The embryo of what we today call Strategic Reasoning and Strategic Dialogue was born in the early 90^’s. What began to materialise was a way of working with a strategy that enabled everyone in the company to become a valuable partner, contributing to the development of the company and involved with the Strategic Dialogue. We had found a way to ask everyone in the company for help in making the strategy real. That gave rise to the Strategic Engine.

From the very beginning we encountered many of the Cultural Pitfalls that cause so many ambitions for change to foounder on rocky ground. Together with our customers we came up with models to navigate around these cultural obstacles. Coaching became a central element, initially with our own support to managers, but also introducing a more sustainable model where managers coach managers in a cross functional way.

Working with Volvo forced us to think again in order to standardise our processes. Internal Consulting Training was born. A resource of internal consultants was established, able to act as trainers, seminar leaders, ambassadors and champions for our model, making it possible to implement Operational Development across the whole of Volvo.

ABB inspired us to develop Integral Management Training, in order to counteract the risk of the process stalling when key players moved on to other duties. By training all managers in every business unit, Integral Management Training became a forum where all managers in an organisation learned how to initiate and optimise the use of our Strategy Engine.

The next step on our journey was taken when our customers started to develop their own company management model, causing the principles of the Strategy Engine to permeate every function at every level in the company. Integral Management has, over time, developed into a holistic approach that helps companies to streamline and strengthen their modus operandi. A model that supports our customers to move from good to great in a very short time.

Over the years our methods grew ever more popular, with increased demand from a wider spectrum of companies. This led to the launching of what we today call Integ Partner. Integ Partner has enabled us to increase the pace of development of our management model, while at the same time providing more resources to support a larger group of client companies.

Our quest for perpetual improvement compelled us to stay in touch with the leading edge of science. For example, some of the more pivotal principles, procedures and tools necessary for integrating a company, we found in Ken Wilber’s Integral Philosophical Framework. We realised early that we had discovered a robust theoretical framework for a new paradigm in management. In the same way, we realised that the growing number of scientific papers on the subject of Living Self-organising Systems could be translated into a set of basic principles and tools that any company can apply to make the whole organisation come together and act as one team.

Now we are embarking upon yet another new phase in our journey. We see it as our role to contribute to the paradigm shift that is already under way. One of the more exciting areas we want to develop further is our collaboration with venture capital companies as well as more long term “owner companies”. We see this primarily as a way to make our management model available for small but growing entrepreneurial companies, when they find they have reached a size where informal entrepreneurial leadership no longer works.