Gordon,
I work in an environment different from yours, which makes a rich soil for
a variety of non-tradititional or just "different" approaches.
I can just share my own experience. With a small international consulting
team we are currently working with a big multinational company that wants
to bring together its locations scattered across the vast spaces of
Russia. The controversy is the same: functional vs. regional. A feature
of what we did is: we started with company issues and scenarios rather
than pure reorg issue. Maybe, that could be one of the keys for you as
well. Another thing is: we did a lot of activity-based interventions with
company managers.
Besides, at a recent session we did an activity that came as a shock to
participants as they interpreted our artfully vague instruction as a team
vs. team rather than an integrated team action.
There are things that happen through a succession of steps/experiences.
The work is not over, so I will not say the results are around the corner.
They soon may be there. Or maybe, not. It's a matter of life choice for
the company, and things happen with choices, you know.
Best regards,
Mikhail Klarin
Senior consultant
Center for Business Skills Development
Moscow
Russia
--"Dr.Mikhail Klarin" <klarin@matrix.ru>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>