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Our client, a 16,000 person, £2 billion / $2.5 billion revenue subsidiary of a global construction giant, was facing declining market share and profitability. With urgent pressure to reverse this trend, the company opted for a strategic transformation rather than relying on cost-cutting measures. Their aim was to redefine customer focus, create differentiated value propositions, and redesign their operating model to align with this new strategy.

 

We partnered with the client to facilitate and guide the transformation, building a combined consultant and client team to co-develop a new customer-focused operating model. Engaging over 300 people in testing and piloting new ways of working, we laid the foundation for a turnaround. Within two years, the company had regained market share and improved profitability.

 

 

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A global food and nutrition leader recognized that achieving its ambitious growth plans required changes to its supply chain organization. Their strategy focused on driving growth through acquisitions to develop new customer channels in some regions, while maintaining operational excellence in established markets. The supply chain function would play a pivotal role in integrating acquisitions and meeting the needs of emerging markets.

 

We partnered with this client to evaluate strategic priorities, define critical capabilities, and establish design principles to guide the design of their new supply chain organization. The result was a clear roadmap, strong internal alignment, and a leadership team ready to implement a more agile, customer-focused operating model.

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Our client, a major provider of academic and vocational qualifications, was under pressure to turn around several years of underperformance and the fallout from a failed restructuring that had introduced unnecessarily complicated ways of working. Increased competition, government funding cuts, and a misaligned product portfolio left the organization struggling to regain stability.

 

The client engaged us to design a simpler, more effective operating model that would reduce people costs by 20% while setting the organization up for long-term growth. Over a structured 9-month program, we partnered with leadership and engaged over 200 stakeholders to deliver a streamlined, scalable organization. The resulting design enabled growth and sustained operational excellence.

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Today’s corporate organizations are powerful entities, a collective of individuals with a shared purpose capable of remarkable achievements, from developing advanced AI technologies to launching next-generation space explorations or pioneering renewable energy solutions. But with great power comes great responsibility. The corporate world plays a pivotal role in tackling some of the world's most pressing challenges, as outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The path to sustainability is not just an option but a necessity for businesses aiming to make a significant, positive impact on our planet and society.

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Part 2 The organization as a whole system

In part 1 of this blog, I argued that organization design is ‘all about the people’ and also ‘all about the work’. When you bring these principles to life in an organization design effort, you’ll have a good chance of creating change with a real impact.

At Orgdesign Works, there’s another fundamental idea that we always bring to organization design projects: to consider the organization as a whole system. This second part of the blog describes 2 typical cases that leaders present, and how considering the whole system is a way to develop solutions to each of those cases.

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Part 1 People and Work

In my consulting work, I’m a witness to the incredible potential within organizations. They are filled with smart, talented individuals fuelled by a shared motivation to make a positive impact on the world. Frustratingly, this talent and enthusiasm sometimes collides with organizational barriers such as unnecessary bureaucracy, multiple reporting requirements, and internal politics. Companies might address these issues through investment in training, leadership development, and culture change initiatives, but often the transformation they are looking for remains elusive. How can organizations bridge the gap between aspiration and real results?

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Today’s leaders increasingly need to adjust their strategy in ‘real time’. This can create mis-alignment throughout their organization, because such rapid or repeated change calls into question the way teams are structured, how roles are defined, how performance and governance is enabled and measured, and whether previously successful behaviours will be right for a new reality.

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I’m not the first (and won’t be the last) person to point out that we’ve just been through a dramatic if not seismic period of disruption across pretty much every sector of society and the economy.

 

We are undergoing regular and repeated ‘shocks’ caused by global pandemic, climate emergency, extreme weather events, protest and political fracture. This has been particularly acute over the last 12 months and it seems any notion of ‘normal’ will be a pipe dream for some time to come.

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If the transition to a more remote way of working feels like a seismic shift, you are not alone. Before the pandemic, only around 50% of companies allowed employees to work from home – now it is more than 99%, according to a Josh Bersin Academy report.

 

In conversations with our client network, we heard about both success stories and hardship. However, the common challenge is the complexity of navigating a situation that never happened before.

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Every merger starts with strategic intent.

 

If you are involved in supporting a merger or acquisition, how well do you understand the strategic intent of the transaction? Any well-planned press release will mention the strategic benefits of the merger.

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Finding a qualified consultant can be challenging. When you need professional consulting support for an important project, are you scrambling to find the right fit?

 

Maybe you trust your gut feeling, rely on word of mouth recommendations, review their website, or invite them to pitch in a “beauty contest”.

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Recently at the Mannheim Drucker Forum I listened to a talk from Jos de Blok, Founder of neighbourhood nursing group Buurtzorg. Maybe you’ve heard of Buurtzorg, a Dutch company that is leading the way in transforming healthcare with an organization model based on purpose and self-management principles?

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It’s not long now until our annual European Organisation Design Forum Conference. I’m looking forward to connecting, exchanging and getting inspired.

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I’m always on the lookout for ways to embed changes into organization processes so that behaviour changes by design, rather than trying to influence individuals to change.

 

Here are some valuable resources for you about creating diverse organizations with practical tips and solutions that you can really implement.

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I’ve just been to the Atlassian Open in Vienna. Atlassian is a company that provides software tools to help teams “unleash their full potential”. To me, they are a fascinating company because they have developed and openly share people practices that enable great teamwork and drive their values.

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My work focuses on building trust into the system to create a trust-based way of working. I will help you to apply design criteria to elements of the organization such as structure, processes and policies. If the criteria include trust, for example, then a trust-based culture is likely to be one outcome of the organization design process.

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If you want to redesign how you work in your team, I will introduce you to a variety of techniques that make teamwork surprisingly more effective. I can share many examples of how other companies changed the way they organize and work. You will try different approaches and then decide what and how to integrate into your daily work by creating your own prototypes.

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Surprising news! The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer found that people trust their own employers more than any other institution, 75% of respondents said they trust "my employer", that's more than those who expressed trust in government, business in general, NGOs or the media.