International Projects

China
Maersk in China engages ChangeMaker to build its Talent Pipeline to meet the challenges of rapid growth.

Eastern Europe
A summary of why the PACER programme was developed for the Central and Eastern Europe Region of General Motors and what business benefits it was targeted to deliver.

Talent Development:
ChangeMaker consultancy with the support of competency based expert systems developed by Lominger – The Leadership Architects™

Global FMCG Organisation
...........When the organisation needs a global approach to identifying and developing talent

A National Office Staff Recruitment Company
...........When the organisation needs to establish a pool of talent that will develop future growth in a declining market

A European Drinks Company
...........to move the organisation from a paternalistic culture enabling the latent talent to emerge

Organisational Culture Change

Saab Cars AB
Rolling out a project across the globe...........................

Kraft Foods International
Coaching as the catalyst of change in management style.................

Team Development

BBC Strategy and Distribution Division
Team Development as part of a larger Change Initiative

Britvic Impulse Retail Team
Using Experiential Learning and the Outdoors to understand a vision

Lloyds TSB
Building the Whole-Department Team after a merger

Henley Management College
Accelerating the team building process in new teams

Christian Salvesen
Developing team behaviours in an executive committee

Marley
When you want to communicate messages to the whole work force team

Royal Bank of Scotland
Team Development.........when the team is distributed around the country  



Leadership Development

Kraft Foods International
Leadership development at the most senior end of the organisation

A CASE STUDY IN INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

How do you train and retain staff to meet an expected demand for 400 new middle managers each year for the next 4 years?

Abstract

PURPOSE: Describes the development and delivery of a talent development programme that cuts across cultural expectations and challenges the learning styles of the participants.

DESIGN: Draws on the global experience of ChangeMaker International and successfully adapts a western experiential learning style for an Asian market. Brings the 70-20-10 principle of effective development to a new population.

FINDINGS: Describes the obstacles and challenges and celebrates the successes achieved now the 1st Batch has graduated, the 2nd Batch is mid-programme and the 3rd Batch has just entered.

VALUE: Demonstrates how a partnership can be developed with a client on the other side of the globe and how persistence with the learning methodology has shown great benefits for the participants and their business.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Points out some of the lessons ChangeMaker has learned working with the Chinese over the last 2½ years.

Overview

The shipping and logistics giant A. P. Moller Maersk is experiencing rapid growth in its Greater China Area business. The idea behind the project is to develop Maersk Greater China Area into a continuously successful organization, with high potentials being identified, retained and consistently developed to higher level of management within the organization. During 2005 ChangeMaker International was asked to propose a development programme to help to achieve this. The bid was won against competitive tenders from within and outside China. Work started on the project in early 2006.

Lhotse is the intermediate level of The Mount Everest Programme designed for middle managers, and is named after one of the outlying summits of Everest. Maersk also runs a Base Camp programme for supervisors and a Summit programme for high potentials approaching director level.

Participants of Lhotse are aged around 30 and come from the career stage of managing others. They currently focus on business in their own departments and act as team leaders to achieve business results through others. However, if they are prepared to take over bigger responsibilities in the future there are some new leadership competencies required. Their mindsets and values need to be transformed. A higher level management position will demand that they think beyond their function and concern themselves with strategic issues that support the overall business. The key skills required for the career stage of managing managers include: selecting and training and coaching front line managers, holding line managers accountable for managerial work, deploying and redeploying resources through units.

Based on this foundation the objectives for the Lhotse Programme were defined:

• To support the organization in identifying, retaining and developing talent with high potential
• To provide sufficient number of future leader candidates in line with the organization’s requirement
• To align with the Global talent development program and the GCA talent development program
• To ensure continuity of the leadership pipeline

Specific objectives for participants:

• To enhance their leadership competencies and management skills under the framework of GCA leadership requirement at their levels
• To further sharpen their current management skills in their current positions
• To help participants transition to managing of managers career stages via 2-years talent development program

THE PROGRAMME DESIGN

The programme design is based on developing an understanding of the next level requirements outlined in the Leadership Pipeline as the move takes place between Managing Others and Managing Managers. The programme is made up of 5 modules each aimed to fill skill areas to make the transition successful.

