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Here is a selection of the most interesting articles written over the years around our core areas of expertise: change management and cultural change.
Targeted culture change - how does it work?
Corporate culture is the "invisible operating system" of every organisation – that sum of habits, routines and unspoken rules that decide on speed, quality and collaboration.
Download PDF →Out of the comfort zone! Social courage as a competitive advantage
Courage always means leaving the warm nest of consensus and risking the cold wind of criticism in your face, or even a full-blown storm of outrage. But that is precisely what moves companies and societies forward: the courage to dissent, the willingness to put your own view forward, whether people like it or not. It may well be that I am wrong in my view, that after a short discussion I have to accept that I was completely off the mark – but it may equally be that I see an important point that the others do not. Progress does not come from harmony, it comes from friction.
Download PDF →Bringing people along instead of fighting: change management strategies for politics
I have been doing change management for more than 30 years; for roughly as long I have been active in an environmental association. So I am often asked: could the insights and methods of change management not also be used to take forward changes in society that so often prove slow, full of conflict and all too often unproductive? The answer: in principle yes, but…
Download PDF →Partnership on an equal footing: internal customer focus as the key to external customer focus
Excellent customer focus depends on internal customer focus. If sales and service are left in the lurch by their internal colleagues, they have no chance of satisfying their customers, let alone delighting them. Only if the internal chain of delivery, secondly, runs smoothly and, firstly, is rigorously aligned with what customers want, can their requirements be met perfectly or exceeded. A case study.
Download PDF →Culture change from the top: often the better option
A change in the characteristic patterns of thinking and behaviour of an organisation can, according to common opinion, only be achieved "bottom-up". Yet a "culture change from the top" is not only possible; often it even has the better chances of success.
Download PDF →Different markets, different customs: understanding industry cultures and using them in change projects
Anyone who experiences different corporate cultures from the outside is left marvelling at two things: first, how differently companies can tick – and second, how unquestioningly self-evident each of these companies finds its own way of thinking and acting. Only on closer inspection does it become clear that there is far more behind these "quirks" than merely (corporate) personal foibles. There is in fact a close connection between the success factors of the industry concerned, the business model of a company and the culture that prevails there. That also has consequences for change management – and for change managers.
Download PDF →Cultural due diligence: on the incompatibility of corporate cultures and its causes
Whether, in a merger or takeover, a new shared culture quickly grows out of two previously separate corporate cultures or whether the two cultures set themselves apart from each other, each sharpening the contrast, is less a question of how different they are than of how the integration is led. Only if the members of the acquired company feel accepted and part of the whole will a a new shared "we" can emerge. Even so, there are also risk factors that arise from difficult reconcilable values, beliefs and habits. Detecting them early is possible through a "Cultural Due Diligence" possible.
Download PDF →Change Coaching
Case study of a comprehensive two-year modernisation project in a public company. Together with its chairman of the board, a critical assessment is made of the main results and lessons learned; from these, conclusions are drawn for "change processes from within" and for the "Change Coaching"–methodology are derived.
Download PDF →Teamwork – or: why do projects fail?
Many projects peter out, and the result is a growing weariness of projects. In the first part, the article analyses the causes; in the second it reports on the simulation game "The Crisis Meeting", in which experienced managers and project–managers, in coping with trained in dealing with resistance and project crises.
Download PDF →Practical strategies for changing corporate culture
Bringing the managers and employees of a company to a new way of thinking and acting is among the hardest change management undertakings there are. The article explains the reasons for these difficulties and sets out why many widespread approaches are doomed to fail. It presents practical strategies for developing the corporate culture.
Download PDF →Reducing internal friction
In no other area do companies allow themselves inefficiencies to match the way they deal with one another. In many places between 10 and 30 per cent of total working time is lost through internal friction, and in extreme cases more still. The article describes how this comes about and what can be done about it.
Download PDF →Inefficiency through time management – productivity reserves in hospitals
Hospitals live with murderous time pressure on the one hand and inconceivable waste of time on the other. The reason is that everyone, and senior people in particular, optimises their own time at the expense of the system as a whole, instead of taking responsibility for the shared time budget of the whole hospital. One way of achieving exactly that is described.
Download PDF →Hidden productivity reserves – time management in hospitals
In many hospitals there is a "hierarchy of waiting": the further down the pecking order someone stands, the more time he or she spends waiting. But waiting is not always the same as waiting. Anyone who keeps others waiting thoughtlessly, or even in order to demonstrate their special importance or to demonstrate his "superior status", and in doing so uses one of the most efficient instruments for destroying productivity available on this planet. It provokes anger and, if repeated, the desire for revenge.
Download PDF →On the psychology of mergers: post-merger integration as applied social and crowd psychology
Even the basic decision in favour of a merger or acquisition is, as a "Judgement Under Uncertainty", of the greatest psychological interest – after all, it raises the question whether (and if so, by what rules) the decision-makers fall victim to their own biased perception. The real domain of psychology, however, begins after the signature, namely with post-merger integration.
Download PDF →Success factors for marketing and sales
Short report on the introduction of a system for systematically raising the quality of staff in sales and marketing at an international pharmaceutical company. The core idea of the system is to determine the success factors for every activity and to align the entire leadership system – from staff selection through day-to-day management and the appraisal system to people development – rigorously with them.
Download PDF →How to raise the quality of your sales force
Detailed description of the approach and method used when introducing a system for raising the quality of staff. The core idea, as in the article mentioned above, is to determine the success factors for every activity and to align the entire leadership system rigorously with them. With numerous tips and pointers on how to proceed in practice.
Download PDF →Appraisal interviews and target agreements
Not really a change management topic but rather a traditional leadership one. The article came about in the context of the programmes for raising the quality of staff described above and, given the confusion that reigns in this supposedly harmless field, is an attempt to bring a little order and system into it.
Download PDF →There is no document for this selection of topics.