Moving Forward: Getting off First Base

When does the bureaucracy of success become a company's undoing?

PROBLEM:

Despite being in a new facility with good people, the company had not progressed the way they wanted to over the previous three years.

PARTICIPANTS:

Market Research Division - Vice President, Managers, and 200 employees

REVELATIONS:

Starting with the management teams, we went through Data Dome's process of "Understanding Self and Others" with DISC behavioral style analysis. Then we performed an objective work environment analysis, which consisted of examining the behavioral demands and limitations of jobs within a specific working environment.

This was to capture an image of what the management team thought about current job expectations for success.

They all agreed, without exception, that although they had a good diversity of styles, they were not able to utilize the strengths of that diversity for more productive teams.

The current environment required strict adherence to established rules & procedures.

We revisited the work environment analysis process to study what really needed to be done in an ideal work environment.

Again, without exception, they all agreed that the existing rules and procedures were not going to get them anywhere.

They needed to start over - talk with their people, be open to new ideas, and allow limited risk-taking.

For three years, they had all been doing the opposite of what they really thought would work, but they never sat down to talk about aligning the work environment with their unanimous insights.

BOTTOM LINE:

Objective, neutral and user-friendly tools were required for them to safely put their thoughts into black & white.

With the assistance of the assessments and our direction on process, the management team walked away with a workable action plan that produced an effective reorganization. It was successfully completed in just six months.