«The leadership team knows the direction in which the company has to develop. However, the implementation is at risk of failing due to resistance from the employees.»
Substantial drops in sales made it necessary for an enterprise to change its strategy from purely a manufacturer to a service provider. However, the strategy worked out with an international consulting company ran into hefty resistance shortly after the implementation began. Alarm bells sounded with management when the first employees left the company.
In an initial workshop organized and accompanied by azimut with the most important stakeholders, it turned out that no one doubted the meaningfulness of the new strategy. It was the implementation process itself that had led to the resistance. The expertise of highly qualified specialists was not sought. The changes in the culture that were needed to move from a manufacturer to a service provider were not addressed.
Thereupon, we initiated an enterprise-wide dialogue. Here, it was important to have as many requirements as necessary (the big picture of the strategy and expectations of the output) and as much creative freedom as possible (roles of managers and employees, interfaces, procedures).
In parallel, the leadership team and managers defined the desired and necessary mindset in active workshops to be able to successfully establish a market presence as a service provider. It was also possible to incorporate these requirements and bring them to life in the dialog with the employees. The thing that was originally the decision of a few became a matter for everybody in just a short time.
The underlying principle was to consistently follow the three steps: clarity, buy-in and alignment.