Learning methodology research has suggested that 70 per cent of learning is learning by doing, 20 per cent comes from learning from others, and only 10 per cent comes from the classroom, therefore, on-the-job learning through the project assignment, 360 degree feedback process and mentorship are essential parts of the individual development activity. And the basic foundation of the Lhotse journey is the manager supported Personal Development Plan, which is the foundation of development activities.

Each module is highly interactive and depends on repeated connection with real-life (Maersk) situations. The following text as sent to new participants helps to explain the learning environment:

“Lhotse is a management development programme that focuses on learning skills that can be applied directly in your workplace. The Lhotse learning environment is dynamic and interactive, you will have some of the latest management principles described to you but most of the time will be spent in discussion, role-play, exercises, projects, activities and facilitated group learning. The Modules are led by experienced business facilitators not academics, you will learn from people who have experienced these things in business. You may get frustrated at times because they will work hard to get you to think and find answers rather than give you solutions. Team projects and case studies are designed around current, relevant Maersk issues and the results of your work are presented back to company directors and members of the steering committee on a regular basis, often in live presentations at the end of a module. The whole process is based on the principle of Experiential Learning which creates continuous improvement in your learning by employing a repeated cycle of Experiencing, Reflecting, Thinking and Acting in a different way. You will learn some of the most up to date ideas on Leadership and Management and Change in organisations, how to coach and develop your people and processes to achieve business excellence, but the most important difference between Lhotse and other training programs is that you will be practising these things in real business situations, returning to the structured modules to review and share your learning with your facilitators and colleagues.”

The programme runs for 2 years and participants must attend all 5 modules and complete various assignments and team projects in order to graduate. The modules have an 8 or 9 week gap between them when work based and personal development projects are completed, before reporting back to senior managers at the start of the next module.

The participants are divided into learning teams of about 8 people from the beginning of the Lhotse program. The team allocation balances the function, gender, location and Belbin team type. During the 2 years each learning team is requested to attend the class together and meet with other groups. The learning team works together in the class and consolidates learning and supports each other after the class. During Modules 1 and 2 each team is supported by a ChangeMaker Facilitator who coaches individuals and the team and creates the working contract for the subsequent modules. Where possible the coach is the same for both modules to accelerate the development process.

Module 1 Program Orientation and Leading the Team

Objectives:

• Program Orientation, understand the two year journey and objectives
• Learning Team set up and getting to know each other
• Leadership and Management tools and application
• Learning style introduction and expectation on the program
• Module 2 Coaching for Success

Objectives:

• Feedback skills and application
• Listening and Questioning skills and application
• Coaching skills and practices
• Delegation and application

Module 3 Developing Human Resources

Objectives:

• Talent Management mindset and skills
• People Development skills and applications
• Live projects monitored by senior management

Module 4 Achieving Business Excellence

Objectives:

• Business Development Process introduction and application
• 
  Consolidation of Lhotse learning and reporting to talent management committee
• Live projects monitored by senior management

Module 5 Changing for Excellence

Objectives:

• Change Management roles and responsibilities
• Change Management tools introduction and application
• Continuous Improvement mindset and application
• Live projects monitored by senior management

Graduation

The difference between this programme and Generic training programmes is that it is a designed systematic process focusing on developing future leaders in the organization. It aims at building leadership competencies and other skill directly linked with the Maersk Leadership Requirement Framework, and involves processes of nomination, assessment on competency; attendance at development modules and regular review. It is an integral part of HR and OD department leadership pipeline planning, especially focusing on identifying and developing groups of future senior level managers with the required leadership attributes, relevant experience and the appropriate mindset. Above all it develops Learning Agility which is the single most important contributor to success at senior management level.

