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CONSULTING CASE STUDY: RESOLVING A CONFLICT Recently, a consulting colleague introduced me to his client, formerly a privately owned company that had been acquired by an international corporation, which left the previous owner in charge to operate his “baby” as a subsidiary. After a few years the parent decided to bring in a new president and CEO, and moved the previous owner up to Chair without any operating responsibility. The new president immediately had difficulties with establishing her authority, as the previous owner continually undercut her decisions. He was happy to have her run the show so long as she didn’t change anything. As a result the culture would not change, old guard loyalties were still aligned with the previous owner, and profits were in a death spiral. I was asked to help set a transition strategy. I wonder if the previous owner accepted me because he thought I would support his way doing things. Frankly, until I got started, I didn’t have a clue what was going on or who was right. My first task was to understand what the goals of the parent corporation were for this subsidiary, and what their expectations were for the new CEO. Next I interviewed the previous owner, the new CEO and about ten senior and middle managers to find out three things: (1) what goals they had for the company, (2) what goals they each had for themselves [including their personal life goals], and (3) what they each feared about the changes taking place in the company. To get the answers for (1) and (2) I used a process called “Purpose Expansion.” This guides the discussion in a collaborative way to identify the larger purposes that must be achieved. Larger purposes tend to resolve conflicts. By understanding the personal goals of individual managers, I was also able to determine where there were critical disconnects either in understanding or intent. We then developed specific individual corrective initiatives to bring each person into alignment with the company goals. In one case where it became obvious that the manager was faking alignment, yet working against the CEO, he was asked to leave. But the other managers gradually fell into line behind the new CEO. I say “gradually” because though people don’t mind change, they don’t want to be changed. The answers to (3) helped to identify what losses people in the company felt they were going to suffer. I took their fears of loss seriously and began to build a program to replace what they thought (or actually were) going to lose with something equal or better. That required training, a better performance measurement system, and individual mentoring. The end result was that within six months the CEO had gained the confidence and loyalty of the management team and staff, and was able to change the culture and lead the company out of it’s death spiral. Unfortunately, the economy hit their industry very hard soon after this assignment. Fortunately the transition was completed before this hit or the company would not have been able to survive the downturn.
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