Cross-Departmental Organisational Redesign
The situation: The levels of hand-offs, confusion and general frustration of both internal customers and staff involved had shown that the structure of the department was a major source of pain. I was asked to review the structure and make recommendations.
What we did together: We reviewed the structure together. Multiple sessions were organised with all across the department to surface the real issues that were causing frustration, but also to rebuild the culture by reminding people that they are active participants in their work. The sessions lead to a significant widening of the scope as it was realised that the underlying issues were not coming within the department, but from the structural tension built in between departments. This then allowed multiple designs to be considered, which were analysed and discussed by a wider group, by which time people were comfortable in voicing concerns, both personal and business. A final design was then reached.
Outcomes: Implementation of the new design flowed naturally as all had been involved in it’s creation. The process lead to one comment of “I don’t think I’m going to like this structure, but I can’t argue that it’s not the best thing for the business”. An increase in internal customer satisfaction then followed. Importantly, ongoing revisions and tweaks continue to occur to the design as the involved no longer see it as only the General Manager’s responsibility to consider.
Strategic Development and Work Organisation
The situation: Division lacked a clear strategy and was suffering from initiative overload causing a drop in staff engagement and delivery.
What we did together: A process was designed which saw the coming together of multiple levels to go through the ‘life conditions’ that were being faced in combination with the fundamental purpose of the organisation. With clarity then gained on the direction required, subsequent sessions then saw the surfacing of all the current work underway (345 initiatives!), with a thorough process then undertaken to then cull, match work in progress to capacity and to put into an effective sequencing. Finally, managerial practices were developed and an ongoing forums were put in place to both monitor delivery and rapidly resolve issues.
Outcomes: The work started moving again, and engagement increased from the first session as the bigger picture became clear for all involved, the underlying cause of the current culture was surfaced, and clear actions were put in place to address. Rate of delivery of initiatives increased due to the ability to now focus on work-in-progress that was limited to actual capacity to delivery. For the Executive, a new-found ability to focus on future work and ensure strategic value being delivered was discovered as the necessity to continually resolve priority issues lessened.
Mindset and Cultural Change: New System and Process
The situation: after a rough and unpopular implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning system, the finance module was going to be switched on at the same time a new budgeting process was going to commence. This would need to be driven from a Finance area which had lost morale during the system implementation. Promises had been made to the Board on the savings that would be surfaced from the new budgeting process and system which were at risk due to understandably negative views across the organisation toward the new way.
What we did together: I was hired to work alongside the project manager specifically on the culture, knowledge and mindset aspects of the project as these were seen as the biggest risk to the benefits. Initial work with the Finance team started the rebuilding of trust through providing space for listening, understanding and developing plans together. Forums and messaging to the organisation were then designed to respect the deep value sets around stability and human connection which included both delivering the bare truth, then supporting people in what this meant. Design of key visuals and meeting structures were then created, with ongoing regular and ad hoc communication put in place.
Outcomes: The expected benefits were doubled. Quoting from the project manager I partnered with: ‘these projects usually have significant noise and resistance throughout which just weren’t a part of this project’. Key people from the Finance area were subjected to high levels of stress as they had to ‘learn to be an expert’ alongside their internal clients; they were able to come through this process. Ongoing changes from the Board throughout were handled in a responsive fashion, allowing the initially scheduled completion date to be brought forward, and the third iteration of the process saw time taken halved as people had quickly gained familiarity and expertise.