Globalization
The Challenge
Globalization is an effective growth strategy and one that provides ways to realize financial optimization. However, with globalization comes complexity, conflicting cultures, conflicting operational practices and standards and the challenge of cross-organizational coordination. Conflicting purposes and priorities result in breakdown of major priorities. Ineffective information sharing and coordination between divisions and functional areas cause poor decision making and procedures to change that have an overall negative impact on service and delivery.
Often times organizations will spend countless hours on planning, role clarity and leadership development only to find that the kind of breakdowns associated with globalization are still a regular occurrence. Project breakdowns, duplication of effort and inconsistent standards are the result negatively impacting customer service and profitability.
IMPAQ’s Solution
No amount of planning, balanced scorecard processes or leadership development can impact this fundamental breakdown. It is critical to establish a Leadership Accountability System that is cross-functional and cross-organizational in order to gain a greater level of true alignment and have complete understanding of conflicting priorities, standards and processes.
Through regular cross-functional and cross-organizational leadership at Middle Management levels, breakdowns are surfaced and jointly resolved with shared ownership. Critical thinking and business thinking is developed for better problem solving and decision-making. A process is established for regularly tracking measurable results based on addressing the breakdowns associated with conflicting priorities, poor coordination or misaligned expectations.
The Result
- Greater organizational alignment at senior and middle management levels across the entire global organization
- Better coordination and communication between countries, business units and operating divisions
- More expedient and improved problem solving by all leadership levels working cross-functionally to resolve conflicting priorities and breakdowns in execution
- Improve employee morale and engagement to address existing process and workflow inefficiencies
- Improved development of business leaders through effective critical thinking and business thinking in addition to functional problem solving
