Gestiona Radio interviews Augere

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Published on May 17, 2013

On 11 April, Augere was received on the ‘Pulso Empresarial’ program by Gestiona Radio, the COPE economic information broadcaster. The program, which is directed by Rubén Gil and broadcast from Monday to Friday, sounds out the present situation of the business world in our country and meets the people at the head of the companies.

Luís Ezcurra, Augere Director of Corporate Business Innovation and Development, stressed that the main objective of our consultancy is to inspire the growth of our client businesses by analysing the strategy to be developed on the basis of the targets set by the company and bringing it into line with the people working there.

Luís also talked about the three large challenges set by Augere in the coming years: growth, geographic expansion above all in Latin America, where we are already working (Mexico, Brazil and Colombia) and the change of business model with the application of new technological platforms.

Luís also talked about the different services of organisational culture, team alignment, leadership, mentoring… and obviously coaching and its ever greater impact on the results of a company and its managers.

To access the interview, click here.

Augere, in collaboration with INEDE, launches the Co-Active Coaching program in Valencia

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Published on May 17, 2013

Co-Active Coaching is a relationship formula whose aim is to accompany people in their confessional and personal development. It is expressed around a unique and singular alliance between a person and their coach, which enables a safe and brave space to be created in which to work on a plain of joint responsibility and respect to achieve the set goals.

The Co-Active Coaching certification curricular program is formed by 3 levels: Level 1, Co-Active Fundamentals, Level 2, Co-Active Coach Training, and Level 3, Co-Active Certification Program. Level 1 and Level 2 comprise five modules lasting 3 days each. The proposed modules must be done in order.

Co-Active Coaching, the methodology that has trained more than 35,000 coaches and managers around the world.

•    Based on experience. A learning that makes you pass from thinking to doing, just like trying to ride a bicycle instead of talking about it.
•    Facilitators. Each Program leader has done the Co-Active Coaching Accreditation Program and the 10-month Co-Active Leadership Program. They also have to pass a rigorous audition and remain active in their coaching and leadership.
•    International. The Co-Active Coaching Certification Program is given in 25 countries around the world. The same methodology allows companies to implement the same model in all countries where it is offered.
•    ACTP accreditation by the ICF. The Co-Active Coaching Certification Program has the highest international accreditation of the ICF (International Coach Federation). This is the first program accredited internationally by this organisation.
•    International Co-Active community. The largest community of certified coaches working to help you through the crucial stages of putting your new skills into practice.

Managing cultural diversity in our organisations

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Published on May 17, 2013

Cultural diversity is one of the products in which Augere wishes to be positioned as a benchmark, and it therefore aspires to surround itself by the best and most renowned specialists on the subject, such as Fons Trompenaars, one of the most important researchers in the world in Diversity and Innovation through people.

Trompenaars believes that organisational culture is like an onion, which has three large layers, and only by understanding this reality, being aware of it and suitably dealing with it will companies manage to achieve an outstanding competitive edge.

These three layers are: the external layer, highly visible and explicit, comprising artefacts and products such as language, food, houses, monuments and art.

The intermediate layer comprising the rules and values that determine what is good or bad as a group and the acceptance of this, and;

The central layer, connected with the assumptions on existence which are not visible neither for others nor very often for oneself, which makes them difficult to understand.

For the author, the relationships of the human being in the different areas could be summed up in 5 dimensions that can help us to understand the peoples, their cultures and relationships and which we briefly explain below:
•    Universalism vs Particularism: universalist cultures understand that rules and procedures must be applied to assure equity and consistence; the particularists, however, are convinced that adaptation to the specific case is necessary and recommendable and that if not, the model would be very unfair.
•    Individualism vs “Communitarism”: individualistic cultures drive towards the freedom of the individual and their own responsibility; however, communitarist cultures encourage individuals to work in search of consensus and the interest of the group.
•    Neutral vs Affective: people who belong to an affectively neutral culture do not express their feelings and remain under careful control. On the other hand, highly affective cultures show their emotions without limitation with gestures, laughter, shouting…
•    Diffuse vs Specific: in diffuse cultures people’s professional roles are mixed and this means that outside an area, this person might be considered as a whole; in specific cultures what happens is that each relationship environment is separate and therefore takes on the role that corresponds in each environment.
•    Achievement vs Ascription: in cultures of achievement people have to be compensated for what they achieve, based on their skills and results as opposed to those of allocation, which are cultures based on experience, origin and previous achievement.

