Leading Growth
Challenge: A professional consulting firm that grew rapidly during its first eight years of existence was struggling to compete in a cyclical downturn in its business. There were complaints from employees of lack of accountability in implementing the new strategic plan, and complaints from clients of poor project management. The firm’s leadership structure was a four-person committee comprised of the original owners who divided up the senior management responsibilities, and made decisions primarily by consensus.
Solution: During the Aligning Culture with Business Session, the leadership team decided that their current organizational culture with its focus on participatory management was no longer effective for their mid-sized company. They realized that their core value of teamwork to serve their clients was inadvertently holding them back in evolving a more useful management structure. They decided to maintain and reinforce the teamwork and collaboration values of serving clients, but to add a moderate amount of hierarchy in their internal management structure by appointing one person as a CEO. They also decided to implement a leadership model for decision-making where one person, the CEO would set strategic direction and hold others accountable for implementation. Through this process, the leaders realized it was possible to consciously fine-tune their organizational culture as part of their strategic planning responsibilities.
Results: The firm re-bounded quickly. Employees were now able to focus more intently on client issues, and did not feel as burdened with involvement in strategic planning decisions. Implementation of business plan goals accelerated, due to clearer managerial accountabilities. And lastly, the CEO stayed close to the business by continuing to gather input directly from employees where appropriate.