When a new CEO takes the reins of a company, he or she normally has at least three major domains of concern:
- Business content and strategy: quickly identifying key areas of focus for the business, be they branding, new competitive positioning, debt management, operating efficiency, or comparable strategic issues
- Relationship and team: making sure he/she has the right team for the job; quickly establishing teamwork with the executive team, board of directors, employees, and customers, and establishing credibility with institutional investors and analysts
- Mobilization: producing measurable results in a short period of time, including articulating his/her vision and getting the organization to implement new strategies in “record time” – often requiring cultural changes
This case study illustrates how we helped one new CEO address elements of all three and:
- Helped steer a traditional manufacturing company into a new world of growth and intra-company collaboration, releasing over $650 million in annual revenues and over $275 million in improved annual profitability
- Introduced changes that drove new behaviors necessary to energize the entire organization
- Helped produce initiatives and results that are completely owned by the businesses, rather than being perceived as “the consultants’ program”
- Transferred the approaches and techniques used, enabling the company to add programs with similar impact every year
- Achieved everything with a consulting budget well below 1% of one year’s profit improvement from the initial programs