It also relies on the integration of personnel from different levels in the organisation to support the learning and on “live” connection with the business and its current issues:

• Before and after every development module the participant works with their direct Manager to set goals and objectives and to review and set Personal Development Plans. This personal development plan is a plan for the next single year; however it should take a 2-year development period into consideration. It is not only related to competencies but also to technical skills and knowledge. On-the-job learning and job rotations are used as the development means to enhance participants’ competency and technical skills and knowledge.
• Each participant is encouraged to take a Mentor to support their journey through the programme. The mentor’s role is to act as a role model to demonstrate the required behavior; help to build confidence and drive for high standards of performance and development. In a move to link all levels of the Mount Everest programme. Lhotse level chooses mentors from Summit level and should also offer to be mentors to Base Camp level participants.
• The Business and Change modules are structured around learning tools and processes which are then applied to real business issues. Sponsors submit projects that will drive an output that is relevant to the business. These can help to enlarge the participants’ knowledge and business understanding, and enable them to apply their learning to contribute to the business. Successful projects will yield insights that can be acted on by sponsoring managers. Sometimes teams are asked to take a project to a further stage after presentation.
• 360° Degree Feedback process is another important development opportunity for the Lhotse participants. It can help to better understand their leadership behaviours and the impact of those behaviours. With the one on one coaching and feedback session on 360* report, the Lhotse participants are able to use the 360* report to set up further specific development plan and work on it.

THE CHALLENGES

Chinese delegates are academically bright and we encountered a big thirst for knowledge and an ambition to move upwards quickly; but compared to people of similar age in the west they are not as experienced or business knowledgeable. What are the drivers for this? The one- child policy has created a generation that are known as “little emperors”, they were spoiled by their parents and they expect this treatment to continue at work. Expectations exceed ability and there are few realistic benchmarks for them. There is great pressure for companies to elevate local people as soon as possible so that their organisations are more balanced at the senior level. Couple this with a traditional view that status and position are important and you find a population eager to advance up the hierarchy. Tradition also drives expectations of the style of a learning experience. We followed in the wake of a Cambridge university professor who had been employed to teach Leadership, by delivering 3 days of lectures. This fitted perfectly with the expectation that the best learning comes from an “authority figure” and that knowledge is valued. We challenged this by suggesting that the most important thing to measure was people’s ability to take new ideas and change their own behaviour at work leading to increased performance and better results. This was agreed at an intellectual level but it took the best part of a year to get real buy in. We have had to start from scratch with many of the things we take for granted.

Traditional Chinese education involves a didactic style; the teacher is the fount of all knowledge.

“I admitted to one group that I didn’t know the answer to one of their questions about a complicated business process. I offered to go and fetch my colleague who was the subject matter expert. He arrived and answered their query. Imagine my surprise 36 hours later when the end of course evaluation said that the “teacher was no good and should be removed because he did not know the subject”!

Traditionally it’s not good for delegates to ask questions, because to admit that you do not know something in front of your peers means “loss of face”. In our early programmes we would ask for open feedback to be met with a resounding silence. Later little huddles would convene and then discussions in Chinese would take place with the results fed back to us via an intermediary.

Our aim was to develop a truly experiential style, that involves skills building not information giving, and which relies on the sharing of and discussion about real-life experiences in the work-place, but how could we do this in a learning environment that seemed to discourage debate, exploration and challenge? Our style involves close contact with our participants, facilitating and coaching on a personal level. As a result we often work in small groups at a 1:8 ratio. Maersk have often questioned this because their frame of reference involves one expert standing up in front of a large group and imparting knowledge. It is really difficult to explain the benefits of this kind of contact until they have experienced them and they are unlikely to experience them if you can’t convince them of the added value. (Chinese Catch-22!) We have probably spent more time in discussion and exchanging communications on this topic than on the details of the content of our programmes.

