Dr. Kerry J Sulkowicz Managing Director, “Boswell Group offers Boswell Group LLC, New York.

Kerry Sulkowicz, MD, is business leaders a the founder and Managing Principal of the Boswell Group LLC, a consulting psychological sounding firm based in New York. He advises CEOs, boards board on their most and investors on psychological aspects of leadership in complex complex challenges.” organizations. A and psychoanalyst by training, Dr. Sulkowicz helps companies with CEO succession, boardroom

and senior team dynamics, human capital due diligence for investors, high-stakes hiring assessments, the psychology of negotiation strategy and the financial markets. He also advises large family-owned enterprises in the US and abroad. Dr. Sulkowicz has an AB from Harvard and a MD from the University of Texas. He is a Clinical Professor of at NYU School of , where he received the he Boswell Group LLC is a psychoanalytic consulting partnership, ad- Distinguished Teacher vising leaders of organizations worldwide, translating the complex un- Award. Tderpinnings of human motivation and behavior into enhanced leader- ship effectiveness and organizational performance.

© 2009 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved. 16 Global CEO June 2009 COVER FEATURE

Please tell us about the also meet with members of their What are the services being background of your company senior management team and offered by your company? (evolution, promoters, board, and make myself available  CEO Advisory Services: Our organizational structure, for telephone and e-mail contact on consultants serve as advisors business objectives and USP). an as-needed basis. and sounding boards to CEOs on Boswell Group consultants advise What is your business model? the issues and challenges they CEOs and Boards of Directors on How many revenue streams are rarely, if ever, can discuss with psychological aspects of leadership being targeted and how? anyone else. Along with the in a range of complex organizations. We are more interested in quality necessity to take decisive action The issues we often help our clients rather than quantity of and make hard, strategic with include, serving as sounding relationships with business leaders. choices, leaders also need to be boards to CEOs on their evolving All of our work involves the CEO, able to take some time to reflect leadership, helping navigate sometimes alone, but often with on the psychology of their corporate politics, assisting the entire senior team and board of business and understand the companies with CEO succession, directors. We have never targeted a dynamics of their management providing human capital due particular industry, because these team and their organization as a diligence for investors (assessing sort of advisory relationships whole. While some CEOs rely on CEOs and senior teams for private ultimately draw more on our the head of HR or other trusted equity firms), and offering expertise in people than in the confidants inside the company psychological strategies for high- industry itself, although we do seek for this purpose, there are significant advantages to stakes negotiations. to gain an immersion into the discussing Please tell our readers as to culture and the specific business of our clients. I have worked with sensitive what motivated you to start the aspects of Boswell Group. leaders in finance, telecommunications, healthcare, corporate I founded the Boswell Group in media, transportation, life with a 1998, as an outgrowth of my manufacturing, and fashion among skilled experience advising CEOs of various others. Personally, I am more outsider organizations. My initial clients interested in advising CEOs of who is less were CEOs of fast-growing Internet large enterprises who I find to be embroiled start-ups, and it became clear to me interesting, open-minded, and in the ongoing interpersonal that all leaders—by virtue of the creative leaders, and I have been tensions of an organization, and isolation that is inherent in their very fortunate to be able to be who doesn’t report to the CEO. role—need an external sounding selective about who I choose to These ‘psychological board. They found it particularly work with. Recently, I have begun conversations’ are held in helpful to speak with someone, to advise political leaders as well. strictest confidence and offer the corporate leader an confidentially, who also brought a Please tell us about the opportunity to gain new psychological perspective to bear on geographies served by you and perspectives on the human business issues. whether this poses any special dimensions of their work and How long does a typical problems for your company? the psychological forces industry-consultant interaction We have consultants based in New impinging on their business. cycle last? York, Boston, Philadelphia, San  CEO Leadership I am not sure that I understand this Francisco and Toronto, but most of Transitions: Our consultants question, but our consultations us travel extensively. Each advise Boards of Directors typically go on for extended periods consultant essentially manages his throughout the process of CEO of time. We develop relationships or her own practice, and develops succession. Boswell Group with business leaders, who keep us his or her own client base. My own consultants serve as an on retainer for as long as we clients are primarily in the US, “insurance policy for the Board, continue offering useful advice. I although I have worked with CEOs helping it choose the right CEO typically meet or speak with my in Western Europe, Canada, China at a particular point in its clients once or twice per month, but and India.

