Case Studies
Cultural Assessment/Leadership Development
An office furnishings industry leader with
a rich history in innovation, creative management, and customer service
was going through a major organizational change due to the retirement
of its CEO. This "changing of the guard" prompted a full
organizational assessment to determine how relevant the values still
were to employees and customers, what new directions they might consider,
and what management skills they found essential for future success.
The results showed the need for the creation of new leadership development,
succession planning, and recruitment initiatives, more cross-functional
teamwork and renewed communications programs reaching employees and
customers.
Cross-Cultural Management
A multi-national peer group within a global organization suffered from distrust and a lack of ability to work together across international borders. Symptoms of the situation were multiple fiefdoms that resulted in duplication of energies and investments. In an effort to reduce redundancies and get the members of the peer group to work together, a "global network leadership" was established which coordinated communications, knowledge sharing, support groups, and other mechanisms to break down country and cultural barriers. Sensitivity to culture issues, different ways of working, and local political needs helped eliminate distrust and feelings of isolation. This peer group ultimately became a supportive global team working towards a single strategy.
Leadership Communications
A prominent organization was facing a significant communications challenge: a need to inspire employees and stakeholders with a message of strength, to recognize discrete achievements while also honoring individual privacy, and to balance all within the context of a national commemoration. The potential impact of various leadership communication options was evaluated thoroughly, and messages/delivery mediums were selected as appropriate. This unique challenge was met with a mixture of personal interaction, distributed written material, and public display. The result was a balanced and strong view of leadership, with a positive, visionary posture.
Talent Management Planning and Retention Strategy
A financial services organization examined the make-up of their leadership team and realized that nearly a third of them would be ready to retire in the next five years. The potential retirement rate among their entire workforce was even higher. This created tremendous vulnerability in terms of talent – and a need for a strategy/integrated approach to talent management. Working together, we developed a framework for talent management and a series of initial actions to be taken that would engage a large percentage of their workforce in
(1) helping them understand their critical positions –
(2) finding and developing appropriate talent for those positions – and
(3) creating a knowledge-sharing culture to counter the potential loss of knowledge due to the retirements.
The work had the support and engagement of senior HR leadership and the CEO, as well as line managers.
Talent Management Strategy and Training
An international bank wanted to elevate the skill level of its human resources staff to make them more consultative, more sensitive to cross-cultural/ diversity issues, more able to work with line management on global talent management. The first step in the process was to create a new competency model for the human resources staff, one that moved them from a transactional group to a consultative group. The second step was to hold a two day workshop that introduced a new level of thinking about talent management, cross-cultural talent perspectives, and consultative HR. This well-received workshop started a process of strategic workforce planning that cut across country barriers and reinforced the new performance management system, which was designed to improve retention and the sharing of talent across boundaries. The process has started to elevate the level of professionalism amongst the HR staff, allowing for more strategic and cross-cultural management of talent. The ultimate effect will be a more effective workforce and a better bottom line. |
