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Fascinating Case Studies

These are case studies of my life, examples of good behavior and not so great behavior.

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Image by Blake Wisz

COMPANY PROFILE:

  • Specialty retailer 

  • 10,000 employees

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CHANGE:

  • Implement new system impacting all employees across the enterprise

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APPETITE FOR CHANGE:

  • Perceived: High

  • Cultural: Low

CULTURAL ASSESSMENT
LEADERSHIP:

  • Re-org within last 6 months pre-project

  • Reason to believe: “We just have to do it. The old system is out of date.”

  • Resistance: “It’s not the way we do things here.”

  • Leadership: Delegated their responsibilities to be visible and verbal throughout the project

  • Change management meant ensuring process changes were defined and documented

  • Recognition is only for the super-human: “We don’t do everyone gets a trophy here.”

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Perception of re-org “They let go folks who weren’t able perform to the new standards."

  • Working with leaders: “We only present things to them that are final, visually perfect and stripped down; we get little time with them, mostly drive bys.”

  • Departments held onto information and only shared when required to keep power

  • Departments looked for opportunities to find fault with other departments

  • Lean teams, very few people doing a lot of work: no room for additional tasks

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ETHICAL SHIFT

Prize people over outcomes

LEADERSHIP:

  • Paint a vision of the future state

  • Walk the talk

  • Be visible and verbal

  • Recognize for the simple things

  • Celebrate wins as much as possible

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Working together and sharing information

  • Recognizing each other in and across departments

  • Modeling kindness and affirmation

Industry: RETAIL
Burger Double

COMPANY PROFILE:

  • Food 

  • Over 20,000 employees

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CHANGE:

  • Managed Service Provider Implementation

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APPETITE FOR CHANGE:

  • High

CULTURAL ASSESSMENT
LEADERSHIP:

  • Major outsourcing project within 1 year of the current project

  • Vested in Change Management

  • Executive leadership always concerned about what they say

  • Lack of trust across executives

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Collaborative teams, understand the risk of silos

  • Many alliances behind the scenes cross hierarchy

  • Teams appearing to align with leaders, then change their alignment with executives

  • Change management sat under the PMO which cause much confusion in roles and responsibilities

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ETHICAL SHIFT

Lack of trust impeding progress

LEADERSHIP:

  • Increase C Suite communications to her organization

  • Coaching-C Suite communicating by scanning the script and prepping

  • VP sponsor- created a team-building approach to the work

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Coach on what kindness and affirmation look like

  • Verbalizing what alignment looks like during meetings

  • Improve meeting effectiveness 

  • Ongoing clarification of Change Management (people activities) and PMO (process activities)

Industry: FOOD
Industry: MEDICAL & RETAIL
Eye Checkup

COMPANY PROFILE:

  • Optical 

  • 10,000 employees

​

CHANGE:

  • Implement 2 new systems POS and EMR effecting every associate

​

APPETITE FOR CHANGE:

  • High

CULTURAL ASSESSMENT
LEADERSHIP:

  • Direct and transparent with their employees

  • Agile decision-making

  • Valued change management and willing to learn and implement best practices

  • Never had done a transformational implementation

  • Cared for employees, sometimes to a fault

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Less experiences in role

  • Genuinely enjoyed working for the company

  • Mistakes not taken too seriously

  • Willingness to learn

​

ETHICAL SHIFT

Lack of rigor in process and performance standards

LEADERSHIP:

  • Aligned on clear and specific operational standards for the project implementatio

  • Open dialogue when performance gaps arose on project and partnered on solutions

  • Increased communication to field leaders

  • Added a communication software roll out to improve accountability in execution

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Masterfully crafted communications and training, easily accessed anytime, anywhere

  • Improved the coaching training and embedded it in the project roll out

  • Leveraged an online feedback tool for employees to collaborate across the nation

Industry: NON-PROFIT
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COMPANY PROFILE:

  • Programs in Africa empowering women

  • 2 employees, 10 board members, 25 volunteers

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CHANGE:

  • Executive alignment on new strategy of the non profit’s updated vision/mission

  • ​

APPETITE FOR CHANGE:

  • Low

CULTURAL ASSESSMENT
LEADERSHIP:

  • Not aligned on future direction

  • Slow decision-making

  • Not easily accessible

  • Passionate about the mission

  • Time constrained, volunteers

 

EMPLOYEES:

  • Not able to move quickly

  • Overwhelmed - Too many tasks, not enough people

  • Not empowered to make decisions

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ETHICAL SHIFT

Lack of collaboration and alignment

LEADERSHIP:

  • Crystalize the mission statement

  • Build an aligned strategy

  • Increase visibility to the workload

  • Define the Board’s role and responsibilities and access

  • Align on the work that can be done

  • Identify the accounting and audit measures required, reducing bureaucracy 

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