“If there is anything worse than bad news – it is finding out about it too late”

The management team model and the associated operating rules

Few companies have an optimized method of operation within their management teams. Whatever the existing level of the management committee group dynamics there is always, to a greater or lesser extent, resistance in driving the execution of the strategy. This resistance may be related to a lack of understanding of what the fundamentals of an effective team are or of what the necessary competencies for implementing these fundamentals are, or may quite simply be related to a lack of desire to optimize this method of operation. The causes of this resistance may be related to differences in professional experiences, cultures, personal ambitions or to various power issues.

We believe that to optimize this method of operation it is important to facilitate the management team’s operation on the basis of operational realities and the concrete problems encountered in executing the strategy. Facilitation enables us to not only act on individual behaviors by encouraging the ones anticipated by your company values but also to remove the various barriers hindering this method of operation.
We therefore work simultaneously on group dynamics and team building while supporting your management team as it resolves the practical problems proper to your organization.

The first phase in this stage is to clarify expectations within the management team as much in relation to results as in relation to individual and collective behaviors. We rely on both tools to formalize the management team model and rules of operation that relate to your company values. In order to initiate change in your managers’ behavior it is essential that your management team sets an example...

The strategic steering room and the associated system of management

Our role as facilitators leads us to “implement alongside you”, making sure that we are concretely meeting your expectations and that there is real ownership within your management team. To do this we formalize a strategic steering room, a place for reflection and decision-making, the dynamics and the rules of operation for which are among the ground rules. This room, based on the principle of visual management, enables the management team to come together to STEER the execution of the strategy.
This room is physically structured around the following boards:

• The results board (financial results plus measures of the satisfaction of the various stakeholders – shareholders, customers, staff, partners, other suppliers etc)
• The drivers board (the strategic objectives under strategic orientation headings, where the company needs to excel)
• The red board (all the strategic objectives where there are problems with an analysis of the causes)

Two of these key behaviors are the main factors in the success of a strategic steering room:
preparation and commitment

• Preparation of the strategic steering room or analysis of causes, by looking for the root causes of a particular problem
• Commitment by formalizing an action plan and the best estimate of results that the plan should produce in the form of an adjustment profile.