Business Development Group (BDG) was able to help us successfully change our entrenched organizational culture and to launch a new product on time and meet our quality and cost targets. This was achieved by transforming our organization, which was extremely autocratic and top down with very little worker participation. The organizational transformation was made more difficult because the previous leadership had launched another new product a few years before, and appeared to encourage workforce participation on the surface, but when all was said and done, they maintained their autocratic style of management. People in the plant were extremely skeptical of the any new approach and BDG assisted in building trust between the leadership of the plant and the workforce.
Using BDG’s Organizational Self Design Concept, we developed a new team from the bottom up and established a new organization unlike any we had before with policies, procedures and processes, which allowed worker participation. This resulted in a successful product launch. We built trust in the organization and overcame many “bumps in the road” as many people, both within the leadership as well as within the workforce, reverted to comfortable, but bad old behaviors used in the past. The process was not an easy one but was well worth the work. As I think of the process, we learned as we went, took many steps backwards as well as forwards and learned as we corrected mistakes we made. It was not a series of sequential steps as we tend to remember executing in the past but a process of heading in the right direction and correcting our course as we went. BDG helped us do this and we were quite successful.
BDG has a unique approach that is different than most consultants. To use a cliché, they look at the bigger picture and view the organization as a system. BDG insists on change at all levels of the organization and drive cultural change that, when continually nurtured, results in outstanding business results and high worker satisfaction. I would highly recommend them but only if you and your organization are willing to commit to adopting the changes that come from their process and that the organization is continually nurtured. Change must take place at all levels of the organization for lasting success. I guarantee outstanding results if you do this and work with BDG.
Mark Blair, Managing Director
Automotive Plastics Components Berlin and Former Auto Executive