Mid-Size Crown CorporationWith an expanding tax base, BC Assessment had developed a strategy to reduce costs while improving service delivery. The intent was to move decision-making and accountability closer to the taxpayers. The vision was a network of semi-autonomous and high performing business units more responsive to the needs of local customers.
Assignment: Over a four year period, fulfill the vision and strategy; develop the accountability and operational performance capacity of employees, leaders, teams and local business units.
Business Result: Reduced the cost/folio of the organization within an expanding customer base.
Update
Re-Inventory Criteria
Software Development Company
The CEO of an international software developer was concerned with the capability of the organization to deliver on its strategy and increasing investor confidence.
Assignment: Over a two-year period, design a high performing organization capable of delivering on the strategy of the founding partners.
Results: The company was able to attract investment with the development of a new set of proprietary products. The CEO attributes the new product development directly to the high performing system in place.
Large Municipal Government
To support the City in moving to a more responsive and customer focused organization., John designed and delivered a series of workshops on organizational change, performance management and communications for all City employees and staff. Over three years these workshops launched many successful change projects to align business unit performance with the City Vision. John continued to work within the City to review and re-design internal departments to simplify core processes and eliminate systemic “turf wars” and other organizational barriers to performance.
Sessions have included:
- strategic and visionary planning processes,
- breakthrough thinking
- communications workshops
- business process re-engineering
- design and implementation of performance management systems.
To illustrate with an example, John facilitated a series of sessions with three different Engineering groups - all separate entities tripping over each other to serve internal customers. John coached all three groups through a series of cross-functional projects to improve customer service at significantly reduced costs as tracked by a uniquely designed performance management system.
International Forest Company
Over a 12 year period, John has been the preferred consultant in guiding the organizational development of this large international forest resources company. Serving as coach, facilitator, trainer and performance architect, John has worked with senior executives, business units, intact and multi-stakeholder teams and employees at all levels of the organization.
Typical assignments have included:
Working with operating divisions to design and implement high-performing systems that integrated core work processes across functional and organizational boundaries,
assisting operating groups and intact teams in improving and sustaining business results,
providing on-going coaching and facilitation services for special project teams including best practices research, service delivery teams, internal client service groups, and various engineering project teams,
designing and delivering training and development initiatives for specific operating divisions to complement a company wide strategy.
Designing and delivering a training and development curriculum for leaders at all levels of the organization with a focus on leadership, teamwork, communications and performance management.
In facilitating and leading the organizational change efforts mentioned above John has used a number of methodologies. All these methodologies share one important aspect – they are communications based. John sees communication as the medium of change – not as an add-on or a strategy.
Other methods include –
• Visionary and strategic planning
• Breakthrough thinking
• Systems Thinking
• Simulations
• Business Process Re-engineering
• Future Search Conferences
• Open Space Conferences
• Breakthrough Project Teams
• Multi-Stakeholder Project Teams
• Training and Development
• Performance Management Systems
• Organizational Design
• Training & Coaching
• Team Building (indoors and outdoors)
• Leadership Development
Safety Performance
John had been working with this large 300-person sawmill since the early 90s coaching Department Heads and supervisors in communicating and relating. He was initially brought in to address a number of interpersonal issues between the formal leaders of the unit. He was also assisting the Safety Committee to improve their communication, their meetings and their ability to create results as a committee. Over time, John worked with the division to create a shared vision and set of cross-functional initiatives, with clear measures and accountabilities to improve the performance of the mill.
With his growing credibility with both the staff and the crew, John was approached in 1995 to help them build a behaviour-based safety process from the ground up. Their interest in BBS had arisen from a number of conversations within the safety committee to explore new and different ways in which to improve safety at the division.
Working with a small project team consisting of one staff member, two crew members and an internal staff consultant John helped them design a suite of training and development courses to support the introduction of BBS. He also coached project team members in communication, presentation skills and interpersonal relations as they assumed a greater leadership role in building support for BBS within the division. Using a variety of inputs, including an assessment of the readiness and culture, John co-designed, with members of the project team, the following workshops:
• Working With Change - a 2-day developmental workshop
• Communicating for Accomplishment - a 2-day developmental workshop
• ABCs of Safety - a 1-day training workshop
• Outer & Inner Safety - a 3-day training workshop
Early in the design, the project team had decided that it was not enough to train people as simply observers. It was their intention to develop “ambassadors of safety,” as a contribution to changing the culture of the division.
The total investment for BBS in the first year, including salary and wages, was $280,000. The savings in direct costs of accidents and incidents was $330,000 - a 118% ROI in its first year. John continued to offer training for the next four years, handing off responsibility for two of the four courses to the two BBS champions while he continued to deliver the two developmental workshops. Also, the trend in accidents and incidents had reversed. Prior to the introduction of the BBS process, accidents and incidents had continued to rise. In the years since, the trend has continued to decline to a RIR one third of what it was when the project started. Yes, there have been a few spikes since the introduction of the BBS process and supporting training, but the trend downward continues. The key to the original success of this project was the commitment of the three BBS champions: one from staff and two from the crew. Also, the support of the manager was essential. He provided encouragement, resources and stayed out of our hair. The project unfolded creatively and enthusiastically. John has subsequently applied the model developed at this mill to projects at other operations of the company.
In working with his clients over the years John has assisted the HR function to redefine their mission and purpose to reduce the transactional nature of their work and deploy many of these functions to line management and employees. The overall purpose of this work was to wean organizational members’ dependency on HR, while transforming the service of HR into that of internal consultants to the organization they serve.
Examples include:
• BC Assessment
• MacMillan Bloedel
• BC Hydro
• Ministry of Government Services
