Discussion:
The Case Study:
The Green Organization is a conglomerate of many smaller business units. The organization has offices globally. Some offices are Contracted Independent agents representing the interests of the business unit. The Green Organization was founded over 50 years ago and has combined gross revenues of around $1 Billion. The leadership in the corporate office has been solid for the past 20 years. The CEO emeritus and Founder Jonathan A. Green has stepped down from his position to take a less active role in the daily operations and semi-retire. He has planned his successor, his son Jordan A. Green and mentored him for the past 5 years to take over the role as head of the organization. The
Green family is the owners of the organization. The CEO Emeritus owns 75% of the company. Other family members and creditors have partial shares making up the remaining 25%.
Jordan has taken the current role of CEO and Executive Board Member in the last year. He previously has served in executive roles in the different business units which include: Finance, Investment, Real Estate Holdings Group, Mergers and Acquisitions, Consulting, Training and
Development, and the Corporate office. His latest position was Co-CEO with his father for the six months prior to his father's departure. He is a firm believer in productive, effective, and innovative training that improves overall performance.
He is looking to bring on multiple consultants to improve the productivity of the different business units and the organization as a whole. He has an idea of what he wants. There are many different types of Consultants available. He is looking for an explanation of the different types of consultants.
Address:
1. Using Hale (2007) Introduction, along with Pershing (2006) explain the role of a Management Consultant, Business Consultant, Training Consultant and Performance Consultant. How can each assist the organization and scope of practice?
2. How might these consultants be best used in The Green Organization?
3. View these two video clips at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnt2Yl-momAand https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdbReKzaYVY
o comment on the critical difference between training and performance consulting.
o Why is the Collaborative form of consulting most preferred (and successful)?
o Share your insights with your classmates.
The Progressive Case Study 2
The Green Organization serves all socioeconomic groups across the globe. The Real Estate Holdings group leases and sells luxury apartments in Manhattan. They also own and manage a portfolio of homes they lease to the disadvantaged, or severely infirm. The teams employed in this group range from high end real estate sales to the socially conscious leasing agent, a broad spectrum.
The Mergers and Acquisitions group buys and sells companies across the globe. The group not only does this for the Green Organization, they also broker business sales, mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships for clients. Brokers work with current and prospective clients to determine what the right business is, how to structure the deal, fix and flips, and business development. Personnel are diverse in professional sales and business skills. The average employee in this group has a minimum BA and 10 years in this industry. Turnover is very low. All personnel are well compensated.
The Finance Group provides funding and investing sources for the other groups as well as external clients. Clients can include automobile dealerships, lines of credit at retail stores, personal loans, and micro loans. The group manages a portfolio of around $10 Billion. The company owns 50% of the portfolio. The remaining 50% is client funds. The personnel range from Aggressive hard driving Sales People working with large organization to fund development or sell loan portfolios to the small business lender and individual lender to make micro-loans (amounts under 10K) to start a business.
Consider this:
1. View the clip on about Caterpillar- Running Learning Like a Business (2:37)comment on Dave Vance's (former President of Caterpillar University) view of performance consulting. What parts of his discussion point out the strategic influence a performance consultant needs to possess within an organization? Share your insights with your classmates.
2. Based on your reading in Hale and Pershing this week, Describe your target audience. Who would you work best with and why? Please explain your answer.
3. Describe what demographic audience would you not work well with and why. Please explain your answer.
The Progressive Case Study 3
The Green Organization has contracted with you to develop a training program for improving performance and effectiveness in their regional offices globally in the Real Estate Group. The Group accounts for over 10% of gross revenues to the organization or around $500 Million. The organization is requesting a plan for how you will assess, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate progress in key performance objectives as to sales and customer service. The organization is expecting a minimum 15% increase in profitability as a result of increased performance. They leave the process and training approach up to you. You must train the offices and all necessary staff.
Consider this:
• Prepare a training summary to be presented to the executive leadership of the Real Estate Group in a closed door meeting.
• Identify key performance objectives.
• Identify a plan that addresses assessment, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
• Identify the cultural challenges of the offices in the US, China, Japan, London and Germany (choose 3)
Identify potential threats or challenges to the plan.
The Progressive Case Study 4
The Green Organization is a multinational corporation with offices around the globe. The organization has over 500 full time employees and over 1500 contracted positions across its footprint. The diversity of the individuals and teams working for the organization is multicultural. One of the key components of the organization is to operate in accordance to the laws and traditions of the host country.
The Green Organization brings employees and its contractors to different regional training centers for cross cultural training. The organization also provides training on the different workplace cultures. As many individual and cultural characteristics are learned or based on environmental influence, the organization has an open dialog as to how they can best serve a particular region, territory, or client. Flexibility and adaption are very important to the success of the trainings and the organization as a whole.
