William McLemore

Bringing Global Technology Experience to

Lead and Manage Growth and Efficiencies

Speaking Personally...

Q How has your international experience shaped the way you conduct business today?

A. In many ways our world is rapidly shrinking. Whether or not our business has international operations, our employees, customers, and even our competitors come from multicultural backgrounds. Understanding the nuances of how to successfully communicate within ​this context has helped me lead and motivate cross-cultural teams as well as better understand customer needs, some of which might be unspoken or presumed. It has also helped me understand from where competitive threats may arise.


Q How would you describe your leadership style? 

A. My leadership style is contingent on many factors, including team objectives, deadlines, culture, and characteristics of the people I'm leading.  With that said, my natural leadership style is a democratic or participative style, where I focus a lot on consultation, empowerment, and accountability, and where often the strengths and talents from many people can achieve a much better outcome than from a few.


There are other times, however, when and if needed, I’ve had to use a more directive or authoritarian style.  In times of great uncertainty and change within an organization, strong directional leadership is often needed to re-instill confidence, focus, and stability in the organization and with customers.


Q Why are entrepreneurial skills valuable in a large organization?

A. Large organizations can sometimes become sluggish when called upon to change directions significantly and quickly. To avoid having market share eaten away by smaller, more nimble and hungrier competitors, a large organization must have leaders who value and possess the vision, agility and flexibility to respond quickly to customer demands. Even more so, these leaders need to have the acumen for creating market space, i.e., blue ocean thinking as written about by W. Chan Kim and carried out by large companies like Apple. These leaders then need to have the necessary skills to swiftly navigate within the constructs of the organization while delivering on game-changing initiatives.


Q What is the secret to executing on strategic plans during post-merger integration?

A. The objectives of many M&A deals are often not fully achieved for two primary reasons: organizational instability and conflicting priorities. Changes are often viewed as unsettling to employees, many of whom are key contributors to the overall objectives. This creates organizational instability, resulting in significant loss of focus and productivity. Hence, leaders must minimize instability early and often. There should transparent communication, as well as investment in the go-forward people, culture, and environment, not all of which need to be monetary. 


Additionally, an M&A deal will add a number of integration-related initiatives to schedules already full with “keeping-the-lights-on” critical tasks. To avoid overwhelming the team with a quagmire of initiatives, an effective leader must: communicate priorities with absolute clarity; reduce large-scale complex changes into smaller, more easily achieved solutions; and measure and inspect often for needed progress.


Q What is the secret to leading large scale change initiatives effectively?

A. Large scale changes may be required for many reasons.  Entering into new markets, sweeping regulatory changes, responding quickly to economic downturns, post-M&A integration requirements, etc.  Each of these drivers come with their own set of challenges.  Regardless of the initiator, to be successful in any large scale initiative, you have to follow some time-tested, fundamental best practices.  These include, but are not limited to:  breaking large, complex milestones into smaller, more achievable “inch-pebbles”; ensuring stakeholder direct involvement and buy-in throughout the initiative; having a culture of measurement, transparency and accountability, which includes rewarding behaviors you want repeated; implementing a communication / training plan aimed at preparing the organization for the change while reducing organizational surprises; and preparing and actively managing risks. 

Philosophies