These five orientations on values have an enormous influence on how people do business and also face dilemmas. Therefore diversity and how it is managed in terms of the resolution of conflicts and dilemmas will have a positive or tremendously negative impact. Management of cultural diversity may, instead of an opportunity for businesses, become one of its biggest nightmares, especially if it is despised or ignored.
Therefore one of the models that Trompenaars has developed is the so-called “Reconciliation of Cultural Dilemmas”, a model which has very successfully been implemented in many of the large multinationals and on which Augere is working alongside its consultancy, THT Consulting.

Practically Radical: Not so Crazy Ways to transform your Company...

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Published on May 16, 2013

Practically Radical: Not so Crazy Ways to transform your Company, Shake Up your Industry, and challenge yourself (William C. Taylor) is a manifesto for change and a manual for making this change happen at a time when companies and their leaders throughout the world are reconsidering what they can do differently from what has been done up to now to achieve the best results and stand above their competition.

The book combines the most radical ideas with practical advice to help companies discover what it is that fails to work in the organisation and to find the idea that helps them solve their problems, while encouraging their managers to start new initiatives to help them achieve success and reconsider the logic of their own leadership.

For in times like those we are experiencing of fierce competition and persistent recession, our status quo is no longer a guarantee of success. But how can we open new paths when there is so much pressure around us?

By using the lessons taken from a wide variety of fields (from health to software, from cars to financial services, from hotels to hospitals), the readers are shown how to transform their company, to shake their industry and to reload themselves as leaders.

The author aims firmly at our leaders: do not use the long shadow of the economic crisis and the slow recovery as an excuse to reduce the size of your dreams or to stop taking risks. Your challenge in turbulent times is: to manage to carry on with even greater energy and determination; to motivate the creativity of your teams; to establish closer relationships with your customers, and; to achieve greater distance from your rivals. To help you face this challenge, Practically Radical offers you great ideas, proven techniques and interesting case studies.

Augere participates in the II International Coaching Week in Spain organised by the ICF

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Published on May 16, 2013

The International Coach Federation, the institution which sets the quality standards of Coaching throughout the world, on the coming 20 to 26 May will be organising the II Week of Coaching in Spain in different cities around the country, with the purpose of presenting quality coaching, its benefits, in which situations it is useful and how to contract it with guarantees.

Once more, Augere is cooperating in the event by organising the following free activities:
•    Barcelona, 22 May, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., “The importance of playing in coaching”
•    Madrid, 23 May, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., “Spirituality as a motor of change”
•    Teleclase, 24 May 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., “Intuition in coaching”.

If you want to take part in any of these activities, send us an e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

We also recommend regularly visiting our agenda of activities, as we will be adding new activities as part of the ICF II Week of Coaching.

Leadership to assume the challenges of the 21st-century

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Published on May 16, 2013

By Francisco Giménez Plano, Founder and CEO of Augere

The company is the most influential institution today in advanced societies, a privilege now disputed with this cloudy speculative body we call market. The company still has power which on the macro level is still larger than many governments and which on the micro level becomes the articulating element around which we organise our lives.

The company is a sociological sign of community and therefore has a social responsibility in creating wealth and employment as a person’s right in developing as a human being, in creating conditions of life which balance the personal with the professional, in designing spaces of participation in the processes of creating and extending people’s capacity to express themselves and deploy their creativity, becoming involved in the decision taking, in planning and performance. Similarly, the responsibility for sharing success, wealth and the right to enjoy certain benefits is part of the projection of a form of society in which we have lived and which is now questioned, and we must strive not to lose while making an effort to continue improving its operation.

