LRI History

LRI was founded by Eric Douglas. This is his story about the origins of LRI.

“When I started LRI, I wanted to create a different kind of consulting company – one that helps organizations achieve real, meaningful change. This was born out of my experience hiring two different types of consulting companies when I was an executive.

One type was the big-name consulting company.

We’d hire them to figure out what geographic markets we should be in or what a certain set of customers wanted. The firm would do its work and generate a massive report, but there’d be no buy-in or support. In one instance, we spent over $1 million on a market report that went nowhere.

The second type of consultant we’d hire was a facilitator.

We’d hire facilitators to help us during our offsite planning meetings and ensure we had good, thorough discussions about specific topics. But after two days of talk, there would be no follow-through. In both cases, we’d spend all this money and be left where we started.

When I founded LRI, my vision was to combine these two skill sets.

I wanted to combine the skills of expert facilitation with organizational development experience and the capacity to analyze and make recommendations so that we could guide a management team or an entire organization through a successful change management process.

We began with just one senior-level consultant – me – and a small support team. We attracted a diverse array of clients that wanted to achieve a significant change – a grocery store that wanted to expand, a utility that wanted to improve its governance, a bank that wanted a stronger leadership team. Over time, we attracted a stellar group of consultants and a stellar support team. We focused on five practice areas: strategic planning, board governance, organizational development, leadership development, and business process improvement. Now, 20 years and 300 clients later, we can happily say it all worked. And our mantra remains: facilitating real, meaningful change.”

– Eric Douglas, Senior Partner and President

America’s Public Television Stations

Based on their work with public broadcasting CEOs, LRI’s expertise is a must for any organization that wants and needs to resolve tough issues.

Early Edge California

I would highly recommend LRI’s executive coaching. My coach’s knowledge and experience were invaluable to me during a critical period of organizational change. The guidance was invaluable as I made strategic decisions that took into account the fluid landscape, windows of opportunity and greater connection and collaboration with other groups.

University of California Press

LRI helped us experience a real change in the way that we do planning and resolve problems. It made it possible for us to say exactly what we wanted to say, and for others to hear exactly what we said. Looking back, I wonder why we didn’t do this before.