Work-out

Work-Out in a nutshell

      At its core, Work-Out is a simple, straightforward methodology for cutting out bureaucracy and solving organizational challenges – fast 

      Large groups of employees and managers address issues that they identify or that senior management raise as concerns

      In small teams, the prevailing assumptions about “the way we’ve always done things” is challenged and the groups come up with creative recommendations for productive improvements in organizational processes

      The Work-Out teams present their suggestions to a senior manager who engages the entire group in a dialogue and then makes yes-or-no decisions on the spot.

      Recommendations for changing the organizations “way of doing things” is assigned to “owners” who have volunteered to follow through and get results 

When to use

Many problems and challenges are confronted by Work-Out, challenges which all organizations in the world deal with, regardless of its shape, size or mission. The questions that Work-Out answers, are:

ü      What’s the best way to deliver products and services to our customers? 

ü      How can we improve our margins and our efficiency? 

ü      How do we get everyone onto the same page?

ü      How do we stay ahead of the competition? 

ü      How do we attract, develop and retain the best talent? 

ü      How do we make the best use of technology?

ü      How do we move quickly to new opportunities?

Advantages

Work-Out will instill a deeply engrained process for addressing and solving problems quickly, simply and with the involvement of the people who will ultimately carry out the decision. 

Work-Out is a flexible way to catalyze results-driven change on a large scale.  Work-Out based initiatives are a uniquely powerful tool because they bring together:  

ü      vision for how a company chooses to compete

ü      process for change with an explicit strategy

ü      set of tools for high impact problem solving and strategy implementation

Work-Out will:  

ü      Reduce meetings, reports and approval levels 

ü      Cut process times in half with product development, order entry, employee communications and more

ü      Bring your people together with customers or suppliers to develop innovative ways of doing business together

Are you ready?

There is a self-assessment that can be taken to see if your organization is ready for Work-Out.  It assesses:  

• Business impetus – is there low, moderate or acute pressure for change?
• Information flow – is information flow already good/constrained/severely limited?
• Customer focus – is there high/moderate/low level of customer focus?
• Decision making – is decision making shared with clear accountability or too narrowly controlled/slow with unclear accountability
• Leadership – are executives ready for a fast-paced effort that crosses boundaries?
• Organizational bureaucracy – is bureaucracy under reasonable control/an issue/crushing the organization?
• Communication – is communication reasonably open/somewhat constrained/severely blocked
• Culture – is culture open to change/somewhat open to change/set in functional silos
• Innovation – innovation is evident through whole organization/exists in pockets/driven by senior management

Work-out format  

Work-Out can be done in many formats, including - The one-day Express Work-Out

The process:

ü      Engages participants for 2-3 days

ü      Requires planning and the problems that are tabled must be within the scope and authority of the participants and the decision maker

ü      Includes a session that must have a very clear focus, e.g. “Reducing internal bureaucracy and improving productivity”

When you get Gerrit Cloete to facilitate this process, you get the added value and benefit of someone who has experienced the inside of project management, product development as well as production and strategic planning over a 13 year period in a corporate environment.

• Assisted individuals on a personal and managerial level in creating worthwhile goals and develop positive mental attitude towards themselves and all areas of their lives.  He did this as a trained facilitator of Success Motivation International
• Facilitated public and in-house corporate workshops while being part of the South African company representing the Franklin Covey Company. These workshops include The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; The 4 Roles of Leadership, First Things First.  For this he went to the USA to become a certified facilitator, trained by senior members of Franklin Covey
• Experience in assisting individuals in discovering their unique patterns of high performance and productivity (in association with Dr Jerry L Fletcher from High Performance Dynamics, a USA based consultancy www.hpdynamics.com )
• Been trained and coached in the USA by The David Allen Company in high performance workflow management.  He is associated with David Allen, who has been named as one of the world’s leading thinkers on personal productivity
• Facilitated a RAMMPP workshop at Black Mountain , a mine of the Anglo Group.  As a consequence, the number of meetings held in the company was slashed by one third
• Facilitated  the well known “GE Work-Out” process for PPECB (Perishable Products Export Control Board), resulting in 5 implementation projects by which cost will be significantly reduced and greater consistency achieved in processes
• Developed the ability to exercise patience and achieve clarity rather than rushing in simply to get the job done  

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