In the 21st-century, and still more in the context of transforming the paradigms we are experiencing and which have been a reference for us up to now, it is fundamental to have strong individual leadership which inspires and generates confidence. However, this individual leadership today must go further and be transferred to the teams forming part of these organisations; a leadership which contributes to producing alignment around a common view, mission and values and a business strategy designed to establish the basis of a true leadership culture.

Therefore, beyond convincing our collaborators from the logic of business based on the systematic cascade declination of the company goals, managers must be thrilled from excitement and give sense to what the people in the company do. There is only one way to do this, which is by creating quality alliances and relationships between the people in the organisation and by breaking down walls and cracking open silos.

In turn, we as managers and our organisations are exposed to the shop window of ever greater transparency as a consequence of the accelerated expansion and socialisation of technology, and we are observed by all of our stakeholders, generating expectations and opportunities to create a long-term bond in our community.

In such an environment, companies can only respond to the challenges that face them by building a culture of leadership, of accountability, of innovation and of integration of the paradoxes derived from the contexts of diversity and uncertainty in which they have to work.

Leading by interpreting the momentum
Yes, we are living in a period of transformation like nothing we have known before for many reasons (economic, distribution of wealth, power forces, access to technology…). You will probably now be quietly sitting and it will be no effort for you to think of your vital trajectory and to realise that change has been present throughout your life. That’s right, we are in a permanent process of change or, if you prefer, of evolution or, depending on the context where we are, disruptive transformation.

In our environment, the signals we receive on what is happening are not only not clear nor point in the same direction but rather, in some cases, are even contradictory. Driving while watching the instrument panel gives us partial information on the reality around us. The strategic plans, plans of action, indicators and other navigation instruments can give us quantitative information on where we are, but the fact is they are intangible and by being invisible are not reflected on this navigation panel, and are those which finally determine the success of the voyage in the direction we have chosen.

If the tangibles were the visible part of an iceberg and the intangibles were the submerged part invisible to us, where do you think it would move if the winds blew northwards and the currents moved south. This is not a trick question. Undoubtedly 80% of the submerged iceberg will be pulled along by the currents towards the south. This submerged part, the intangibles, represents the patterns, habits, desires, expectations, values, beliefs, fears and insecurities of the people forming our organisation. In short, these are the elements that make up the culture of our organisation which, for better or for worse, are accentuated in times of crisis.

Therefore, in times of transformation it is undoubtedly essential to establish new business strategies to lead companies to success, but this will be of no use if we are not capable of leading the currents of change being configured by our organisation’s culture, to line them up proactively in the right direction.

Leading by controlling the currents of change
Leading the currents means handling on three levels of perception and relationship with the environment:
1.    Leading from oneself, placing one’s attention on oneself (observing ourselves), becoming aware of our own thoughts, emotions and feelings and of how these are handled. Silence and reflection are a great tool in achieving this.
2.    Leading from others, placing a positive intention on the other and on action (what I want to achieve, how and with whom) so that it contributes to creating a long-term quality relationship and from here, while maintaining one’s focus on oneself and how our own emotions are handled, to continue creating. It is fundamental to produce interest, enthusiasm and a feeling of challenge for the project which each company represents.
3.    Leading from the space created between both, between the members of a team or between the people of an organisation, perceiving what is beyond words, floating in the environment, and which constitutes the currents which finally move the iceberg.

Leading with a 360º view
We said that in the current environment, the most effective way in which companies can deal with the challenges presented before them is by building a culture of leadership, of accountability, of innovation and integration of the paradoxes derived from the contexts of diversity and uncertainty in which they have to work.
This culture is built when the company intervenes on four levels:
1.    The individual level, by developing a clear sense of leadership of oneself that allows people to act from maturity and personal balance to give the best of ourselves to face the challenges produced around us.
2.    The team level, by establishing a strong bond based on a sense of camaraderie and shared purpose to achieve extraordinary results.
3.    The organisational level, understood as the relational space created between the departments of a company, and
4.    The level of community building, in which we generate a sense of community that allows us to create a long-term relationship between the stakeholders of the company.

Source: Augere Leadership Model™

In the form of four deliveries, I would like to develop these four levels of intervention covered by the Augere Leadership Model™ and to share my reflections and experience on this.