Developing Successful Organisations and Teams

Update - March 2005

Managers naturally wish to help their staff develop experience and skill, as well as wanting to motivate them to be more committed and enthusiastic. However, these stay as ‘wishes’ as busy managers are continually diverted by short-term issues. For everyone this is frustrating and inefficient: manager workload increases and even the smallest decisions are referred upwards. For the organisation it can be lethal in the long term. Changing this situation can be challenging, but immensely rewarding as the often-latent motivation in staff members is unlocked! We can help you do this! Check out our web site here.

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Are you on course for success? How we can help you get there

It would not be surprising if your plans for change and future success are based on systems, strategies, numbers and so on. You need these, but there are at least three other, completely different dimensions that are part of the makeup of your organisation, that are not always obvious. It could well be worth letting us talk through them with you. A high degree of health in all these areas contributes to your likelihood of success. Lack of focus on these areas has killed thousands of well meaning change initiatives - we can help you get a holistic view of your own situation, quickly and inexpensively.

One of the other dimensions mentioned above is skills / behaviours. We can help you change and improve. In particular we can:

Help you to develop leadership - enable you to grasp the business agenda and get all of your people engaged with it and committed to it. Help you to manage and develop the talent in your business - to maximise the contribution and retention of your excellent performers and develop your good performers into excellent ones. Enable teams and projects to work at maximum effectiveness - build business-wide collaboration, make sharp decisions, radically improve your meetings and project management

Check out advice, guidance and latest thinking on these three key issues on our web site! More>

We have a great deal of experience in the pharmaceutical/biotech sector. We can help you to:

• Help small firms to assess their business / IP opportunities
• Build scientific/commercial consensus to help product development and portfolio management
• Clearly establish roles/responsibilities of and links between project teams and line management
• Establish a formal project system in start-ups and discovery organisations
• Make trans-national teams work
  

Case Study - Taking the lead

We’ve done a lot of work with smaller Pharma/Biotech organisations during 2004. Recently a director of a pharma services organisation asked us to help develop one of his department heads to take over full responsibility for managing his area. The director had built the structure of his division in the previous year. He now needed to delegate fully to allow him time for cross-company strategic work.

The manager concerned was a highly competent, expert scientist, much respected by his department’s staff. However, he found it challenging both to deal with the high-drive, hands-on director’s approach as well as having to take a strong leadership stance with his first line team leaders.
We began with individual coaching sessions, firstly helping the director himself to adopt the best approach. Then in-depth with the manager to help him to think through his current style and set goals for change.

We spent a day with the manager and his team leaders. The manager explained how he wonted to change and develop his role, what it would mean for them and what support he wanted in future. The team leaders reacted very enthusiastically! The team then discussed in detail the priorities for change and development of the department.

A list of key areas was established that would make the most positive impact on the department’s business. Previously, the manager would have taken them all on, with only a vain hope of having time to make progress. Now, each of the team leaders picked up accountability for one of these – with cross-department authority, outcomes, timelines and staff to help, all defined.

A few months later, the manager had taken control of the department, feeling much more confident in his role, with an enthusiastic, more committed and motivated group of teams. And he started to push back much more and fight his corner when the director was tempted to get involved in small tactical issues!

Coaching and Developing talent

What would you do?

New for 2005! This is a screen shot of one of the questions in our new, provocative, highly engaging ‘360’ questionnaire focusing on Coaching and Developing talent. Managers using it can get an intelligent, expert report on their current skills, views from those who report to them, and advice on the key things they should do to improve. Coaching and developing talent in your organisation is crucial for future success, but very often we don’t manage to find time for it. When we do, we often do it poorly. This system can help to raise awareness and get things going!

More detail about it is set out on our web site - check it out here - or contact us to discuss using it in your workplace.

This newsletter's top tip: 'Make it go Wrong!'

This is an odd but powerful technique that helps a team identify potential problems quickly!

When you are planning something new, it's natural that you would wish to identify all the stumbling blocks and potential crises in advance. of course the real risk is that something will happen that you haven't thought of!

Try this; instead of asking the team to come with possible problems - get them to brainstorm ideas that will make the project fail. Encourage everyone to think across a wide range of possibilities - from generating minor irritations to coming up with things that will cause loss of life, sackings, project cancellation, massive loss, auditors enquiries, and so on!

This technique works well with a trusting team, where hierarchy isn't a big issue and people feel free to suggest crazy ideas! Remember that these are for internal team use only - don't publish them! The power isn't in these ideas themselves, but the spark of realisation it generates about real problems that haven't been thought of before.

And by the way - it only takes an hour max to do this - give it a try!

Meet our Team

	John Faulkes John manages TeamCommunications. He started his career in the pharmaceutical industry, including many years in HR / Development. He has worked extensively with management teams, developing leadership, driving organisation change and performance. Also helping to make complex project / line organisations work, and large, bureaucratic bodies to sharpen decision-making and build inter-disciplinary collaboration. He has worked with large and small pharmaceutical, fast consumer, engineering and public leisure sectors.
	Ralph White Ralph works frequently with John to help pharmaceutical clients. He is a qualified pharmacist with a doctorate in pharmacology. He has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for many years, as a scientist, project manager and learning and development specialist. Ralph is an expert in organisational approaches to pharmaceutical product development. Ralph’s Web site is: www.ppmld.com
	Louise Whitehead Louise is a business improvement and change specialist with a background in the food and leisure sector. She was appointed the first female HR director within Whitbread plc. As a consultant she has led major change programmes in consumer goods, automotive, pharmaceutical and large public sector organisations.