In Conversation with Jan McCafferty and Joe McCafferty, Co-Managing Directors of Tandem Solutions: ‘We’ll Continue to Explore New Ways to Expand our Group of TandemCoachesTM who can Deliver our Blended Training and Coaching Approach tomore Clients’

"We recently rolled out a new platform to support our executive coaching clients that allows our TandemCoaches^TM to provide specific content to their coaching clients in a truly customized way."

Tandem Solutions provides change management consulting, leadership training, and executive coaching. The company’s experienced team and pragmatic approach to implementation produces
measurable, sustainable results.

The company was founded 2002 and is based Winchester, MA.

In Conversation with Jan and Joe McCafferty, Co-Managing Directors of Tandem Solutions

Q. What inspired you to start Tandem Solutions? Was there any prior experience that led to the establishment of the company?

Jan:  We founded the company because we saw that leadership development programs were missing the mark in helping organizations effectively lead change. We knew that learning is more of a process than an event. Yet virtually all other training solutions focus almost exclusively on the content rather than the participants’ learning experience and ability to put the content into daily practice. We developed our LongitudinaLearning^TM approach to address that gap and help clients develop the leadership mindset, skills, and behaviors that result in the changes they seek.

Q. Provide a short overview of the services your company offers.

Joe:  We provide a unique combination of consulting services, learning programs, and coaching services that help our clients create the futures they envision. We work one-on-one with executives to address their specific needs and we work with companies to build the leadership needed to drive change in their organizations. Our flexible toolset and online content allow us to support large groups of middle and front-line leaders in a cost-effective way and build strong leadership cultures in organizations.

Q. Brief us about the journey so far?

Jan: Our basic LongitudinaLearning^TM approach has stayed very consistent.  We provide our clients with new, best in class leadership content, challenge them with tools and activities to apply the content on their jobs, and then engage with them through coaching to help them address any challenges they may have. We have refined our coaching approach to push leaders at all levels to develop deep insights about the topics they are exploring. We have invested heavily in the online component of our learning programs and that has allowed us to expand the coaching component in a way that is very cost-effective for our clients.

Q. What were the roadblocks that you had to overcome during the initial years?

Jan:  Initially, our programs had to be delivered in-person and on-site with our clients. This was challenging because we had to get our TandemCoaches^TM to the client site for the training and coaching sessions. Our larger clients also had to get all their participants to the same place.  Over the past decade or so, we have invested in various technologies that have allowed us to deliver all of our programs completely virtually. This makes scheduling simpler and enables us to achieve considerable cost savings for our clients by allowing them to reduce expenses and lost productivity due to the travel and logistics required to manage “event based” training sessions.

Q. We understand your approach allows you to deliver measurable, sustainable results. How do your learning programs align with this value proposition.

Joe: We’re really excited about the latest version of our online content. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we reengineered our content to be reusable at a very granular level. Not only can we now customize for a client’s organization, we can offer participant directed learning programs.  We work with very small groups of participants and allow them to decide which topics to cover and in what order.  The result is that the participants can engage with the specific content they need when they need it and receive focused coaching follow-up to help them develop new insights and apply the new concepts on the job.

We have also extended the participant driven approach to our executive coaching clients.  Now, our TandemCoaches^TM can select specific topics for their clients based on the coaching conversations they are having.  It allows us to provide the content in short, bite-sized pieces that are easy for busy executives to absorb.  Since all our content focuses on applying concepts on the job, these executives get the full benefit of tools and templates that are directly related to the challenges they are addressing with their coaches.

Q. Where do you stand as a company in the current market landscape? And what are you doing to stay ahead of the curve?

Joe: We have invested in our online platform to provide a truly unique combination of participant-driven training and coaching. The combination helps our clients develop a more profound understanding of content and helps drive deeper self-awareness and behavior change. Our TandemCoaches^TM complete a rigorous certification process to allow them to deliver exceptional value for our clients.

Q. What are the key factors that determine your company’s success? Share an overview.

Jan:  Our rapid development process allows us to quickly integrate the latest thinking in leadership into our expanding content library. This gives us the ability to be truly responsive to our clients’ needs and produce high-quality learning experiences in short timeframes.

Q. Briefly walk us through your plans. Where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

Jan: We will continue to explore ways to expand our team of TandemCoaches^TM who can deliver our solutions to more clients. We will also continue to explore new avenues for collaborating with our clients to allow them to engage with us in the ways that make the most sense for their organizations.

The Leaders Behind the Eminence of Tandem Solutions

Jan McCafferty co-founded Tandem Solutions in 2002 and serves as Co-Managing Director for the company. She is the former Director for HealthCare Services at Linkage, Inc. and a seasoned veteran of Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).

The Joint Commission has recognized her learning and performance management systems for their innovative approach to developing hospital workforces. These nationally recognized programs have formed the basis for the Tandem Solutions LongitudinaLearningTM approach to developing excellent leadership development solutions.

Jan is an International Coaching Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach and former ICF New England board member.  She received a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from Georgetown University and her MBA from the University of Hartford.

Joe McCafferty co-founded Tandem Solutions in 2002 and serves as Co-Managing Director for the company.  He is a former practice leader at Accenture, and corporate officer at Fidelity Investments and several small technology startups.  He has led complex organization change initiatives across several industries and coached many executives.

Joe is an International Coaching Federation Professional Certified Coach, former Chairman of Continuing Education for the Harvard Alumni Association, and former Alzheimer’s Association National Board member. He received his bachelor’s degree in Cognitive Psychology from Harvard College.

"Our flexible technology and training content allows us to scale our coaching to provide support to large groups of middle and front line leaders in a cost-effective way for their organizations."