The rapid company growth and the consequent need for experience and talented managers drives a need to “fast forward” the talent development process, trying to do it with an old style approach doesn’t address the ingrained behaviours and attitudes that exist or allow people to learn to think for themselves, to question the status quo and to make their own decisions. What has always been in our favour is that we are working with clients who want to embrace the western way of doing things; if we can prove that it happens this side of the world and show where it has been successful then we get the green light.

However once we started to work in small groups, the rules seemed to change. People would ask questions, discussion opened up, the quieter ones became bolder, people actually enjoyed feedback and revelled in the concept of feedforward which is about making suggestions for the future. The secret seems to be in building relationships of trust. We have recently started working with the second and third intakes and we have been involved from the start of the process this time. This has been so much easier because we have been able set the scene and build the expectations. The result? Highest post-event evaluation scores of the whole project so far.
So if you plan to use controversial or challenging methodology make sure that you have the time and commitment to be involved right from the start. In this case we were involved in all design discussions and in the development of pre-course reading and context setting materials.

10 TOP TIPS FOR SUCCESS IN CHINA

We thought we entered China with open-eyes but we would have done things differently if we had known how far from our concepts they were. Here is a list of quick tips for training in China, getting good results and enjoying it!

1. Make personal contact with people and make learning fun.
2. Harness their creativity and natural love of story-telling.
3. Prove that knowledge isn’t skill and what matters is how to do things differently back at work.
4. For skill development use large group sessions of maximum 20 minutes, and lots of small group work. (Remember they are using a second language and tire easily).
5. Deliver information in small chunks and practice it. Review the process and repeat the practice.
6. Pull lots of examples from their business; work with real live company issues where you can.
7. Capitalise on their energy and enthusiasm to learn, by interspersing your material with energetic linked activity.
8. Ban mobile phones and laptops in the classroom.
9. Be patient
10. Eat socially and try everything that is put in front of you; it's a culinary expedition on the wild-side.......

Andy Neal
Published in Human Resource Management-International Digest
Volume 15 Number 7 2007

A CASE STUDY IN INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

Overview

This case study provides a summary of why the PACER programme was developed and delivered for the Central and Eastern Europe Region of General Motors (CEE) and what business benefits it was targeted to deliver.

Whatever the business challenges facing an organisation, the clear communication of the business strategy and the willing engagement of all employees in the delivery of this strategy, are key to the continued success of that organisation.

The traditional focus in Europe is on the more established markets where the issues are not about managing rampant growth (this would be wishful thinking) but more about the challenge of maximizing return from a fairly static market share. The issues are efficiency and morale and a “playing not to lose” approach often prevails. In CEE the business climate is one of unpredictability coupled with dramatic growth influenced by the complications of managing a diverse region of over 19 Main Markets & 10 Secondary Markets, 29 Nationalities, 3 alphabets and 2 main religions. Under these circumstances a “Playing to Win” mindset is of paramount importance.

The idea for PACER grew over a series of meetings between Chris Lacey (the Executive Director for GMCEE) and ChangeMaker consultants whilst facilitating senior management team meetings, reviewing structure and direction to meet the demands placed on the region by dramatic growth. The genesis of the concept was the desire to ensure that it wasn’t only the senior people who were trying to drive the complex business but that all employees at all levels had an understanding of the challenges facing the business and how they could be involved in a successful future.

We were dealing with an already successful region that needed to “shift a gear” to maintain and accelerate the progress. In the mid nineties GM had rolled out a D!fference programme across the whole organisation to communicate organizational changes and motivate dealers. It was important for PACER to be clearly differentiated as there would be a considerable number of people still in the organisation who had experienced this. Communications made it clear that it was not a “change” programme for dealers. It was targeted specifically at all GM employees; and was about breaking down barriers (cross-functional and cross border/business); it was about taking responsibility for personal behaviour in developing the business and in particular about developing a clear understanding of how the multi-brand approach is critical to the development of an ever-growing business.

