| |
1: BOARD INTERVENTION: Worked with CEO
to prepare for a special Board meeting on portfolio strategy.
Facilitated meeting. Result: Board agreed to continue with current
strategy.
2: CORPORATE CENTRE DESIGN: Worked with
a company to develop a vision of their corporate centre role
and shape in 18 months time. Involved defining the minimum corporate
parent tasks (18 people), understanding the needs of the business
units (parenting opportunity analysis) and running a workshop
where the corporate function heads debated with the business
unit heads. The objective of the workshop was to define all
of the corporate centre value adding activities, gain agreement
to these from the business heads (or reject them) and then assess
how many people above the minimum would be needed to execute
the tasks. Result: a vision that would reduce the corporate
centre from 80 to 21.
3: DIVISIONAL ORGANISATION: Worked with the Division MD and HR director to design a workshop with the top team (10 people) to explore future organisation structures. Problem was the degree of polarisation amongst the team. Result: Structural options defined and broad agreement about the preferred options.
4: CORPORATE CENTRE VS DIVISION-LEVEL ROLES: Worked with a client team under the sponsorship of the Finance Director to resolve disputes between the corporate centre and division levels about their respective roles in planning, budgeting, monitoring and control activities. Involved defining the ways in which division level and corporate-level can add value to the business units (parenting opportunity analysis and value propositions development). Result: Bickering eliminated.
5: CORPORATE ORGANISATION DESIGN: Supported internal project team working on a complete restructure of the divisions, corporate centre and shared services. Developed design cireria, generated options, tested the preferred option, supported analysis of issue teams and helped refine the agreed blue print. Monitored and supported implementation. Result: Successful new structure.
6: CORPORATE-LEVEL STRATEGY: Worked for the CEO and Senior Planner to develop and articulate a corporate-level strategy: what should be the shape of the portfolio and how should the corporate-level manage the company? Involved analysing the skills fo the corporate centre and understanding the needs of the businesses. Involved a series of discussions with senior managers and numerable redrafts of an emerging corporate vision.
7: CHANGE IN DIRECTION: Worked with strategy function and CEO to prepare for and run a strategic planning offsite. Result: Major change in strategic direction.
8: CULTURE CHANGE: Worked with top team
of a large electronics site (over 3 years) to improve motivation
and reduce turnover. Result: Dramatic improvement in satisfaction
scores with site extending its lead as best performing unit
in this global company.
9: PLANNING PROCESS DESIGN: Worked with a client project team redesigning their company's planning and business appraisal process. Helped document the existing processes, define the weaknesses, identify alternative solutions, debate the alternatives with a broad range of managers and get agreement. Result: Stream lined process involving less than half the management time and better quality dialogue.
10: CORPORATE FUNCTION ROLE DEFINITION: Worked with the head of the corporate External Affairs and Public Relations function to define the function's role, decide where the function should report and develop an organisation structure. Involved defining the core tasks, understanding how these tasks added value to the company, and developing organisation solutions that would enable the function to operate effectively. Result: CEO did not accept the proposal and the Head of External Affairs chose to leave the business!
11: BUILDING A CONSENSUS FOR COLLABORATION: CEO of a plc wanted to improve the working relationship between units in a decentrallised structure. The project involved understanding why the units were not naturally working together and devising solutions. Result: Units were shown to be working sensibly. No changes needed.
12: DEVELOPING SYNERGY BETWEEN BUSINESS UNITS: Worked with the head of a division to help define the main areas of cross-unit synergies and develop mechanisms for encouraging the units to work together. Involved interviews and workshops with managers, and changes to the organisation structure. Result: management effort focused on 3 synergy opportunities.
13: MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT: Designed and delivered a tailored 3-day programme on acquisitions for an oil company. Also involved auditing the acquisition process and making recommendations for improvements. Result: Managers more confident about their acquisiton plans.
14: BUSINESS STRATEGY: Acted as a challenger and external expert to a management team developing a business strategy. Attended review and planning meetings, suggested analyses, probed assumptions, helped develop the logic and the final document. Result: Stronger logic for strategy.
15: BREAKUP REVIEW: Worked with the board of a professional service company to help decide whether the organisation should demerge. Involved documenting the costs of and benefits from remaining together. Involved participating in a political decision process. Result: no demerger.
16: REORGANISATION: Worked with the chairman and CEO of a global software company to challenge their plans for a major reorganisation, including the removal of two board members. Involved interviewing a cross section of managers to understand the organisation problems, and meetings with the chairman and CEO to test their proposed plans. Result: disagreements between CEO and chairman were resolved and reorganisation implemented 3 months earlier than planned.
17: STRATEGIC PLANNING INTERVENTION: Reviewed the plans of 10 business units and three corporate functions in a mining company. Interacted with the unit managers to define the core strategic issues. Advised the corporate team on their strategy challenges. Helped produce a corporate-level plan for discussion with the board. Result: Improved clarity.
18: DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESSES: Examined the successes, failures and lessons learnt from a corporate development effort in a large plc. Advised division heads about how to organise their efforts to develop into new businesses. Result: Corporate development unit disbanded. Company focussed on three projects.
19: BUILDING MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT: Worked with one of the worlds largest companies to improve management and employee commitment. The assignment involved advising the CEO of a division and his organisation development team. Result: Dramatic increases in satisfaction and commitment scores, as well as reduced turnover. At the same time the division out performed all its peers in the group.
20: ORGANISATION DESIGN WORKSHOP: Delivered a workshop on organisation design for 24 HR and OD managers drawn from an American financial services company and a Finish electronics company. Result: Successful workshop, impact not yet clear.
BACK TO TOP OF PAGE |
