

One Size Does Not Fit All
There is No 'Best,' Only Better
Success is: What Relevant Stakeholders Expect
In any client engagement, there are many stakeholders. The success of that endeavour will typically be judged by only a subset of those stakeholders. Frequently only a small subset.
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We therefore work hard with our clients to identify the relevant stakeholders. And when we engage with these stakeholders we also understand that while many of their metrics for success will be overt, written down and talked about, some will be unstated. All sorts of sensitivities will arise of personal or organisational origins that keep some expectations unstated.
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These expectations are still important. We deal with it.
We Make it Our Business to Understand Yours
While it is not always practical (or convenient!) to walk a mile in your shoes, we do try to take the essence of that American Indian adage to heart. We try very hard to understand your view of the world before sharing ours.
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Put plainly, this means that Pario will work closely with all key stakeholders to understand your business, its context, issues, and risks as well as its culture, systems, direction, maturity, etc. We pride ourselves on how rapidly we grasp the essence of a new business through voracious reading, insightful questions and genuine curiosity.
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We also pride ourselves in our ability to maintain our knowledge of your business over time. Our internal knowledge systems and an ongoing commitment to remain abreast of developments hold us in an informed state with all of our clients.


One Size Does Not Fit All - There is No 'Best,' Only 'Better'
Much of what we do involves working with people to solve problems … real-life and frequently very difficult problems. We believe that the approach (and context used) when problem solving has an enormous impact on the interaction you get from affected stakeholders and, ultimately, to the outcomes. Traditional problem solving asks “What is wrong?” and then looks for solutions. These approaches frequently force us to dwell too long on the negative aspects of the past or the present.
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Appreciative and Generative Mindsets work on the basis of what has worked well (irrespective of good or bad outcomes) – building from a platform of success delivers successful outcomes.
We appreciate the complexity and uniqueness of your environment. All organisations differ culturally, technically, administrative and contextually. Pario therefore believes there are very few practices that could be called ‘best practice’. Rather, there is a pool of ‘better practices’ that can be drawn upon, either as a whole, or more likely in part, to provide solutions that are customised and tailored to the unique requirements of every client.
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Pario understands ‘best practice’ to be that body of evolving knowledge that has generally been accepted by reputable and market leading organisations as being “optimal”. We therefore prefer to think of “best practices” as “better practice”.
Working For and With Our Clients

Working with our clients and not just for them is a subtle, yet we believe significant, shift in focus. We seek to work with our clients as a collaborative team in a manner which best suits the context of the activity and the desired outcomes. This involves being open about assumptions, sharing all information, leveraging the best of everyone involved, and inspiring superior outcomes.
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Working with our clients also means going above and beyond the traditional mechanics of working for a client. We place significant emphasis on establishing effective mechanisms for communicating progress, risks, issues, and outcomes. But we also seek to achieve and maintain outstanding relationships with our clients. This investment of our time in your business pays dividends … as our many long-term clients will attest.
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We also think that working with our clients involves an explicit expectation that we will help you to grow your organisation’s capability. In practical terms this means that we highly value the transfer of knowledge and skills. Please don’t get the impression that this is completely altruistic … we learn and grow just as much as our clients. We actively seek to achieve this through formal and informal opportunities. These tangible measures help to ensure that all results endure beyond our formal engagement period.