A Client Story of Change
One of our clients is a new CEO in an organization. He was hired by the Board of Directors (BoD) in order to the stop the exit of top talent from the organization. Over the last year the organization had lost more than half their top talent – some of their most creative and innovative individuals from throughout the organization. After spending time to understand what was happening, the BoD decided new leadership was needed. The CEO was the first new senior leader brought on by the board. However, the board felt more changes were going to have to happen at the executive level.
Enter Abudi Consulting Group, LLC (ACG). The CEO talked with the BoD about bringing ACG in to support their efforts. We have worked with the CEO for a number of years and we worked together well. Our primary initiative was to help the CEO get acclimated and to begin to make changes within the organization’s very core to stop top talent from moving to the competition. This required ACG to partner alongside the new CEO to understand the real challenges within the organization. Because, let’s face it, it wasn’t all the fault of the previous CEO. It was in the processes of the organization and in a culture that didn’t allow for innovation, taking risks and making mistakes. The organization is very hierarchical and unless you are a senior person, you aren’t making decision – you simply do what is in your job description using the processes put in place. Even when employees have had ideas on how to improve the organization and how to better get the work done, no changes have occurred. Creativity or any deviation from the processes outlined has been discouraged in the past. Employees who have tried to push forward with ideas have been told by their immediate management that all is going well and there is no need to make any changes. Senior leadership created this environment, supported by a past BoD (the BoD has turned over significantly within the last year.) A new BoD brought on by investors realized the organization had to change to move forward. No one expected changes to happen overnight. But changes needed to occur and it needed to start now.
In Part 2, we’ll share our plan to get started in moving forward with change.
