Dr Juanita Muller
Research Fellow
Centre for Work, Leisure & Community Research
Griffith University, Logan Campus

As a specialist consulting firm we regard the service provider-client confidentiality as a high priority. At the same time we are aware that new clients would like to know more about the experiences of other companies that has made use of the OD21 services.

BRIEF CASE STUDIES
(M4P - Culture, climate and motivation)

Manufacturing Company

The main issues addressed in this company can be picked up from the following executive summary. These recommendations were implemented and with the minimum effort they moved from a benchmarked poor company to middle class which had tremendous financial benefit for the company. Also interesting was that it was only necessary to work on one operational section of the company. The summary is as follows:

The scope for improvement at “This Company” is great. Similar to a visit to a physician the focus unfortunately is on the development areas. The implication however is that with the majority of issues there is a healthy state of affairs. Al the recommended interventions may seem like an insurmountable mountain. This however is not the case. With company cultures all the different issues are related and working on one invariably impacts on most of the others. As eluded to earlier in the report we will follow the Pareto principle and will hopefully get 80% of our results by addressing 20% of the development areas. Hence the executive summary.

• Interventions should start from the top. In this case “top” has a dual implication. It implies the top of the M4P model as well as management being at the top within “This Company”. Most changes will happen at the frontline but they have to be initiated at management level.
• With the M4P two of the three most obvious development areas (“Interpersonal Relationships” and “Distinct Compass Reading”) are at the management intervention level and they will most definitely impact on the third development area “Understanding” which sits at frontline level. The recommended interventions of these 3 development areas will hugely impact on the rest of the recommended interventions in some of the other areas.
• The best starting point will be to determine where “This Company” wants to be 18-24 months down the line. This will set a clear direction (give a “Distinct compass reading” and the issues of “Creative future” and “Stretching within bounds” as well as “Contribution and involvement” will become essential to address. If this is implemented well “Understanding” will create willingness to “Participate”. Future issues that need clarification and communication throughout the company are:
  
  i.e. one or two (or more) sites
  
  Manufacturing volumes
  
  Markets (“One City” only?)

• Follow this up by determining how it can be accomplished and involve as many stakeholders as possible.

Role of a GM?

What will the new structure look like (for every contingency we envisage above)?

• Improve culture by working through the touchstone recommendations. Start with “Interpersonal relationships” and the three development areas involved. If the desired people model can be put in place most of the above will be easy to achieve.
• It is very clear that the primary development area with “This Company” sits with the “This Company” fabricators. This must under no circumstance be perceived as a weakness but should rather be seen as a need that has to be addressed. We are dealing with people issues that impacts on output and it is distinctly different from skills, knowledge and capability. It needs to be addressed as a two-way street and cannot be enforced in any way.
• The behaviour diagnosed in the organisation will improve incrementally as we improve the touchstone development areas.
• OD21 believes that the company has a bright future and we would like to stay involved with “This Company” future success.

Each of the recommendations above was clearly described in the report itself and left nothing to the imagination. Implemented it resulted in a vastly improved work environment where people got on much better, production improved, staff turnover decreased and bottom-line improved.

Law firm
The firm approached OD21 because interpersonal relationships resulted in decreased productivity, a blame culture where it was extremely difficult to manage and a commercial reality that pointed to, either downsizing, or closing the firm down. Armed with the people facts (ground truth) gained through implementing the M4P they managed to turn the situation around and experienced 30% growth in the next financial year.

Health
A need was experienced for more comprehensive performance management. It was decided to implement the M4P and to ad people issues to the existing performance management system. Once they had a measured people result, a decision was made to simplify the annual performance management system, and to put more effort into improving identified people issues. This resulted in other benefits that were not anticipated before the implementation of the diagnostic i.e. less stress in the organisation, greater buy-in and commitment to a change initiative they were implementing, staff absenteeism dropped and productivity improved.

Recently we have successfully consulted for the following companies:

Mayne Consumer Products
Bechtel Services
Xenome Bio tech
KBR
Worley Parsons
Oilsearch
Melbourne Water
Connell Wagner
Yarra Valley Water
John Holland
Merrimac
Phillips Group
Defence Department Canberra – including the French and Italian partner
AGPAL/QIP
Boeing
Skills Tech
Metropolitan South Institute of TAFE
Tugan Desalination