One solution would have been to run events in separate countries, this may have proved a logistically simpler exercise but would not have returned the tremendous benefits of mixing nationalities and functions to develop a real understanding of how ONE TEAM needs to work together to achieve ONE VISION.

Key Themes

The PACER Programme was conceived as an organisational development and internal communication programme specifically and uniquely designed for GM CEE employees and the employees of some of their closest service providers.

The key themes of the programme were:

• The Vision for GM CEE in the future and how the new organisation structure will facilitate continued profitable growth.
• The role of the individual within that vision and the opportunities for personal development, growth and career development within GM CEE and the wider GM organisation.
• How to further improve team performance and how to build teams across the various elements of the GM CEE organisation.
• Gaining a better understanding of the customer, their needs and how to deliver excellent levels of service and support.
• GM’s multi-brand strategy and how it will contribute to the growth within GM CEE.
• How to solve problems using existing techniques in order to facilitate growth.
• The application of appropriate processes and standards in times of rapid growth.

The Programme Framework, Style and Delivery Process

The programme used modern, involving training techniques and processes to ensure that the participants learned through positive involvement in the sessions and maximise their understanding and retention. There were indoor and outdoor sessions. Experiential Learning was the core learning concept and the method involved the use of structured exercises to deliver specific messages.

The Learning was supported by the use of booklets during the event which carried the key messages and “Learning Log” areas for the participants to make their own notes. There was an Action Planning and Personal Commitment session at the end of each programme and then follow up by the delivery of a “personal commitment letter” after 3 months to each delegate and further follow-up materials, workshops, booklets and posters to reinforce the key messages.

All employees were expected to attend the programme which was run across 12 different sessions so that only small numbers from each operation were absent from the workplace at any one time.

Delivery was in English as this is the business language of the region. Care was taken to ensure understanding of the key messages, with colleague translation encouraged to ensure comprehension. The delivery team was led by natural English speakers but contains a diversity of nationalities and mother tongues to ensure empathy with the language issues.

Each programme was supported by a senior executive from the region, who led the GM specific business messages through a series of presentations to illustrate the history, recent successes and future plans of the region.

ChangeMaker International led the delivery, facilitated each programme and provided the following services:

• Design of all programme content
• Preparation of all of the appropriate learning processes, tools, aids and materials
• The recruitment and training and on-going management of an appropriately qualified training delivery team to run twelve programmes with up to 80 participants per programme. Made up of 3 lead facilitators and 10 facilitators, a safety manager and a team of outdoor skill technicians for the ropes course exercises.
• Consultancy with the executive team of the region to ensure close adherence to business strategy, values and direction.
• Evaluation and Continuous Improvement of the project

PACER was designed as an all employee communication mechanism. There were clear business issues and messages in CEE related to regional complexity, lack of predictability and rapid growth. There was also a strong desire to ensure that the “Playing to Win” mentality replaced the more conservative “Playing NOT TO Lose” approach that has been evident in the organisation.

What has been developed for this programme is a delivery framework which is highly relevant to the current issues in GM CEE but which has absolute relevance to other business issues and strategies.

Using the Framework to deliver the Messages

The framework was developed in close consultation to develop core messages that make an impact on the participants so that they are enthused by the opportunities to explore the way they work, how they relate to their colleagues and how they understand what the business is aiming to achieve. This is coupled with a strong emphasis on the brands in the region and the importance of the multi-brand strategy.

We wanted participants to understand the “WIIFM”. (What’s In It For Me) and to see that the key for improved performance and personal satisfaction centres around taking personal responsibility. We decided on 3 main themes that are highly relevant to this region, but also have strong resonance for all businesses interested in the highest levels of employee engagement. Each day built on the theme:

• Day 1: My responsibility for developing me.
  Being proactive by taking opportunities.
• Day 2: My responsibility for working in and helping to build even more effective teams.
  Local/ cross-regional/cross functional. Breaking out of the silos!
• Day 3: My responsibility for understanding our Brands.
  The need to personally represent these brands and the importance of the multi-brand strategy.

