CASE STUDIES

Governance Review

Delve into how we conducted a governance review resulting in an increased understanding of the role of best practice governance, and a set of recommendations accepted by the board.

Governance

See how we assisted the Board of a new entity lay the shared foundation of purpose, strategy, values and ways of working…

Board Development

Find out more about our one and two day workshops on Governance Fundamentals - based on the ISO37000 Governance of Organisation - Guidance.

Strategy and Foresight

THE SITUATION...

We were approached to run a Strategy and Foresight session for this client. While they had a strategy already, they had over 50% new board members, and wanted the opportunity to not only confirm that the current strategy was the right strategy, but also to have the opportunity to work together as a new board.

HOW WE HELPED...

Prior to the workshop we undertook a literature review of all current documents and collateral relating to the current strategy, environment and strategic policy statements.

We also provided participants with some pre-thinking to identify current Signals of Change (specific, small or local innovation or disruptions that have the potential to grow in scale and geographic distribution). Within the workshop, participants identified Drivers of Change (big factors, trends or macrotrends that are driving change).

 THE OUTCOMe...

As a result of our time together, all participants:

• understood what the current strategy was

• had the opportunity to refine the purpose of organisation

• were able to contribute their view on the possible future operating environment and the impact of this on success

• agreed on the high-level outcomes they wished to organisation to achieve

• agreed on the opportunities and critical risks to achieving these outcomes

The Board and Chief Executive were extremely happy with the outcome of the two days together and have invited Align Group back on numerous occasions to facilitate board workshops, sector strategy sessions and key sector meetings. 

Governance Review

THE SITUATION...

Concerns had been expressed about the level of governance support and oversight currently being provided to the Chief Executive and management team of an organisation. 

HOW WE HELPED...

Our approach included:-

• Undertaking a literature review to ensure we were completely across the environment and jurisdictions within the organisation operated.

• Interviewing key stakeholders to gather their views on the current situation, the impact on organisation performance and their ideas for how to move forward. Key stakeholders included Board members, customers,  Chief Executive and senior management team, and long-term consultants.

THE OUTCOMe...

A comprehensive report and presentation was prepared that outlined how the organisation’s governance framework and practices compared against best practice along with key recommendations for change.  In recognition of the challenges facing this organisation, a range of options were provided along with the associated risks for each option.

The Board accepted our recommendations.

Values Driven Change Process

THE SITUATION...

Our client had recently merged with another legal entity and wished to identify and build a strong culture appropriate for the newly merged organisation.

HOW WE HELPED...

We implemented a Values Driven Culture Change Programme. Values are the attitudes, mindsets and beliefs that determine how you go about delivering on your organisation’s strategy. This programme started with the newly merged organisations purpose and strategy and included a engagement workshops for all staff.  During these workshops, we took staff through the potential risks and opportunities that had been identified by the board and senior management, the critical ones that could impact on the organisation achieving its strategy. Once they had a clear understanding of the context it was possible for them to prioritise and workshop those values that would harness these opportunities; or prevent these risks from happening; or enable the organisation to recover from these risks quickly – thereby minimising impact on the business.  These draft values were confirmed through a series of questionnaires.

Once confirmed, we undertook a cultural audit to identify where the key organisation facets were not aligned with the values. These were consequently revised to ensure alignment.

A key system to ensuring organisation-wide understanding of the desired values was the Performance Management system as it is through these regular coaching conversations between management and staff that common understanding is achieved on what behaviour is important and why.   We designed a performance management system and trained every manager and staff member to effectively implement this system.

Working closely with the internal communications team we developed appropriate collateral to support the values implementation, culminating in an enormous jigsaw puzzle where every staff member's contribution was required to make the jigsaw whole - demonstrating that the new organisation was "better together". There was much hilarity at the Christmas function as people tried to find where their piece of the puzzle went!

THE OUTCOME...

While any culture change is a long journey, we found that as a result of our process, staff understood what the values of the organisation were and why they were important to long term business success.  The various facets of the organisation were aligned to, and supported, the desired culture, and the values were included in the regular performance management coaching discussions between staff and managers during the year.  An added bonus was the fact that staff talked about the values and addressed the poor behaviour of their peers within the context of the values.

Governance

THE SITUATION...

This new entity recognised that their success rested on the Board having a common understanding of the purpose of the organisation, how they were going to work together and their role in leading the entity. This entity had a high public profile and a mandate that drew high emotion from all key stakeholders. As such, the board needed to have a foundation of trust and a deep understanding of each member’s “journey to the table” and their right to contribute to the entity’s endeavours.

HOW WE HELPED...

We developed a customised two-day strategic session that started with board members sharing the personal journeys that bought them to the Board of this entity, what resonated for them in terms of this journey and the connection they felt to the cause of this entity.  This was critical to breaking down any barriers and enabled the swift building of trust.

We then moved onto exploring the entity’s foundation documents to ensure all Board members had a common understanding of the purpose of the entity. This was followed by an environmental scanning exercise to ensure future opportunities and risks were fully explored. We used the PESTLE approach for this and included reviewing similar organisations across the world and what they had experienced.  The Board identified key stakeholders and how to best ensure they could build positive relationships and meet their expectations.  As the entity’s strategy, opportunities and risks had been identified, the board were able to identify an initial set of organisational values for socialising and finessing with stakeholders and staff.

The final part of the two days was spent developing a Board Charter. This contained how the Board would work together and interface with the management team and members of the organisation.  It went into such detail as conflict of interest processes and procedures, communication principles, board development and training, decision-making processes, and the role of the Chair. 

