Jane
I've no idea if this fits your model, but I'll explain a couple of
approaches to leadership that I've come across in our work.
The first is a case study of Mortgage Express - a Uk lending institution
that turned in a loss of #100M in 1991-1992 and succesfully turned the
situation round to achieve profits of #104m in the period 93-96. They were
also joint winners of the UK quality award in 1996 (Baldridge equivalent).
at the heart of their programme was a massive investment in leadrship
development. My observation is that they took the view that leadership was
a service provided to the organisation and available from every team on
every floor in the building rather than something conveyed by a job title
or formal position of authority.
The actions behind the sentiment were extremely effective - over one third
of staff were trained in facilitation and problem solving skills so that
rapid intervention was available at anyone's request. All staff could call
problem review meetings and over 20 customer-supploier workshops take
place in an average month with most being initiated, chaired and / or
facilitated by line staff.
Clearly, a second level of leadership was at work in this organisation -
no-one can be in any doubt that without the bravery and commitment to
people and quality of the CEO - Keith Greenhough - and his team this
transformation would not have been possible. I believe he did three
critical things: 1. created an environment in which people felt
comfortable taking up the mantle of leadership, 2. demonstrated an
uswerving belief in the ability of the staff to achieve 'reasonably
unreasonable' goals 3. provided a challenge and regular injections of
innovative thinking to ensure that the bar was constantly being raised.
The Mortgage Express story in one 28 cases in our forthcoming book -
unfortunately as it has not gone to press yet I am contractually bound not
to give out entire chapters! However I would be delighted to answer any
questions or point you to the relevent directors in ME who might be
willing to answer further questions.
The second example I would point you to is Leicester Royal Infirmary - a
UK hospital which has undergone a complete transformation and has an
extremeley charismatic Chief Executive - Peter Homa. They too have won
awards and are on one the organisations we send customers to for site
visits. The key here was how they managed to mobilise clinical staff to
take on leadership roles across and outside their disciplines to bring
about organisation wide change. I can let you have more references if
required.
The third example is Western Provident Association (WPA) - a UK health
Insurer which has won awards for every aspect of their organisation. Some
would regard Julian Stainton their CEO as somewhat eccentric- this may be
the secret. That withstanding, theirs is an absolutley remarkable story -
for example one of their directors personally visits every customer who
makes a complaint. At the heart of their approach to leadership is again a
commitment to people. The philosophy is to set a clear vision together and
then provide the environment in which all staff feel able to contribute.
Staff are involved at every stage of strategy development and
implementation from vision building onwards.
The critical enabler here is access - in order for people to be able to
share in the leadership role, staff must feel that they have access to the
language and tools of leadership. In order to make this happen the
business invests over three times the Uk average on training its
employees. There is plenty of opportunity to apply this learning, the
staff work in customer facing, self managed teams which are totally
responsible for all apsects of their performance from goal setting to
recruitment and purchasing.
Again WPA are in the book but I can make the same offer as for ME.
I hasten to add that none of these organisations are clients - just people
I have a great deal of time for.
We have applied these kinds of approaches coupled with highly
participative large group processes and 'bottom up communications' to
great effect in special needs education, government, healthcare, consumer
durables and consumer lectronic amongst others. I'm not sure if you are
interested in these - if so let me know.
I would love to see the outcomes of your research.
Rohit Talwar
Director
Centre for Business Transformation - London
Tel 44 171 435 3570
rtalwarcbt@aol.com
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