| Organisation | Ogilvy Germany |
|---|---|
| Sector | Advertising and creative services |
| Timeline | 2018–2019 (18 months) |
| Outcomes |
|
When I joined the organisation and started conversations with the leadership, the consensus view shared was clear. Something needed to change. Ogilvy Germany was a market of significant importance to the network and it needed to perform against its senior leader and client expectations.
Each leader had different views on exactly what the problem was, why it existed, and what needed to happen. They needed a shared view of the problem before any solution could be considered.
Before anything could be fixed, the extent of the issues had to be understood. I developed a diagnostic to identify in which areas of the business the problems existed and to what level of severity. The result was that it quantified the problem and, in doing so, created the baseline for every conversation that followed.
When evidence is objective and available, it makes disagreement much easier to manage. Through this listening and diagnostic process, the leadership acknowledged the scale of the problem.
The brief from the leadership team was simple with a clear intent: simplify the organisation through a consolidated view of its capabilities, remove the silos creating duplication, and build a more streamlined client proposition.
The results of the diagnostic were pointing to the same underlying issue: the retention and growth of institutional intelligence across the organisation. I mapped every existing client and delivery workflow and measured every failure point. I created a client and business health criteria and assessed each client team in order of severity.
The structural causes were consistent: overstretched resourcing, misaligned scoping and unclear delivery accountability. My findings went to senior leadership for agreement and sign-off on the scale and complexity of the problem. The solution had to be implemented while keeping business and client continuity intact, so every piece of work required iteration and a test-and-learn approach.
The three solutions I built were: re-structuring function leaders as a business leadership function; organising talent through centralised technology and standardised scoping processes; defining the work delivered through a measured criteria.
Three questions the model answers: who are our people and what are they working on? Is this person suited to the work? What work does our talent want to do? All answers underpinned by technology, data and a centralised, governed process.
The Workflow Triage addressed how work moved through the organisation. Every brief was entering the same process regardless of what it required. A nine-box validation matched each brief to one of three workflow speeds, removing the assumption that all work was equal. Structured work is more effective as it matches the scale and complexity to the skills and judgment of the people.
The Client Quartet restored accountability to the people closest to the work. A defined operating unit at the client level: client lead, creative lead, strategy lead, PMO lead, with one executive sponsor providing leadership and mentoring for each of the ten teams. This structure gave the ExCo clear accountability and visibility into problems before they happened.
Photo by Ian Schneider
One of the key first steps in leading through change is to understand your constraints fully. It can be easy to expedite this step on the understanding that it can be solved later down the line. My two major constraints were a workers’ council and language.
During my onboarding I was briefed on the importance of the workers’ council and its authority to veto any planned change. Rather than asking for feedback on decisions already made, I gave the council the full view of the strategy, the reasoning behind it, and the intended outcomes as soon as I had them.
The approach was transparent and based on two-way dialogue from the start. This wasn’t straightforward as I was not a native German speaker. So I had to take care and consideration on every piece of communication I delivered.
This process benefited me considerably. I learned to be more articulate, slow down my speaking, listen more intently and pick up on non-verbal cues.
Culture and the operating model can’t be separated or sequenced. A change not designed for the people it affects won’t be adopted. So every town hall, every workshop, every act of translation was a demonstration that the organisation being built was worth moving towards.
Two major accounts returned to commercial health within six months. Staff cost ratios improved by more than 10%. Billable utilisation increased between 5% and 15% across key accounts. Attrition stayed below 5% through a period that could easily have diminished the culture it was trying to strengthen.
The work was successful because culture was treated as a priority. In September 2019, the Germany model became the proof of concept for a global rollout. An organisation that had been succeeding in spite of itself became the operating standard for the markets that followed it.
To find out how I can help you identify and solve the problems that lead to your organisation’s identity loss, please contact me here.
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