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NINE EXAMPLES OF ICA
WORK INCLUDING RESULTS AND BENEFITS |
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PROFITABILITY A machine tool company of 1300 people was not quite making its targets year after year. The Managing Director wanted a way to focus efforts, especially on quality, customer responsiveness, development of special purpose machine tools and teamwork. The M.D. was a bright local manager of a wholly owned German company who was head and shoulders in capability above everyone else in the company. In several participatory planning and implementation programs including leadership training and mentoring with the top team of 20, the M.D. learned to facilitate instead of direct, to empower task forces instead of try to do things himself and to encourage instead of be critical. Others were able to take on more responsibility, to delegate many of their own tasks which also helped their subordinates take more responsibility. Five years later the company won the first Baldridge Award given in their country. They realized that the ICA programs had created the "human infrastructure for Total Quality Management". When the company was sold two years following, that country operation was the most profitable of the 16 country operations and is still the Flagship Company, even more successful than the German “Mother Company”.
COOPERATION A market research company merged recently from two organizations with strong corporate cultures. ICA was asked to help the senior management create a plan to complete the transition and forge a positive working environment. Over two years working first with the LENS process with the directors followed by executive retreats and departmental breakthrough sessions the organization has emerged as a cohesive unit. The leadership team has been able to move into a much more supportive relationship, ending the seemingly inevitable "we-they" situations which prevailed before, bringing results and relationship building into balance, helping eliminate wasted energy formerly dissipated in internal competition. The company made its bottom lines without a hitch during the transition of Managing Directors. Currently the organization is realigning departments and leadership in such a way as to build a more cooperative relationship between traditionally competing departments. ICA is in an ongoing mentoring and process design relationship with the M.D. and the departments.
PARTICIPATORY DECISION MAKING The brilliant President of a high-tech, start-up company had come to the point at which he could no longer effectively manage as he had previously. Very bright engineers had their own ideas and resented his seeming domination. The President was reluctant to trust the judgment to others, a situation aggravated by the need for confidentiality because some products have a short advantage before competitors copy. In the planning program, members of the management and scientific group became increasingly open to each others' ideas, were more willing to share their own thoughts and feelings without making demands or offering ultimatums. Currently the group is adapting the planning process to making R&D decisions. ICA will continue with the leadership team, holding follow-up review exercises, teaching participation skills and mentoring individuals as needed for increased responsibility. The company, which has been doubling its revenue annually, has great product potential limited only by its human capacities.
MULTI_CULTURAL TEAM SYNERGY The formation of a new business unit in a multi-national company merging 2 projects with different styles and cultures. Accomplished through: 1) Individual dialogue sessions and facilitation of programs to clarify reasons for the merger without acrimony. Personal sharing and providing open space for expressing concerns facilitated healing and moving ahead. This was an opportunity for the new M.D. from outside the company to clarify his assignment from head office which enabled understanding of the need for an "outsider" style. We later facilitated a program including expat sales & marketing people and the local support team who were able to respect each other's contribution in a new way. We were able to go beyond the expats doing all the talking and local people keeping their head down; everyone contributed.
BREAKING THROUGH FIRST ON TECHNICAL, THEN HUMAN ISSUES A chemical company was hampered by unreasonable union rules, which prevented managers, and supervisors even from effectively communicating with operators. Sabotage of the production line was a common occurrence. The factory had never worked at its rated capacity. Working conditions were bad, but no one was willing to do anything about them. A new Factory Manager took over, asking ICA to work with him over a period of time. The first planning program included representatives from top to bottom and was able to get good participation even from operators from the factory floor. Supervisors who were actually blocking progress divided themselves into two groups, one including those who wanted to improve the situation and one group, the members of which were exposed as blocking factors. The latter group subsequently transferred out as they saw they could no longer maintain their power by holding back progress. The factory is now very close to full capacity with control over operating parameters and in turning to more focused human development is finding that young supervisors are excited to take on more responsibility. Senior supervisors are now facilitating programs with increasing skill. Mentoring with the two top managers is resulting in a new openness in the #2 person, a change necessary if he is to go farther in the company. Cooperating in this small plant which is part of a larger complex is an embarrassment to a very powerful union leader who sees this cooperation as a threat to his power base, but he has not been able to hold back the cooperation necessary for the future viability of the plant.
CONFLICT AND DILEMMA RESOLUTION A well-known and successful advertising group has many strong people with strong ideas and traditional tensions between creative and accounts departments. ICA created an "Assumptions Process" with them to help get to the assumptions and deep beliefs which keeps conflict in being. Participants from the group's five member companies worked through several current conflict situations leading to a way to more clearly see the other side of polarizing issues. Participants reported being more able to see the point of view of others, some where even able to reframe situations in such a way that shifting assumptions added to the resolution of the conflict or dilemma.
ASSUMING LEADERSHIP OF A NEW COMPANY A cable TV company was involved in a merger. The new President was not yet effective because so many of the previous employees had primary loyalty to the previous General manager who was still there. In doing a planning program for a group including one third of the employees, the new President shared his concern. ICA was able to shift the way the implementation process was conducted to help put the new President in charge of the company. In a conversation with him a month later, the President said he wanted to know the companies ICA did its LENS process with and he would buy shares in those companies. BREAKTHROUGH CREATIVITY PROGRAMS A fast-growing first rank computer company which was growing 100% per year in Asia asked CA to facilitate breakthrough programs with them and their distributors. Managing Directors and Marketing Chiefs for Asia/Pacific and important Distributors were able to pool their creativity in order to make major gains. The programs led to strategic alliances while preparing distributors for much greater growth and diversity of market penetration. They also paved the way for building more interactive systems, which helped relieve pressures between departments in a rapidly changing business situation. DIFFICULT ACTIONS WITH PROFOUND RESPECT A two-partner Joint Venture required to close down, the question addressed was how to do it with profound respect. ICA facilitated and mentored 2 senior expats and the HR manager 1) Ongoing, transparent communication, telling people everything (several times), 2) Making adequate time for employees to grieve, 3) Helping people (mostly engineers) find other jobs in the vicinity, 4) Enabled the HR manager to remain centered avoiding becoming a target. |
