Case studies

1 Creating a customer-driven culture using project teams

Diagnostic Tools Organisational Culture Inventory and Life Styles Inventory

The Challenge
A large multi-national insurance organisation identified the need to move into the expanding retirement savings market. This decision was forced by the presence of a mature and declining share in bonds and premium sector and introduction of government charges and entry of new competitors. The challenge was to initiate and create the shift towards a more customer-focused and quality driven culture that rewards quality, innovation and continuous improvement in a motivating environment.

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2 Improving franchise performance through culture development

Diagnostic Tools Organisational Culture Inventory and Life Styles Inventory

The Challenge
To transform its retail division into a highly responsive and customer driven organisation and at the same time achieve stretch sales goals. Figure 1 shows a strong Conventional and Perfectionistic “bow tie”. This combination is quite common in retail organisations. Staff are expected to follow the rules and policies of the organisation perfectly. Such strong extensions create poor customer satisfaction because staff are expected to obsessively follow the rules of the organisation rather than achieve an outcome for the client.

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3 Creating a customer service culture in the public sector

Diagnostic Tool Organisational Culture Inventory

The Challenge
The organisation was in a state of flux due to a number of changes including CCT (Compulsory Tendering), and the challenge of moving from a public service approach to a more commercially orientated and customer service focus. Large scale redundancies were also causing stress and tension in the workforce and workplace.

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4 Developing a sales culture in retail banking

Diagnostic Tool Organisational Culture Inventory

Introduction
Few industries have experienced the rapidity of change as that imposed upon the Retail Banking Industry in the 1990’s. With economic conditions putting severe pressure on interest margins, banks have had to look for a totally different way of running their businesses. This at a time of increasing costs, and in a market where the consumer has become much more aware of the products, costs and values being provided.

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5 Developing organisational and leadership effectiveness in the pharmaceutical industry

Diagnostic Tool Organisational Culture Inventory

The Challenge
In response to an increasingly competitive marketplace, the company embarked on a programme of culture change. Over a 4-year period a range of initiatives, employee attitude and climate surveys were implemented. The Human Resources Director recognised the need to systematically measure and monitor the change in culture over time, in order to inform ongoing strategic decision making. There was also a need to correlate the key climate outcomes developed in earlier surveys with the company’s unique cultural “drivers” for success.

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6 Building high performance teams

Diagnostic Tool Life Styles Inventory

The Challenge
For most banks, the shift from managing branches - where the average branch (with the exception of the major metropolitans) is a fairly small team, to managing large ‘production’ units with an array of specialised and often repetitive jobs, was quite a challenge. Managers were appointed, teams were formed, the new structure became established and key performance indicators were put in place.

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7 Impact of management style on change management and staff development

Diagnostic Tool Life Styles Inventory

The Challenge
The public sector has experienced many reforms to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the services it provides. Significantly, competitive tendering has driven much of this change. Challenged by the need to match and compete with the private sector (driven primarily by the Hilmer reforms) many government agencies have had to make fundamental changes to the way they operate.

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8 The relationship between management practices and employee behaviours

Diagnostic tool Life Styles Inventory

Introduction
This case study emerges from a project involving the post acquisition merger/integration of customer service and sales operations in a large ‘retail’ type business. In particular, this data comes from the Call Centre environment within these two organisations, and is typical of experiences in most other parts of the two businesses.

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9 Leadership development in the finance sector

Diagnostic Tool Life Styles Inventory

The Challenge
The commercial property bust of the 1990s sent shock waves through many industries and, in particular, the finance industry. One of its victims is the focus of this case study. The following outlines the interventions taken by one of Australia’s oldest finance companies to “turn around” its worst financial result in its history. The measures taken by this organisation to pull itself back from the brink of financial disaster to being today in a solid financial position posting record profits are presented. This case study will particularly focus on the behavioural interventions taken to renew this organisation’s culture especially the use of the Life Styles Inventory in leadership development.

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10 Olympic gold - Achievement or Competitive?

Diagnostic Tool Life Styles Inventory

Australian Olympic gold medallist swimmer John Konrads believes the difference between a gold and bronze medal is all in the way you think. Rome Olympics 1960.

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11 Yarra Valley Water enters the Blue Zone

Diagnostic Tools Organisational Culture Inventory and Life Styles Inventory

Yarra Valley Water is a shining example of how companies can become more efficient, provide better customer service and enable staff to enjoy their work and achieve a better work-life balance.

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12 Leadership Development in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods Sector

Diagnostic Tools Life Styles Inventory

The subject of this case study is a highly respected United States-based multi-national company in the non-food segment of the FMCG industry. This company had been operating in Korea for 30 years, starting as a small representative sales office but transitioning into a medium-sized stand-alone subsidiary via organic growth and acquisition. Following the departure of the local general manager soon after the Asian economic crisis in 1997, a succession of unsuccessful expatriate general managers had left the company in somewhat of a crisis – poor business results, low employee morale and almost non-existent processes driving up employee turnover. Starting in 2005 the company used Human Synergistics’ LSI 1 & 2 to support the recently appointed general manager assess his leadership behaviors and their impact on his employees.

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13 How Organisations Work: Improving Customer Service by Changing Culture

Diagnostic Tools Organisational Culture Inventory and Customer Service Styles Survey

Similar to countries and the geographic regions within them, organizations and their units (e.g. departments, branches, offices) each have their own cultures—a combination of assumptions, values, norms, and customs that implicitly define the behaviours that are desirable and expected versus unacceptable and controversial within a particular environment. Regardless of whether members personally agree with these implicit “rules” of conduct, abiding by them can make it easier to survive—and to some extent succeed—in a given work environment. However, culture not only impacts the members within an organization or unit; it also affects the people outside of it—including the organization’s or unit’s customers and clients. Thus, by understanding and improving its culture, an organization or unit can improve its relations with both employees and customers.

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