Case Study

Corven is a global consulting company operating in different sectors: natural resources and energy, public sector, financial sector, utilities and infrastructure. Clients turn to Corven when they realize they are facing complex challenges that require practical approaches with the guarantee of tangible results. Corven offers advice on a diverse range of issues:

• Defining and executing strategy
• Business redesign and implementation
• Developing leadership capability
• Post-merger integration
• Performance improvement
• Identifying and commercialising new sources of growth
• Operational risk and safety management
• Procurement transformation sourcing execution and cost reduction
• Financial restructuring and advisory work.

Corvens publicity materials state that what makes the firm different from other consultancy companies is that their clients achieve sustainable results through building the capability to deliver change. Corven consultants immerse themselves in a clients business working alongside them in small, senior teams dedicated to helping them identify issues, design solutions and achieve their goals in a pragmatic way for example by linking strategy, people, operations and finance, aligning all levels of the organization from CEO to frontline and building effective teams at all levels.

One of Corvens clients was a geographically dispersed national government department which was experiencing a sustained period of change. The employees in the department were resistant to change as they were unaware of the rationale for change and what the implications of the change were. This was evident in very low staff satisfaction and staff surveys which indicated that the way change communications were handled was not effective.

In response to this problem, Corven was called upon to run a programme of workshops for 300 senior managers. The aims of the programme were to:

• Equip managers with improved specific communication skills
• Give managers the confidence to communicate more effectively with staff, customers and stakeholders
• Promote a flexible, effective management style which meets the needs of individuals, customers and the business.

The programme comprised a pre-workshop questionnaire and two half-day workshops, run approximately four weeks apart. The workshops were designed to be small group coaching sessions rather than training courses, with the focus on helping each participant prepare to tackle their own personal communication challenge, in the context of learning a variety of new skills. Each participant put their learning into practice between the two workshops by tackling a communication challenge in their workplace. During the workshops, participants learned how they could best influence their communication content, style and delivery to ensure maximum engagement of their audience. Business Unit Directors were involved from the start selecting and inviting participants, maintaining an interest in the participants development and ensuring the learning was shared with local teams. This approach played a key role in building participant engagement and in shifting the culture overall.

The Communicating in Change Programme helped managers to stop focusing on elements of change that were outside of their control and to rebuild staff trust in three key ways:

1. It equipped managers to empower their teams in taking more personal responsibility for receiving the information they need.
2. It gave managers the tools to push back further up the management chain for additional information where it was needed.
3. Not only did the participants receive coaching on their own workplace communication challenges, they created ongoing formal networks of support from across the organization.

The Communicating in Change Programme was initially targeted at 300 managers across one directorate. The organization is now requesting a further 1,500 individuals to experience the same programme.

Answer the following questions

1. Can you suggest any other ways of dealing with the problem of poor communication in this organization?

2. What were the advantages to employees of an external organization dealing with the challenge?

3. Would choosing an internal change agent have been effective?