4. A world leader in air express services
This company had grown in 30 years from a small courier company into a global brand with operations in 220 countries and territories across the globe. A need was identified by senior management to further harmonise transportation processes in all operating entities.
Senior Management mobilised for change by setting clear programme goals, allocating the necessary resources from the centre and approving a work breakdown that gave four relatively short phases to be completed in series.
The organisation was focussed on the issues:-
- with communications and workshops in all regions following endorsement from the annual top management conference
- and a representative steering group formed to provide change programme governance
High-potential operations managers were selected to drive the change in their entities and were trained in the technicalities. A technique of ‘self coaching’ was developed where the operation manager from entity ‘b’ would take part in implementation ‘a’ then lead the change in their own entity before becoming the coach in implementation ‘c’.
The result was a smooth roll out over two years of operational changes that were important to the continued competitiveness of this company.
The key learning point is that getting things moving, keeping them managed and developing people to make it happen is how change programmes are set up to succeed.