Imagine this scene:
Thirty to forty people in a room, relative strangers to each other despite the fact that they work for the same company, are told to take a pen and a bunch of Post-It! Notes and ask themselves one simple question, “What's the problem?”
One single question and, yet, this simple group exercise evokes unexpectedly powerful feelings. Often, within minutes, the room rocks with emotion and pent-up frustration. Pretty soon, an entire side of the room is covered with notes:
- “Our salespeople sell without regard to what we can deliver”;
- “Our ordering systems seem to be designed to make things as complicated as possible.”;
- “We never seem to get our billing right”;
- “Nobody communicates around here; nobody ever asks us what ought to happen”;
- “So many of the decisions made around here have no relation to how things really work”.
So many problems. So much passion. So much pain, so close to the surface, only minutes deep. Work-Outs are intense, and that intensity defines how we work…
So, what results can you expect working with us …?
The idea behind eWork-Out is really simple and straightforward: Bring people together. Give them a business challenge. Trust them to come up with new ideas for how to get better every day. Decide what to do quickly and learn as you go. Senior Leaders with whom we work, consistently tell us that these are the benefits they get from working with eWork-Out Business Processes Limited:
- Decision making in their organisation is faster and more effective than it has ever been…
- People more readily see the ‘big picture’, and take an active interest in the overall welfare of the organisation…
- Red tape and multiple sign-offs are consigned to the waste paper bin — speed, simplicity and self-confidence becomes the new mantra…
- The organisation is far more open to innovation and new ideas; a culture of open discussion permeates…
- ‘Turf-wars’ and ‘fiefdoms’ are a thing of the past; replaced by a spirit of efficient collaboration…
Our Principles
- People who do the work know the most about it and know what needs to be improved
- When you get the right people in the room talking about the right things, real issues emerge and real solutions for tackling them become evident
- The best problem solutions are generated when a problem can be understood from the points of view of everyone who touches it
- People work best and most creatively on problems about which they are passionate and which impact them directly
What's it like to work with eWork-Out …?
The first things to note about us is that we take Business Process Improvement (BPI) and Change Management very seriously. We're acutely aware that the majority of change programmes in the UK are not well thought out, are poorly executed and ultimately unsuccessful — for a number of reasons, including:
- Senior leaders failing to carry employees with them in their changes
- Staff insufficiently empowered, with little help of delivering
- Unrealistic objectives and budgets
- Lack of a committed change sponsor/champion
- “Change” seen as low priority
Indeed, our all too familiar experience of organisational change management and business process improvement in the past has been of groups of “subject matter experts” solving problems and making decisions in isolation; of meetings being held behind closed doors; of months of deliberation on the right course of action; unexplained decisions; of solutions being forced on people who now have to do the work differently; and decisions that are never implemented.
So, conscious as we are, that the success rate in many organisations for Change Management is low, and that much of it is due to responsibility for change programmes being devolved and shunted down to those who lack the influence or skills to push such important initiatives through an organisation, one thing we always insist on is that we must work closely with and report directly into senior management, in order to boost the importance attached to any change programme.
Furthermore, we never commence any work until we've ensured that there's internal buy-in for the business changes that are likely to result from the work we do together. After all, we believe strongly in our duty to get your organisation to own the work; our role is to create a process that allows your organisation to get things done. Our greatest challenge is to pass the “fingerprint test”: our fingerprints (actual work in the organisation) should be relatively absent from the content.
Our objective is to enhance the ability of of your organisation to make decisions, not to help you lose that ability. There's no danger of our services leading to “consultancy addiction” or “consultant dependency”.
As you'll see from our Services page, we work in phases: prepare, conduct, implement and follow-up. The usual MO is to meet with a senior manager for one hour a week, for three weeks, and interview other personnel, leading to one or more three-day workshop, at which attendance by a senior management panel at specific stages of the Workshop is required.
The purpose of the initial meeting is to “lay down the gauntlet”; to step back from the day-to-day running of the organisation and look, fundamentally, at how the organisation is working. We build in what we call “stretch goals”; typical examples have included:
- Reduce breakage in key products by 50 percent in four months;
- Accelerate the product-development cycle by bringing out the next new product in half the usual time;
- Reduce the number of customer claims by 30 percent in the next year — which means putting new processes in place within 100 days;
- Improve the accuracy of data entered into the system by 50 percent within three months
- Reduce overhead costs by £3 million in six months.
Throughout this initial discussion (which includes a good deal of brainstorming, as well as a more detailed PowerPoint presentation), we first make sure that all objectives are tied to the overall business strategy, turning that strategy into a specific issue that employees can accomplish. The goals are never focused on a “nice-to-do” activity, but address something that will truly make a difference in the business.
If you're starting to form the impression that working with eWork-Out Business Processes Ltd could be a disruptive experience, then yes, you could be right! But it's a hugely positive one, creating real dialogue and, unlike typical Management Consultancies, we aim to get ‘out of your hair’ as quickly as possible. To that end, our objective is to transfer a number of our skills and tools to your people, so that ‘in-house’ Change Management and BPI, along the lines of the eWork-Out methodology, for your organisation, becomes second nature in the future.
And what's unique about eWork-Out…
… is that methodology and structure. There's alot we can't touch on on this web site, for obvious reasons. But we're only too happy to discuss in more detail, face-to-face, exactly how the process of eWork-Out can help transform your organisation. Just fill out the contact form to set up an immediate appointment, or call us NOW on +44 (0)20-7870 9811.
So, you can expect…
- Enhanced productivity and profitability
- Improved skills for managing conflict
- New techniques for greater ease in managing your team
- To gain clarity about your organisation's goals and purpose
- To let go of unproductive ways of thinking about organisational change and to begin to focus on what works instead of what doesn't work.
- Your organisation to be motivated and fully engaged in delivering change
- New insights, many of which will surprise you
Human Resources Director
“I recommend eWork-Out internally for developing better processes within one's own organisation. I do a lot more investigation into the 'real' causes of issues now.”
Next go to the Case Studies page to learn about how we have helped some of our clients achieve their objectives.
Check out some of the related articles and interviews, including one which gives more insight into how we work
