As part of the “Current State” assessments during the discovery phase of my Operational Change program, I do so-called “open brainstorms” with management and staff (no management in the room).
The question with these is around the weaknesses of the business: what do they not like, their frustrations, what would they like to have improved.
I’ve now done quite a few of these and the pattern is consistent and super interesting: management and staff are almost completely aligned in terms of the identified shortcomings, but both are sort of pointing to the other party as being the cause of the problems or the roadblock to solutions.
Also, my observations are:
– The majority of staff is engaged, proud of their work, they want to do a better job and help the company to succeed, and
– Most complaints point to unclear Organizational Structure, insufficient Management Practices and poorly defined Work Processes.
The good news is that we can start making vast improvements on some of these issues in a matter of weeks, resulting in a massive shift in morale and a general sense of relief.