Part of your assignment as a contractor is to present to the executive leadership the importance of regional cultures as well as workplace culture in training and in the workplace. Provide practical examples of how to best adapt and accommodate to the needs of a region for an organizational leader being transferred to a new region unfamiliar to them.
Consider this:
• A training plan for assimilating to a new organizational culture and regional culture.
• How can this plan be best enacted to expedite synthesis and raise overall performance and effectiveness in the organization as well as in the region?
• What tools might best prepare the new leader? Remember a tool is only as good as the artist.
• How can the importance of this training be best communicated to the learner?
The Progressive Case Study 5
The Green Organization Executive Team has met with you and their Leadership Teams for each group. The key objectives for increasing the performance are decided upon. The challenges now are training the groups, teams within the group to have a clear and concise understanding.
Overestimating the potential of a project or end result can lead to disaster. The video clip that is part of this week addresses root cause analysis. We are quick to judge or blame when the results are less than desired. How will you design, develop, implement, and evaluate the training program you have presented?
The different groups are dealing with different cultures, various levels of education and experience, and differing motivation levels to succeed. Sharing and instilling the organization's mission, purpose, and strategy are integral to this training. Sharing the organizational goal is important to be communicated at the corporate level as well as in each independent group. Each group must develop and implement their own organizational, team and individual goals that are in line with the organizational goals.
Consider this:
• What methods of training will you use?
• Will you facilitate a learning environment/organization?
• How will you determine the necessary training for each group, team, and individual?
• What are the cultural factors?
• What immediate, short term, and long term plans do you have for the ongoing training?
• What is your implementation plan?
• How will you monitor, assess, analyze, and evaluate progress?
The Progressive Case Study 6
The training is done. The organization has been officially trained as to how performance improvement will be implemented. All groups within the entire organization are keyed into the Vision, Purpose, Mission, and Goals of The Green Organization. All groups, all teams, and all employees are working in a singular focus to executing the chosen strategy that will carry their group and the organization forward as a competitive leader in their chosen industry.
Training and consulting is more than holding several one day seminars and executing the commands sent down from on high. The executive leadership understands the value of the initial training. The initial training is meaningless without feedback and follow up. As you have seriously invested over the last 6 months implementing this training and building relationships. You are keenly aware of the idiosyncrasies of individuals, offices, groups, and cultures within the workplace settings. The results are just starting to come in. They are quite favorable. As an overview the different groups report an 8.25% increase in revenue and sales, while reporting an average 9% decrease in overhead.
The executive leadership is looking to take performance over the top. They have turned to you to give this movement inertia to move better, faster, stronger, while staying focused on the goal and implementing the vision, strategy, and plans set forth over the past 6 months. You must now design, develop, and present a follow up plan to strengthen and continue the performance improvement across the organization.
Consider this:
• Choose one group and two different offices (use your imagination). The two offices will have different needs and approaches.
• Design, develop, and present the second phase performance improvement plan using performance tools.
• Explain how these two offices will require different monitoring, management and implementation tools.
• Explain how assessment and evaluation of performance improvement will occur and be addressed in these two offices.
The Progressive Case Study 7
The Green Organization Executive Leadership has requested you provide a summary of your consulting work over the term of what has been 12 months of consulting. It is time to evaluate the effectiveness, impact, and results of their investment in performance improvement and performance consulting. You must prepare a presentation that summarizes the processes used to achieve the reported results. Explain what tools have been used and their effectiveness. Provide feedback and recommendations for continued performance consulting if advisable.
The executive leadership will be determining their decision as to whether to continue or pursue other opportunities for the next 12 months.
Consider this:
• Present an executive summary to be given to each member of the EL of what has been accomplished, and what assessment and evaluations tools were used to determine these results.
• Develop and present a PowerPoint slide show that provides a visual understanding of what has been completed over the life of the consulting agreement.
• Support your points with credible academic/professional resources
The Progressive Case Study 8
The Green Organization has been very impressed with your work as a Performance Consultant. The CEO emeritus and current CEO both tell you they really appreciate your work this past year and the care you provided to their "family" business. They have made several warm referrals to their corporate friends that if worked well will expand your consulting firm exponentially. Excellent work.
It is time to complete your own evaluation of your firm's performance. Part of being an excellent consultant is being able to identify what is working and what is not. Identify the areas that worked and those that will benefit from improvement. Address what will be done to make the necessary and desired changes to improve your firm's performance.
Consider this:
• Submit the final Summary and Presentation after receiving the feedback.
• Complete a 1 page summary of your consulting firm's performance describing how you are assessing and evaluating. Please include the SWOT analysis of your organization.
• Develop a 1 page plan as to performance improvement of the consulting form moving forward over the next 3, 6, and 12 months.