Communications / Employees / Industrial Manufacturing

During a period of rapid organizational change, this company wanted to dramatically increase the flow of information and feedback between senior management and other employees.

Over 30 separate small-group brainstorming sessions were held during the same two-week period at facilities around the country. Attended by a randomly chosen cross-section of 20 to 25 employees, each session followed a standard script and was assisted by trained facilitators. The senior managers leading each session were deliberately assigned to groups outside their chain of command.

Senior managers received organized analysis and a vivid snapshot of employee attitudes and ideas in time for the managers' own group meeting two weeks later. Results of the sessions were reported in a special employee publication that also featured "reverse org charts" (customer at the top, manager at the bottom) explaining the company's new organization.

The special publication was among the best-read employee publications at the company in several years. Management received timely feedback on the effectiveness of the reorganization that allowed them to make important mid-course corrections in the reorganization process.