THE OUTCOMe...

The Board were extremely happy with the final result with the Chair personally providing the following:

“I would like to register my admiration and thanks for the consummate way in which you delivered your part of the briefing for the new (Board) …  The matters of gathering together a sense of purpose and momentum was hugely important and …  drew down on your lengthy experience with both private and public sectors and senior people within them”.

Board Performance

THE SITUATION...

The Board Chair of  an organisation within the wider state sector approached us to improve relationships within the Boardroom.  The organisation was going through a significant change in direction and the Chair was concerned that this would fail unless the Board was working well, engaged in the new direction and openly supporting and encouraging the staff and key stakeholders to buy into this change.

HOW WE HELPED...

Our first step was to gather background information on the organisation, its purpose, strategy, the environment it was operating within. We also gathered information from the Chief Executive on how he viewed the role of the Board and it’s interface with his role. We met with each Board member individually to find out what their views were on the role of the Board, the current purpose of the organisation and its future direction. We attended a Board meeting where we observed the dynamics of the Board as the Chair presented their view of the future and his thoughts on the key steps to get there.

Using the information gathered we developed a draft set of criteria for Board success, which was presented to, and signed off by, the Board.  The Board, their CEO and key stakeholders then completed an evaluation of the Board using this  criteria.  This information was provided back to the Board in a confidential report and a workshop was facilitated to explore strategies to overcome the key gaps in current effectiveness.

THE OUTCOMe...

The Chair was extremely happy with the approach and the outcome.  As a result of this process, a couple of Board members decided that they could not support the new direction of the organisation and did not put themselves forward to re-election to the Board.

Transformational Change

THE SITUATION...

This organisation had significant operations throughout New Zealand with nearly 90 leaders and approximately 800 operational staff.  Each operational hub varied in size and operated differently although the outcomes of each hub were the same. There was significant growth predicted for their business and their latest engagement survey results had been more than disappointing, with their General Manager Operations spending the majority of their time dealing with Personal Grievances and allegations of bullying and poor behaviour.  It was recognised that the organisation needed to address this poor leadership, staff needed to become more empowered and agile; more able to easily scale up their operations and adopt new technology; and needed to be able to deliver high quality services in a consistent manner throughout the country.

HOW WE HELPED...

We led an internal project team of operational experts to redesign the current operating model and associated organisational structures.  This required two different models to meet the different volumes of the various “hubs”. 

Once the design had been approved by the Board, we were responsible for implementing the change. This included leading all internal communications; ensuring a rigorous and robust assessment and selection process was used to transition staff into the new roles; and ensuring all supporting aspects of the change were taken care of, such as new technology requirements, new operating policies and procedures, stakeholder engagement, and training and development.

THE OUTCOME...

There were no legal challenges regarding the transition process and eighteen months after the implementation engagement scores had doubled and the transition of one “hub” from the small operating model to the large operating model was seamless.

Mergers and Acquisitions

THE SITUATION...

A client with whom we had worked for over 8 years was merging with another organisation. We were asked to facilitate this merger from an organisation design and people perspective.

HOW WE HELPED...

We worked closely with the Chief Executive designate to design the new entity’s organisation structure. This included facilitating meetings with senior management of both organisations on the options for organisation design; leading the internal communications strategy to ensure staff engagement during the entire process; and managing the “transfer” of all staff into the new entity.

Once the organisation was established there was significant work required to ensure staff understood their new roles within the organisation and within the new structure

THE OUTCOME...

As a result of our assistance, the new organisation was established and operational within required timeframes.

Please see the Values Driven Culture Change Process for information on further work done post-merger.

Board Development

THE SITUATION...

The client had a group of companies that were interested in developing the skills of their directors with a specific focus on their sector.  The participants were at the beginning of their governance journey.

HOW WE HELPED...

Align Group provided a programme on the fundamentals of governance, based on ISO37000 “Governance of Organisations – Guidance”.

The two-day programme covered the following topics:

• Governance within our sector – legislation and protocols

• Governance and Management

• Purpose, strategy, risk

• Leadership

o   Values

o   Ethical Leadership

o   Board Dynamics

• Stakeholder Engagement and Social Responsibility

• Accountability and Oversight

• Data and Decisions

• Role of the chair

THE OUTCOME...

The feedback from participants was so positive that we have been asked to regularly run the programme for the organisation into the future.

Performance Management System Design

The situation...

An organisation required assistance in designing a performance management system which would enable all staff to have clarity on how they were contributing to the strategy of the organisation. They required a consistent approach to having regular discussions around expectations across a very diverse business.  They needed to ensure that all staff understood their organisation’s strategic goals, culture and how they contributed individually, and as a team, to these goals.

HOW WE HELPED...

We led a Project Team made up of management, staff and the union to design their performance management system.  Staff were provided with an opportunity to comment on the design prior to it being finalised by management.  Once the design was confirmed, we provided a training programme for both staff and management on how to implement the system.

Rather than delivering the training, We accredited internal staff and managers as facilitators to deliver the training programme  throughout the country, thereby ensuring the skills were retained in-house.

THE OUTCOME...

There was a high degree of engagement throughout the organisation, achieved through the customer-centred design and the fact that the staff were facilitating the training sessions.  The evaluations from the training were extremely positive. Staff engagement improved as staff understood the strategy and why the culture was important. The system remained unchanged for a number of years.