FACILITATED WORKSHOPS

I’m often asked to facilitate workshops for my clients, who call me in to navigate a group of people from the analysis of an issue through to the development an action plan to solve it. As an external facilitator, clients very much value the extensive experience I’ve gained working across a diverse range of industries, helping organisations solve their most intractable issues.

Case Study – Microsoft

Recently, Microsoft launched the company-wide ‘Customer and Partner Experience’ initiative, designed to improve the satisfaction and overall experience of Microsoft customers and partners.

I was asked to facilitate a series of workshops with groups of Microsoft executives around the World, working closely with the respective regional CEOs. The aim was to firstly identify some critical success factors and then to develop an action plan for employee engagement in that region going forward.

The challenges involved in this work were immense. In some regions, the key question on the executives’ minds tended to be, “How can we change our culture?” In other regions, it was more, “Why do we even need to change our culture?”

As a facilitator, it was essential to be sensitive to the needs of the workshop participants – what worked in one region of the World wouldn’t necessarily work in another.

But the workshops seemed to have been successful. Immediately after they were undertaken, results from annual Microsoft ‘Customer and Partner Satisfaction Surveys’ steadily improved.

Case Study – Stryker

Stryker is a leader in the worldwide orthopaedic market and is one of the world’s largest medical device companies.

I was asked to facilitate the UK executive team through a series of ‘Strategic Planning’ workshops. The aim was to articulate a unified five-year strategy for Stryker UK.

I found the greatest challenge to be managing a diverse group of ‘determined’ individuals, each with their own experiences, ideas and perspectives. However, the UK executives deemed the workshops a great success, culminating in a unified mission statement and the Stryker UK ‘Admired and Respected’ marketing campaign.

So, how was this achieved? The key was to encourage all participants to voice their thoughts, no matter how controversial... and yet still keep control of the group. This is certainly not an easy balance to achieve and requires experience in the skilful facilitation of high-level groups.

After the workshops, I had the opportunity to work extensively with Stryker Europe in their headquarters in Montreux (Switzerland), helping members of senior management group improve their communication skills.

Case Study – Dimension Data

Dimension Data (DD) is an IT services and solution provider and helps clients plan, build, support and manage their IT infrastructures.

A few years ago, it launched its ‘DD Way’ initiative, aimed at formalising a strategy to transform itself from being merely a ‘Cisco box reseller’ to a true IT solutions & services provider.

As one of a handful of chosen professional facilitators, I was asked to run a series of workshops Worldwide to help all DD employees gain buy-in and ownership of the DD Way.

This was a massive undertaking and would have been physically impossible to achieve with the small cadre of facilitators. We therefore decided to take a ‘cascade’ approach to the roll-out.

The first step was to work closely with the executive team in South Africa to help them clearly articulate the vision and values for the organisation.

The second step was to facilitate workshops with regional executives and senior managers in order to gain full regional leadership backing for the DD Way.

The third step was to deliver workshops for all remaining employees. In order to achieve this, I trained a number of selected senior managers Worldwide so that they could facilitate these workshops effectively themselves. In these workshops, participants were asked specifically how they could contribute to making the DD Way a reality.

This whole initiative was a massive undertaking for DD. Was it worth it? Well, tangible results from such an undertaking are often difficult to measure. However, it is generally acknowledged within DD that the DD Way was instrumental in helping DD achieve its objective of becoming a global IT services & solutions provider.

Case Study – EDS

Electronic Data Systems (EDS) is an IT and business process outsourcing provider focused on Healthcare, Financial Services, Manufacturing, and Government. Many of the contracts it pursues are high-value; worth tens of millions of dollars.

I was approached to help EDS improve its ‘hit rate’ for winning such high-value contracts. Working closely with senior EDS management, I developed a workshop aimed at identifying the strongest competitive sales strategy for any particular pursuit. I delivered a series of these workshops in 2006 and 2007, each tailored to a specific pursuit.

Subsequently, in certain sectors, EDS saw an increase in hit-rate from 50% to 90%. This has been accredited primarily to the effectiveness of these workshops.

 An EXAMPLE OF WORKHOP OUTPUTS