Kendall Consulting Group - Case Studies

Case Study: Creating Management Team Alignment
International Petrochemicals Company

Situation

A major division of this international petrochemicals company had tried a variety of strategies and initiatives to improve market position, efficiencies and quality, but with little success. Managers appeared willing to try anything to improve, but yet business did not improve and position was eroding opposite aggressive competitors.

Approach

Kendall Consulting Group was asked to help create a new strategy for the division, hopefully one that could produce the desired effects with customers and in operations. Rather than just launch in and create a strategy, KCG started with a brief assessment, interviewed each of the senior managers of the division, and then built a "strawman" of what the managers were saying about the business and where it should be going. KCG then identified divergent points of view amongst the management team. In an open workshop setting these facets of their business were all openly discussed for the first time. Of particular importance, was the lack of customer focus by the entire management team; they were overly concerned with internal operations.


Key Value

KCG brought their knowledge of business strategy, customer service and operations to bear in the strategy setting phase of this work. By creating a strawman of the division's mission, objectives, and critical success factors (CSFs) based on the interviews with each senior manager, they were able to point out where agreement and issues existed, and facilitate an open discussion of the different points of view in a comfortable workshop setting. Managers were amazed at how rapidly the process took place (within a couple of weeks), and how so many of the apparent differences were resolved without the friction that had been evident in prior initiatives. The team was aligned around a new strategy characterized by implementable mission, objectives and CSFs. KCG recommended how current operations should be changed to facilitate strategy implementation.

Results

Managers were amazed to find that their strategies had previously been suboptimized to favor their individual functional areas. Once they could see their contribution to a team set of objectives and CSFs, and had the ability to voice their issues and concerns in how these were stated and what they meant, the entire management team openly pledged their support to a new, agreed upon strategy. The business quickly turned the corner and improvements started to be seen almost immediately. Customer service was one particular area that needed attention and that no one manager had been responsible for. As the new strategy unfolded, the entire management team agreed that a new managerial position was needed to manage and add emphasis to this key success factor. The management team learned a new vocabulary about team alignment and strategy implementation that they continue to use today. The business continues to grow.

###

Navigation to Other Cases (below) and the Cases Main Page (click here)

1. Creating New External Consulting Group for an International Consumer Electronics Conglomerate
2. Internal Consulting Group Methodology and Skill Development for a Major White Goods Manufacturer
3. Business Process Reengineering for an International Manufacturer
4. Event-Driven Business Change for a Multinational Telecommunications Company
5. Discovery of New Product Ideas for a Publishing Company
6. Refocusing a Business Change Effort for an International Service Management Company
7. Renovating Key Business Processes for a Large Scale Precious Metals Company
8. Information Needs Assessment for a Major Paper Company
9. Organizational Assessment for a Major Telecommunications Company
10. Coaching a Business Change Team for a Regional Healthcare Provider
11. Creating Management Team Alignment for an International Petrochemicals Company
12. Competency Modeling for Financial Group of Insurance Company

Kendall Consulting Group is an international general management consulting firm specializing in strategy execution, change management, and executive education. We invite you to contact us for how we might help you and your company grow and prosper.

© 2002 Kendall Consulting Group of Sarasota, Inc. All Rights Reserved.