Global CEO June June 2009 2009 1717 COVER FEATURE

history, and then working with at a distance from a variety of What are the most challenging the new CEO in an advisory role sources, including publicly aspects of running your to help him or her assimilate available information, company? into the organization, shape a confidential research and My partners are a pleasure to lead. new management team if interviews, and—most Perhaps the biggest challenge is necessary, and hit the ground importantly—a clinically-based managing my own time, as I am running. methodology for extracting vital driven by my curiosity, and find so  Human Capital Audits for insights from the client’s many things incredibly interesting Investors: Our consultants personal interactions with the and stimulating. But there are only offer investors the capacity to target. The SPI approach is well so many hours in a day. assess the human capital of a suited to one-on-one What kind of background, prospective investment, and negotiations as well as to larger domain expertise, and provide critical insights and team-based negotiations in attitudinal aspects are you rigorous psychological collaboration with investment looking for in your new perspectives that investors are bankers, attorneys and others. recruits? How do you train, not otherwise able to acquire in  Senior Team Dynamics develop, motivate and retain the course of ordinary due Consulting:Boswell Group these people? What is the diligence. Our consultants consultants conduct in-depth, performance metrics at work in conduct a variation on the 360-degree assessments of the your company? Corporate Dynamics Profile functioning and culture of the (CDP) for senior management team, We are a small boutique firm, so we private including the quality and are not looking to recruit many equity firms, effectiveness of leadership, the people. The common denominator venture interactions between the leader in the people I would like to see join capital firms, and other members of the team, the Boswell Group is, some hedge funds and the interactions among background in with and other various subsets of the team. a passion for business and with investors, CDPs are designed to elicit the excellent interpersonal and aimed at most critical and useful analytical skills. Most new providing a individual feedback for senior members of the firm already have psychological portrait of a team members including the considerable business consulting management team, including its CEO, as well as providing experience, but I’m interested in leadership depth, retention essential observations on the training and mentoring them, and risks, and tensions within the dynamics of the team. A CDP providing them with the senior team. opportunity to consult a range of addresses the ability of the team leaders and organizations. While  SPI: Strategic Psychological to work towards a common what we do is not as readily Intelligence (SPI) Profile is an purpose, to follow the measurable as, for instance, actionable psychological profile imperatives of the CEO, to financial performance, we know we of leaders of target engage in open and direct are being helpful when a CEO’s organizations, for the purpose of discussion and debate, and to leadership becomes even more gaining a strategic advantage in think and collaborate creatively. M&A negotiations, boardroom effective, or when his organization What are the prime indicators relationships, and other serious performs better, or when senior that a CEO or other top situations in which a nuanced executives in the company are management personnel needs understanding of the mind of happier and more productive in your kind of intervention? the person across the table their roles. You know it when you makes a critical difference. Most of our clients are very see it. A SPI Profile is developed successful CEOs in high-performing Do you find that there is any confidentially and tailored to organizations. All CEOs benefit resistance in approaching your the client’s strategic needs and from having an external sounding group which predominantly intentions. Profiles are derived board on people, culture and other consists of and human capital issues. psychoanalysts rather than

18 Global CEO June 2009 COVER FEATURE management experts among the on your roll? How do you Who are your business typical corporate personnel? arrange to keep all your partners? How are they How do you overcome the same? consultants updated? supportive in the growth of your company? When I first started consulting We have retreats two to three times business leaders, I expected that I per year, in which we spend a full My partners have training in would encounter a great deal of day discussing how we’re doing as a psychiatry, psychology, law or business, resistance as soon as they learned group, delving into various themes and all have also had some degree of that I was a psychiatrist. But I soon that emerge in our respective training in psychoanalysis, which is discovered—quite to the contrary— consulting work, and trying to really the common denominator that that as long as I could ‘speak the sharpen our skills. We also have binds the firm together. They are all language of business’ the CEOs were monthly conference calls in which very supportive of growth, and I am actually starved of the opportunity different partners present cases counting on them all to help us get to be able to discuss a range of that they are working on. This there. people and cultural issues with allows us all to learn and benefit Do you feel that any strategic someone who was an expert in from the perspective of other alliance or other measures will human behavior. They welcome partners who might have some significantly help to improve someone who respects their business creative and helpful ideas on ways your niche functions? knowledge and accomplishments, to approach the situation. I’m always looking to meet people while offering a different and useful Please discuss some of the key with whom we can partner and perspective on the most challenging learning points from your deepen our service offerings, but issues they often face. association with the individuals these people and company personnel in your What solutions do you propose need to be a line of work. for those corporate entities, good fit for which are located in other My clients are my best teachers. I Boswell geographies not yet served by have learned a lot about what is Group. If you, to make them aware of the effective leadership – I have come to they don’t underlying psychological believe that the best leaders have an have processes which are preventing entrepreneurial streak, and have excellent them from reaching their relentless passion for their work. interpersonal optimal performance? While some leaders are obviously skills and My wife tells me that, as long as terrible, the hardest ones to pick out solid personal ethics and values, then companies are run by people, rather are the ‘technocrat’ leaders – the I don’t want them in the group. than by machines, there will always ones who are good managers, but far Briefly tell us about your be more than enough work to be too focused on numbers and data, experience as MD of Boswell done. In my view, all leaders— and not really capable of inspiring Group LLC. regardless of geography—could people to do their best. I founded the group in 1998, and at benefit from thinking more deeply Is there any plan of setting up that time it felt more like a social about the human side of their your business in Asian markets, experiment than a real business. business. That’s why I love talking especially in India? If so, what I’ve learned a great deal over the about these issues with business will be the critical years, including the fact that I have leaders from diverse cultures. While differentiators for choosing to put some of my ideas—that I there are certainly cultural these geographies? routinely discuss with my CEO variations in the way businesses clients—into my own leadership operate in different parts of the I have done some work in India, role in the business. world, many of the fundamental although we don’t have an office people problems remain the same there. I love working in India, as I What are the main values you across these cultures. have found my clients there to be cherish? In what way do you ensure that incredibly smart, hard-working and Ethics and self-awareness are the the learning from each entrepreneurial. I have also worked two most important values for me. assignment is processed and in China, which I found to be full of Reference # 15M-2009-06-03-01 passed on to all the consultants growth opportunities.

Global CEO June June 2009 2009 1919