FUSION: Unleashing the Power and Passion to Change

A couple of weeks ago (Getting Your Strategy Right: A Rebuttal, April 17), we outlined the Schnur Consulting Group's approach to executing a strategic plan in an effective, sustainable way. If you recall -- and we certainly hope you do -- SCG's five recommendations include:

1. Play to win it all. Aim for the stars; your people want to be part of a winner.

2. Engage your people. Challenge them to develop recommendations to improve speed, efficiency, service, decision-making, quality.

3. Let others execute. Significant and sustained performance improvement comes from within -- not from the top. (You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.)

4. Solicit input. Create an on-going dialogue with key stakeholders and never stop talking and listening.

5. Measure, measure, measure. Track statistically, because that which is measured has a chance of being achieved.

For most organizations, the SCG approach is a radical departure from the top-down, hierarchy-driven, inefficient and largely ineffective method used by most to execute a strategic plan. No surprise, then, that the vast majority of strategic plans fail to achieve the short- and longer-term gains they seek. And, of course, it's absolutely no wonder that most strategic plans end up gathering dust on someone's shelf. Too bad, too, because they likely hold such promise.

The key to our success in helping organizations implement strategic plans? A controlled, skillfully-facilitated, employee-driven process that unleashes ideas, passion and creative energy, a process that develops bold recommendations to achieve dramatic and sustainable bottom-line gains.

A process we call FUSION.

FUSION taps the knowledge, insight and expertise that exist within every organization. It is a contained, step-wise reaction requiring an exacting process and expert facilitation. A quantum leap from typical OD processes, FUSION demands unparalleled objectivity, authenticity and integrity only highly skilled facilitators can bring.

Here's how FUSION works at a high level:

• A specific challenge -- grow revenue by 20% in the next two years, say -- is put forward to the entire company by executive management.
• Individuals from throughout the organization -- from mid-managers to front-line employees -- have an opportunity to apply to become part of a special team to achieve that challenge. Required traits: Passion for the business, a creative/innovative bent, a bias for action, and expertise of the subject.
  
• A cross-function team is selected by company leadership with SCG guidance.
• The FUSION team is given its charge and an aggressive timeline by executive management and begins its work with SCG's facilitators.
• Within the allotted time -- typically 2-3 months -- the FUSION team develops a set of recommendations and a business plan to achieve the challenge established by executive management.
  
• The FUSION team presents its recommendations and business plan, complete with performance metrics, to executive management, who provide feedback to the team within a week.
• The FUSION team refines its plan, as necessary, gains final approval and begins execution of the plan.

And the challenges our clients' FUSION teams have tackled -- and achieved? Amazing ones:

• Growing revenue to $1.0 billion within 2 years (20% growth) while reducing costs by $2.5 million
• Reducing time to market by 25%
• Improving customer service ratings by 20%
• Eliminating two weeks from the year-end books closing process
• Reducing voluntary turnover among top performers and high potentials by 25%
• Increasing market share by 15% in 2 years
• Decreasing the time required to fill job vacancies successfully by 50%
• Decreasing the learning curve among new hires by 50%
• Reducing 'administrivia' by 25%
• Becoming a Fortune Top 100 Places to Work company within 2 years

As some might say, not too shabby.

But, there's more. FUSION not only has the power to improve performance substantially, it also has the power -- by design -- to change an organization's culture, its very fabric, in profound and sustainable ways. For FUSION creates a climate where on-going performance enhancement is expected, participative, and transparent. A continual search for new ideas and new ways to do things to help the organization win becomes what we do here, how we operate.

Why?, you ask. Because FUSION:

• Creates an ideal climate for idea generation and big-time problem-solving
  
• Encourages, motivates and teaches truly talented individuals to produce breakthrough ideas -- regardless of corporate culture, politics, and/or history -- in a short period of time
  
• Enables creativity -- and involves, in a highly meaningful way, those who most want to create a winning organization
• Teaches participants to master a new, innovative approach to addressing business issues successfully, and
• Seeks bold and aggressive solutions -- not perfect solutions (which tend to be elusive, time-consuming, nearly impossible to develop, and in many organizations, an excuse not to act).

Ask a FUSION participant about the experience and you're bound to hear that it was the most exciting, challenging, meaningful thing they've ever done at work. Helping your organization perform better has that effect.

But while FUSION has enormous power, it's not for everyone. It's only for those who want to improve dramatically by involving their people in the solution. The hierarchical, traditional also-rans need not apply.

Does your organization need to improve? Have a strategic plan that's going nowhere? Think your people might have the answers? Believe you can benefit from the excitement of unleashing the creativity and passion of your people?

Good. Get in touch.