Harnessing the collective power of the employees across the business region was essential and was done by ensuring that the events were engaging, fun, and stimulating. There was plenty of opportunity to network with people and even to meet people who had only been known previously on the telephone.

The Learning Content

This breaking of barriers was important but so was the learning content of the programme. Unlike some employee engagement projects the essence of this approach came from a real development base. All activities had a purpose that was related to key messages built from elements of the business strategy and also created by responses to the employee satisfaction survey. A good example of this was the work/life balance issue which were addressed through PACER in terms of taking personal responsibility for the effective use of time.

3 tables follow showing the programme format for each day and how each session was designed to achieve specific business outcomes.

The High/Ropes/Challenge activities provided a powerful approach but it is important to remember that they are just a medium. Each activity can be structured to meet a variety of objectives. It is not the exercise itself but the way it is run and the particularly the way in which it is facilitated that gets to the real-issues to be discussed. These exercises were chosen and adapted to meet the needs of PACER. There are many others that could have been utilised.

FEEDBACK AND EVALUATIONS
Initial feedback both during the project run and immediately afterwards has been very strong. This was based on subjective reporting from ChangeMaker facilitators, GM executives and some of the delegates.

A typical response has been:

Knowing how much you are busy, I am not writing a lot of letters to you, but need to make exception from the rule.

I have participated in two Opel D!fference sessions in Spain and this experience caused that I was coming to PACER session in Hungary with high level of expectations.

PACER experience was even better and I have to congratulate you and the whole team working on putting this together. I was in the team preparing for 2nd round of Difference, and I know what kind of effort you have to put to accommodate hundreds of participants, making sure that all of us have great fun, safe environment, unforgettable experience and proper message conveyed.

I think that PACER made the difference and it was due to the following words - One Team, One Vision, One Million. That was right choice to get through to such a big team of people coming from different functions, countries, cultures etc. And of course, participants appreciated very much that top GM Executives found time to join PACER and had quality time to talk on GM vision, and to everybody, regardless level, job or country.
So - big thank you to the PACER team for their job done!

Z powa?aniem / Best Regards,

Pawe? Wide?
General Motors Poland
Governmental Relations Director

A detailed evaluation form has been sent out to 200 (25%) of the participants the results of this will be available at the end of the year.

A CASE STUDY IN TALENT DEVELOPMENT

………………..When the organisation needs a global approach to identifying and developing talent
                          
Global FMCG Organisation

Situation and Needs
The organisation had grown through rapid acquisitions in all geographical markets.  Through this they had inherited many different cultures and ways of recognising and developing talent. The organisation needed a global approach to identifying and developing talent that provided managers at all levels with a common language that objectively provided a methodology for talent management.  They need to do this quickly and in a way that enhanced but did not significantly change well established development processes.

Solution
Lominger’s Career Architect Suite* was chosen, after approaching a number of suppliers, because of it’s in depth research and the unique approach to describing skill in three dimensions of skilled, unskilled and overused.  Lominger also provides researched remedies to help people develop each of the skills.  The organisation was also impressed with the way the research had identified how skills are developed over the course of a career.  This enabled them to use all 67 researched competencies with a focus on the ones that really mattered at the key stages of a line manager’s career progression.

The competencies were organised into four career stages of:

• Entry Level/Individual Contributor
• First line Manager/Supervisor’
• Director
• Senior Executive

This enabled the organisation to focus on developing critical and important skills at each career level.  It also gave them clear indicators for recruitment and selection.  Lominger has identified those skills that are in long supply and therefore become the price of entry to the organisation and those that are best developed in an organisation ‘on the job’.  The Lominger research has enabled the organisation to remove the subjectivity and regional variance in describing the talent pool for succession planning decisions. 

