Change Leadership

High-performance organisation to deliver growth

The challenge

This European international professional services company, operating in six countries, had a history of continuous profitable growth over the previous ten years. More recently, however, there had been increasing uncertainty by the executive committee on whether they had an organisation capable of delivering further growth, in pursuit of their ambitious long-term objectives.  Furthermore, the business had recently lost a number of key managers, who had left to go to competitors or to clients.  The CEO asked us to help him address these two key issues, to build the foundations to keep the business on its growth track and profitability targets.

We collected information to identify the underlying issues by interviewing each executive committee member, a number of key managers and others in the business, and also a number of clients. We also carried out a simple cultural audit of the business, to highlight the current organisational culture and key individuals' perspectives on how the culture needed to evolve to support business success in the future.

We then designed and facilitated a workshop with the executive committee in which they reached a consensus on the following:

• A target future organisational culture, and the key aspects of the organisation that needed to change to accomplish it. This change principally involved moving from an internally-focused "clan" culture to one which was more focused on the external market and which had more established processes and structures that would leverage its know-how.

• The priority areas for organisational improvement to enable the business to meet its strategic objectives. These included a clarification of key roles and responsibilities, improvements in talent management, and the streamlining of a number of key operational processes.

• A roadmap for the design and implementation of the new organisational arrangements, and the establishment of four cross-functional teams to deliver the priority improvements, supported by us in selected specialist areas. These teams were coordinated by a steering group headed by the CEO and facilitated by us.

The result

Over the course of the next few months, the organisation developed the following:

• An improved organisational structure and role definitions, both at executive committee level and at other management levels... to accelerate decision-making, harness the specialist knowledge within the firm, and leverage it effectively throughout the six countries in which the business operated

• An updated performance management system and individual development objectives... to align and motivate individuals and teams throughout the  organisation around key performance objectives linked to the strategy, increase accountability, and to ensure the development of appropriate behaviours to drive the business forward

• Streamlined customer and project management processes... to improve customer satisfaction and the productivity of the professionals throughout the business

Together, these actions substantially improved the organisational climate and enabled the business to continue its profitable growth, including the establishment of operations in one additional country six months later.

How we helped

We worked in partnership with the CEO and the members of the executive committee throughout. We used our expertise to guide them to prioritise their focus on the key initiatives which would enable the business to meet its strategic objectives, and to focus the right resources to implement them.

We facilitated the meetings of the steering group which kept the cross-functional delivery teams on track, and also contributed as experts in a number of critical "people" areas to supplement the capabilities of the cross-functional teams. We also guided the design and implementation of the change management aspects of the organisational improvements, which ensured the "buy-in" and commitment by key internal stakeholders to making the changes work and stick.