services company reengineered its scheduling systems to boost efficiency — and responded in scant weeks to the challenge of COVID-19. Or the huge tech company division that embraced agility and streamlined product and marketing decisions even as it doubled in size.

Four practical steps, iterated over and over, advance the responsive transformation.

1. Start with a vision that enables coordinated action.

2. Add systems thinking for a holistic perspective on change.

3. Empower teams to make decisions quickly and effectively.

4. Embrace feedback loops that enable rapid course corrections.

The most responsive 15% of companies consistently deliver better business results, from sales growth to share price. Responsiveness changes everything. We'll show you how to embrace it and turn change into your biggest competitive advantage.

Curt Schwab is currently serving as the President & Chief Client Officer at the business and technology consulting firm, Celerity, where he builds teams with the purpose of helping business turn change into competitive advantage. By iteratively evolving capabilities and fostering a culture that reimagines business and reinforces resiliency, Curt has led the company to double digit year over year sequential growth. Mr. Schwab continues to work collaboratively with the executive leadership team, client services, consulting services, and clients to coordinate, execute, and deliver strategies that have meaningful and lasting impact.

Prior to joining Celerity, Curt founded and served as CEO of the Digital Agency, Blue Water and successfully orchestrated the agency's acquisition in 2019. Curt was also the CEO, and later transitioned to the Chairman role of leading Saas software provider, Waterfall Software. Over the course of his career, Mr. Schwab has founded, exponentially grown, and successfully exited numerous businesses. This entrepreneurial spirit combined with a deep understanding of business fundamentals translates into high value relationships that are based on results.

Curt is a member of the invite-only CEO community, Mindshare, the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), and is a member of the George Washington University Customer Experience Advisory Board. Mr. Schwab is actively involved in promoting the importance of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for younger generations through high school and university programs.

Curt resides in Annapolis, MD with his wife, two teenage sons, and their Bernese Mountain dog.

Katie Markwell is Senior Vice President, Consulting Services for Celerity, a leading management consulting organization. Her work focuses on service delivery in areas ranging from customer experience and operations to agile delivery. With a focus on results and collaboration, she finds the win-win between effort and outcome, flexibility and consistency, and individuals and teams. Under her leadership, Celerity has earned world-class Net Promoter Scores, innovation awards, and client accolades. Katie has 18 years of experience in strategy, facilitation, and collaborative business execution. She has helped private and non-profit organizations across various industries and sizes both as an in-house leader and as a consulting partner. Katie has a B.A. in English from Wake Forest University and a M.A in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University.

Katie resides in Falls Church, VA with her husband and their two Lakeland terriers.