The organisation introduced managers and employees to the Lominger tools through their annual appraisal and development process.  This is an on-line tool.  An agreement was reached with Lominger to load their development book FYI – “For Your Improvement” on to the system to enable line managers to use the material for each competency.  They were amazed at how enthusiastically managers adopted the material and the new development language.  As result the quality of development activities and people decisions have improved dramatically.  The HR function has also been able to take advantage of the support tools in the Lominger Career Architect Suite.  Their HR function also uses the Interview Architect to prepare for behaviour based interviews.  They use Voices as their 360° Feedback tool and they use Choices as their Talent identification tool.  The organisation is also using Lominger’s Team Architect for team and organisation development interventions.
 
*Specialist ChangeMaker consultants are certified in the practise of Lominger Development Architect Suite™  tools.

A CASE STUDY IN TALENT DEVELOPMENT

………………..When the organisation needs to establish a pool of talent that will develop future growth in a declining market

A National Office Staff Recruitment Company

Situation and Needs
The company had very successfully completed a turnaround after years of declining performance.  The turnaround focus was on cost controls, systems, centralisation and developing a strategy for competitive difference.   The Managing Director now needed to establish a pool of talent that would develop future growth in a very competitive but declining market. Talent is key to achieving this.

Solution
ChangeMaker introduced the Managing Director to the Lominger Career Architect* tools.  The MD was immediately impressed by the hands on user friendly design of the tools.  ChangeMaker guided the MD through a series of exercises using the Lominger tools to help define mission critical skills for Branch Managers, Regional Managers and the MD’s own Director Team.

Through these exercises the MD had a clear idea of the skills that were critical for each key role within the organisation.  The MD was also able to make an assessment of the current job-holders competence and development needs.   This has resulted in focused development plans for each of the Directors following 360° feedback through the Voices tools.  A leadership development program has also been designed for the Regional and Branch Managers as well as clear criteria for succession planning.  Some employees have also been re-deployed in roles more suited to their skills.

*Specialist ChangeMaker consultants are certified in the practise of Lominger Development Architect Suite™  tools.

A CASE STUDY IN TALENT DEVELOPMENT

………………..to move the organisation from a paternalistic culture enabling the latent talent to emerge

A European Drinks Company

Situation and needs
The company had recently appointed a new CEO after the board had been restructured following a long period of poor performance.  ChangeMaker facilitated the CEO’s new team in defining a clear vision and strategy for future success.  The CEO and newly appointed HRVP had identified through this process that the company had a very paternalistic culture and management style.  This was deemed as inappropriate for the market challenges that lay ahead.  The organisation needed to change the culture to embrace and empower the latent talent necessary for success.  They also needed to ensure that line management ‘owned the change’ and were able to ‘walk the talk’ as the organisation faced the ensuing challenges.

Solution
ChangeMaker introduced the CEO and the HRVP to the Lominger Career Architect* tools.  We particularly focused on the Cultributes Architect.  The Cultributes process enabled the CEO and the HRVP to describe the culture as it was, using a common set culture attributes, and how they needed it be for success.  This enabled them to create a “now and after” profile and understand the gaps as skill deficiencies.  ChangeMaker then took these results and translated it into the Lominger Competencies that will be:

• Essential
• Nice to have
• Non essential 

We then worked with the organisation on designing and delivering programmes that helped them on the road to their vision and culture change.

As we have progressed along this road with this client we have planned the use of a number of other Lominger Architect tools into our interventions. 
We will be running a number of team development workshops using the Team Architect. 
The HRVP needed to redefine the meaning of High Potential, in the past it was largely based on loyalty and service!  We have introduced the HRVP to the Choices Architect which helps define high talent based on their performance and learning agility.  

*Specialist ChangeMaker consultants are certified in the practice of Lominger Development Architect Suite™  tools.