Major Change Programme

What was their need?

A major change programme had been initiated that was being designed to improve work
practices due to ‘market changes’ and changing needs of the site. There was also a need and
desire to move the culture away from the current one of ‘blame’ and ‘them and us’ that they
were experiencing.

The production side of the business operated with large groups of people – up to 25 reporting to
one Supervisor and then those Supervisors reporting to a Building Manager. The majority of the
production/manufacturing people work shifts. This way of working had existed for many years
and was one of the key areas that had to change.

Through the processes they were using the senior management team had recognised that the
way change had been managed in the past left a lot to be desired and needed to change. They
identified that the behaviours and attitudes of the senior management team itself had to change,
especially if this latest change was to be the success that it needed to be.

The Growth Dynamic Solution
The big change in the eyes of the people was the move from 25 reporting to a Supervisor to a
team of 7 or 8 reporting to a Team Leader. To the Senior Management Team it was seen more
as a change in working practices and the culture of the site.

In order for our involvement to prove worthwhile and successful we needed to really understand
how the culture operated at all levels of the business. To do this we carried out several
familiarisation days using the ‘culture change experts’ who would be designing and delivering the
programme.

This involved observing people in their normal environment, working hard with key individuals to
understand their needs and wants, and learning why people behaved in the way they did. There
was a great deal of energy in the workforce, unfortunately in too many instances it was
channelled in the least productive ways, with far too much unnecessary and preventable tension
between workforce and managers.

We collected the ‘real’ situation from the perspectives of all levels of the business in order to
make comparisons and decide how best to design a programme that would channel back all of
the energy productively as quickly as possible.

What was the Outcome?
From all of these many interventions, observations and conversations we were able to tailor the
specially designed series of Programmes to ensure that key attitudes, behaviours, beliefs andvalues were addressed. And that included those of the Senior Management Team, as this team above all else were crucial to the success they wanted so much.

The familiarisation days proved invaluable in designing the programme so that it would achieve maximum buy in as quickly as possible. We emphasised to the Senior Management Team as often as possible that the value we add to their situation was driven by their openness and honesty, and also, their recognition that they had to significantly change the way they behaved towards their workforce.

Cascading the Training to All Levels

We made it clear right from the start that the success of this programme would happen as long as they (the Senior Management Team) took part in the programme, continued to be involved in the programme throughout its entire roll out and began raising their awareness regarding how they behaved and how they were being perceived.

Part of our design was to allow the workforce to give ‘warts and all’ feedback on how they felt the management teams felt and thought about them. This was carried out with a carefully balanced facilitation to ensure it remained constructive, realistic and reasonable while allowing years of frustration and cynicism to be released and dissipated.

The training began with the Senior Management Team with a specially designed ‘Strategy Workshop’ facilitated by us to initiate the process of self-awareness of the behaviours and attitudes they would need to begin and continue changing. We then facilitated them in creating a series of key strategies they would need to action and see through for the programme to be a success. We also gave the Senior Management Team the full details of how the programme would roll out and everyone’s role within it. We clarified our position as members of their team and that we were working on this as a partnership with them. We felt that it was important right from the outset that our part was to facilitate, guide, direct, coach and develop them as a team so that they could continue the process successfully after we had left.

Once all Senior Management had attended workshops designed to determine their role in the implementation, this was then followed by a series of team leader workshops.

Some appointed to these new roles were experienced supervisors, some were leading hands and a small number were production operatives. All regardless of previous experience participated in training designed to improve key leadership skills and team working best practice.

Each team leader then attended a workshop with their new team prior to their “go live” date. (When their new structure was to be implemented)

These ‘Team Working’ workshops were designed to operate on a number of psychological levels simultaneously. They were designed and delivered with the following processes in mind (all tempered with the information and knowledge gained from the familiarisation days):

Allow the newly appointed team leaders to apply  their recently acquired skills with their new team in a safe environment

Introduce the newly appointed team leader to their newly formed team and vice-versa

Create challenging behavioural situations that what benefit the new team leaders to manage in order to increase their confidence (in a relatively safe environment with expert help on hand) values were addressed. And that included those of the Senior Management Team, as this team above all else were crucial to the success they wanted so much.

Allow the venting of years of frustration in a controlled environment with highly visible means of channelling this for positive change

Increase the visibility of the Senior Management Team behaving in a ‘new’ more positive way

The new teams and their prospective team leaders practice using the ‘best practice’ team working methods in a safe environment

The opportunity for the Senior Management Team to prove that they are willing to change and that ‘this change programme will be different’

The workshops enabled them to air their views/concerns and questions about the changes, to learn some team working best practice, and  to apply these ideas which allowed them to experience team work in action in a fun environment.

Each workshop ended with the key element of the ‘After Action Review’, which enabled the teams to look at what they are good at, what they need to work at and what support and changes they wished to see from the management team to help them achieve this. This was delivered as a presentation by each team ‘live’ to the Senior Management Team.

Two workshops ran simultaneously over each two day duration, which enabled joint activities to replicate the reality that the teams need to interact with other groups. More importantly it ensured that only 1 team of about 7 people were away from any of the manufacturing buildings at any one time. This resulted in minimising the impact on production and staffing costs.

Once all of the production and maintenance teams had attended their workshops we then took the more senior support teams through longer more intensive workshops. The senior management attended the post event dinner of  the Continuous Improvement Teams’ workshop as the finale of The Growth Dynamic involvement in this phase of our work with this client.

Feeding Back to the Client

Feedback was captured throughout each two day workshop and displayed round the room, as well as regular post workshop briefings after every workshop. All feedback gathered over each two day workshop was collated and a programme of implementation was introduced for all reasonable and business enhancing ideas. It was essential that ideas that could be implemented immediately were done so.

This was to re-position the ‘new’ Senior Management Teams attitudes and behaviours and to prove to the cynics who really distrusted the claim that things would be different this time that they could move away from the damaging negativity of the cynical mindset.

As the programmed progressed training and non-training needs were identified and then prioritised for action by the Senior Management Team The familiarisation days proved invaluable in designing the programme so that it would achieve maximum buy in as quickly as possible. We emphasised to the Senior Management Team as often as possible that the value we add to their situation was driven by their openness and honesty, and also, their recognition that they had to significantly change the way they behaved towards their workforce.

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