Your Input Is Highly Important to Me, Going Forward

July 2007

by Rob Jenkins, CEO

Dear Staff,

I hope you're almost as excited as I am about this being the first Monday following our realignment and refocussing (despite some rumours to the contrary, the organisation has not been 'restructured').

Before moving on , it saddens me that several loyal staff members will unfortunately not be continuing with us in the new era. Although I may not have met you all personally, I'll miss you a lot. I know you've all done a great job, doing whatever it is you did.

But let's not dwell on the negatives -- this is a time for a fresh start and new beginnings, going forward. My greatest thanks go to Hutch Management Solutions, who I and my team have been working with for the last eight months. After a lot of brainstorming, several focus group sessions with managers, and a lot of hard work that almost wore through some whiteboards, we've produced a comprehensive Output and Performance Hierarchy (attached below). This represents a detailed plan of how we're going to achieve our objectives over the next three years.

As you can see, at the Strategic level, we've decided to generate Cutting-Edge, Future-Oriented planning by Thinking Outside the Box. At the Tactical level, we will ensure Cost-Effective Decision Making, supported by Collaborative Integration of all processes. Finally, at the Operational level, or 'coal face', as I like to say, we will Add Value through cycles of Constant Quality Improvement.

Hutch Management Solutions has also worked with me to establish four Core Values of our organisation. These are Professionalism, Teamwork, Innovation and Leadership. These Core Values will be integrated through the levels, much like the thick arrow you see cutting across the boxes in the diagram.

Now, I recognise that there are a lot of people with in-depth knowledge and technical skills who are already doing some quite good work. However, my investigations have revealed that not all current activity is optimally aligned to the boxes and arrows in my flow chart. All current teams will therefore be split up and reorganised accordingly. Except the team headed by Alison, who has been blackmailing me. Her team will continue as before.

I want you all to know that I closely reviewed your feedback on my initial proposal, and I've taken it on board. Your input is highly important to me, going forward. For example, I received a lot of submissions suggesting that there were too many managers. So, I've decided to take that on board, and I've streamlined the management structure. Before, we had eighteen managers. In the new alignment, that will be reduced to fourteen managers and ten team leaders.

The remaining four managers will form a separate Management Unit that will be tasked with managing management inputs, thus ensuring optimal management efficiency and effectiveness. Each team will have be assigned a Liasion Manager from the Management Unit, to whom they will report on a quarterly basis, in addition to their regular manager.

In order to meet what I'm sure you'll agree is our very important objective of trimming the bottom line, we've also eliminated some minor functions, such as research and analysis. Our occasional need for these activities will be efficiently met by outsourcing them to Hutch Management Solutions

Several submissions also expressed a desire to work creatively with more autonomy, or, as one submission put it, "just get on with our jobs". I've taken that on board as well, and I've decided to create a special Autonomy and Creativity Unit to foster, reinforce, and share autonomy and creativity across the organisation.

The Unit will be headed by Rose, who some of you may know from her previous guise as my PA. Unit team members will be developing guidelines for autonomy and creativity, and visiting each of you over the coming months to discuss how these can be implemented in your work.

In addition , Hutch Management Solutions have kindly agreed to run a series of Autnomy and Creativity seminars. I'm sure managers will be encouraging their staff to attend these to help them optimise their performance and value-add.

May I remind you of our annual planning day, which will be held two Fridays from now, at the Seven Lakes golf club. Attendance of all staff is expected (and bring you singing shoes; we're gonna have some fun!).

Looking forward to working closely together with you, going forward

Rob