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Background
In 1995, the Ashland Chemical Company began rolling out its "Simply the
Best" leadership development program. With a target of all management
personnel -- from CEO to supervisor -- the program was initiated by top
management to prepare the organization for what they knew would be a
dramatically changing, and more competitive, industry environment.
What would be the attitudes and mind-sets, the hard skills and the
"people" skills, the more integrated and collaborative management
techniques, and ways of dealing with information, suppliers, customers
and communities that would be necessary to survive and thrive?
How could a leadership program be designed and delivered that would
engage such a variety of levels of management expertise?
These were some of the questions the ACC leadership posed for
themselves.
GCI™ is a critically important component of this award winning program.
It represents a unique adaptation of Power and Systems' Organization
Workshop. As part of a team including Barry Oshry and several members
of the Ashland training organization, Jonathan Milton and Michael Sales
were central to the design and delivery
of GCI.
See our presentation on the “Simply the Best” Leadership Development
Program.
Methodology
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An elaborately simulated organization,
Global Consultants Inc., with
two divisions and customers with very different types of requirements
acts as the program's stage for organizational learning. The simulation
can accommodate up to 55 players.
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A full run of the GCI version of the Organization
Workshop takes one and a half days.
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GCI's
top management is assessed by a Board of Directors using revenue,
employee satisfaction, and customer satisfaction outcomes as metrics.
Top management has an opportunity to lock in stock options for
themselves and all employees early on in the simulation based on how
well GCI performs. Much of their compensation is tied to these outcome
measures
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Conceptual inputs throughout the simulation highlight
organizational vulnerabilities and opportunities, such as: |
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1.Total System Power, i.e., a specific,
easily understood framework for
realizing the full abilities of the human system.
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2.Messing Down and Giving Up, i.e., a
form of collusion between
executives and middle managers that is driven by systemic forces that
are hard to notice and that reduce productivity, quality, and customer
and employee satisfaction.
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3.Partnership, i.e., what it takes to
create relationships that are
truly supportive of personal and organizational goals.
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At one point the whole system takes a
"snapshot" of itself through an
innovative group sculpture technique that is debriefed through skillful
facilitation. This discussion highlights the difficulties of
dissolvingorganizational silos and taking advantage of the synergies
that are available to every organization.
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In
order to deepen the inquiry into the dynamics of management teams
further, participants explore a rich case of an actual upper-level
middle manager who led a very successful team but was ultimately forced
to resign.
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Workshop
participants apply their learnings to pressing job needs via an
extended project planning session. Every person scans the
organization's current situation to identify something that needs to be
addressed that they are willing to take on. Working first alone, they
develop a vision for their project and a plan for putting it into
action. Then, each person joins a mutual coaching trio and gets
feedback on his/her strategy. These intensive coaching sessions are
greatly appreciated by virtually every participant in the program. |
Results
A much enhanced appreciation of the impact of systemic forces on group
life and organizational effectiveness.
A
clear framework for building a truly robust and powerful system able to
defend against threats and take advantage of opportunities in its
environment.
A straight-forward set of strategies to turn
on the power in the middle management ranks and limit any temptation
top managers may feel to micro-manage.
A set of well-defined change initiatives that participants are
truly committed to, starting at the close of the workshop.
An
experience that demonstrates how easy and effective mutual coaching can
be which participants will find simple to put into practice.
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