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Small Business Transforms its Culture: Secure-Comm
Client Organization:
Secure-Comm was established in 1975, as an electronic security
and burglar alarm company. The small family-owned company has grown
to employ a full-time professional staff in telecommunications;
security and microprocessor based low voltage systems. The company
services over thirty-five hundred commercial, governmental, and
residential customers providing and supporting turnkey electronic
systems for many Fortune 500 companies throughout Northeastern Ohio.
Unique Challenge:
The company’s structure and culture was characterized as
a functional/hierarchical organization with an authoritarian culture
mired by numerous polices and procedures that left little room for
employee involvement and participation. Growth of the organization
had stagnated, employee morale was low, and the working relationship
between the sales department and operations department was strained
and cacophonous. Secure-Comm was also experiencing an increase in
employee turnover in which good, knowledgeable individuals were
leaving the company for other opportunities and taking their much-needed
security and telecommunications intellectual capital with them.
The new President, the younger of the two brothers who ran the company,
realized that action needed to be taken to “right the ship”
and to drive the company to higher levels of performance.
Client Objectives:
- Envision the company’s potential for positive influence
and impact.
- Involve the entire organization in defining the core values,
mission, and vision that would drive the organization.
- Empower the company’s employees to design the company’s
systems, strategies, processes, and structures to support the
new culture/organization.
- Develop projects and action plans for implementation.
- Determine how to keep the momentum moving.
- Build, bond and strengthen the Secure-Comm team.
What Was Done:
In 2001, an AI Summit was conducted as part of Secure-Comm’s
transformation initiative. It was the catalyst for positive change
within the company. Prior to the summit the organization conducted
a company wide culture assessment that identified the positive values
that the organization was striving to embody- - accountability,
teamwork, customer satisfaction, commitment, and integrity. These
five values became the topic of inquiry for our AI Summit. The AI
Summit was scheduled for two days and attended by everyone in the
company. The first day of the summit included the Discovery and
Dream phases of the AI 4-D model and Design and Destiny phases were
on day two. Everyone worked extremely hard over the two days by
engaging in energizing storytelling and enthusiastically tapping
into their creative sides with various exercises such as collage
building and role-playing. The final session culminated with intense
action planning and personal pledges and commitments by everyone
in the organization to their team members. It was obvious by many
of the comments made as the summit concluded that this collaborative,
appreciative process had moved many individuals in a very profound
way.
Outcomes:
Since conducting the AI Summit Secure-Comm has made some considerable
strides. While the following is not an exhaustive list of the company’s
accomplishments, some of the highlights include:
- The AI summit process generated 25 short-term and long-term
initiatives to build and reinforce the new culture. Those initiatives
were prioritized and many have been started and implemented
- Functional silos have been eradicated and teamwork has increased
dramatically.
- The use of soft skills (e.g., giving & receiving feedback)
has significantly increased.
- Interpersonal relationships are stronger.
- The organization is moving to a team-based environment characterized
by empowerment and shared leadership.
- Appreciative inquiry has gained significant traction as an organizational
mindset. Inquiries are being used to address everything from performance
feedback to organization design.
- Financially, fiscal year 2002 was one of the company’s
best years to date.
For Further Information
Contact: C. Keith
Cox
keith.cox@tirawaconsulting.com
Phone +1 330.723.2222
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