Managing People and Behaviours

Oliver Wight Executive Summary: Managing People and Behaviours – getting the most from your organisation

To stay on top in today’s complex and competitive business environment it is more important than ever for organisations to keep improving performance and strive for business excellence. All too often when implementing business improvement programmes, however, organisations launch into tackling their processes and tools with enthusiasm and vigour, but overlook the importance of people and behaviours.

A new white paper from Lloyd Snowden, partner at Oliver Wight supply chain design and optimization specialists, entitled ‘Managing People and Behaviours’, has been designed to reveal some of the secrets behind sustainable performance improvement and equip business executives with the knowledge they need to embark on their journey to business excellence.

The essential first step is to recognise people as the key drivers in any change programme and that success depends on an organisation’s ability to cultivate the right environment for change. In a modern business environment, end-to-end integration of the organisation is essential. A company cannot strive for business excellence in the most efficient, cost-effective and profitable way, unless it processes, people and tools are integrated and aligned. Using a ‘maturity map’, the white paper sets out how organisations can move to a team-based culture, removing functional barriers and running end-to-end processes.

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) sits at the heart of many organisations as the management process of choice to run the business; it is a true people process, designed to empower individuals at all levels of the organisation. The challenge is to implement a change management programme in parallel with IBP, so behaviours are changed and the full advantages of integrated processes and teams can be realised. However, changing the behaviour of individuals is never easy and more often than not, presents the greatest barrier to change. Empowerment and education are the essential ingredients in training people to achieve best practice behaviours. The white paper not only outlines how this can be achieved, but also addresses the barriers businesses face in doing so. The answer lies in instilling a desire to learn – the lack of knowledge is not failing, but an opportunity to learn and progress.

Measurement provides a powerful tool in driving and maintaining the right behaviours. Implementing a balanced scorecard, drilled down through the different levels, enables everyone in the organisation to look at how the business is performing from a variety of perspectives and understand how they must work together to succeed.

Understanding these important stages in successful business improvement, will equip you with the insight you need to establish the right leadership style, behaviour and culture to ensure lasting change and get the very most from your organisation.

To read the white paper in full, visit the website to download your copy.