Copy Paste Success

We’d engaged with this client to take on a Portfolio of Change, through which they’d be able to stabilise performance, boost profitability and enable investor exit. However, there was a hidden opportunity which came to light when we asked what was keeping the Exec Team awake at night.

“Why is it that we have 50 branches, and it’s always the same ones which perform best, and the same which require all of the management effort and they still struggle?”

What a great problem to solve! We’ve had a few of these, and what we always look for is a set of exemplars. In other words, who has already solved the problem that we’re looking at for the first time? We used data to validate the assertion that it was always the same top performing branches, not because of a lack of trust but because we wanted to check whether there was an obvious explanation such as the same line management, a more lucrative location, etc.

Here’s what we did, which wasd a blend of Target Operating Model work and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which is a form of applied psychology for Change.

• Interviewed several members of the organisation at various levels, including leadership, management and Branch based teams as part of The Reality Check®.
• Reviewed & extended KPI list (profitability, attrition, CQC ratings, agency spend, etc.).
• Created scorecard using extended KPI list to rank branches in league table.
• Ruled out any obvious explanations such as management, demographics & tenure.
• Created working group of top performers to understand how they did what they did.
• Identified similarities in attitudes, motivations and styles between top performers.
• Zeroed in on the common elements between all of the top performing branches.
• Worked with the group, and Directors, to build out a Blueprint (Operating Model).
• Used Blueprint to improve performance, enhance recruitment, training & results.