Colgate-Palmolive, Boksburg, South Africa
 Colgate-Palmolive, Europe
 Kingsford Charcoal, Oakland, CA
 Deer Park Spring Water, New Jersey
 Hidden Valley Ranch, Evanston, IL
 Dupont Canada, 6 plants
 Protein Technologies, Pacific Operations, Hong Kong

Case Study: Colgate-Palmolive

Boksburg, South Africa

The process: Executives and operating people were educated about how the quality of their thinking, individually and collectively, effected their actions. They discovered the fact that allowing for or, conversely, excluding things from their thinking and consciousness also directly impacted their actions. It became clear that this matter of inclusion and exclusion dramatically limited or enhanced creativity and precision in thinking about a business. They sat together in two-day workshops, working on the business, but not using the brainstorming and techniques they had routinely employed. They worked on developing different intelligences and learned to bring those to bear. They discovered how to see the essence of a market and how to align an organization to pursue its unique core. They learned more systemic mental frameworks for thinking to develop these and other arenas.

Individually, and collectively, they learned to see and observe themselves and how their own behavior and mental energy affected the quality of their thinking and their internal and external interactions among themselves and with customers. They learned to be much more rigorous in challenging ideas and to use the market as the common denominator for reconciling differences rather than compromising among the different opinions on the table.

And then they took all that into the townships and used it to teach and execute self-governance. The intelligences were applied to finding the essence of a situation and distilling what was right and good for the largest number of people - the nation and it’s resources - for the long term. They faced the question of subservience in work force placement and apartheid. They worked on how to change this in the new era. And they brought their new found understanding back into the business and developed black leadership that cared about the whole of the population, their ability to work and prosper, and the ability of the company to succeed and provide more jobs to the newly emerging literate black workforce. There was no dividing line between the people, the townships and the company. They were all designed to succeed.

• Many companies suffered 2 month strikes. Although workers at Colgate were heavily unionized, they did not strike even one day.
• As a result, the market share of Palmolive soap went up from 25 to 50% and Colgate went from a remote second to market leader.
• Sales grew exponentially over 400% in the year immediately preceding the elections and continued at a 200% year over year for the next three years.
• New markets were opened that better matched the buying power and needs of the population in townships and distribution models that got down to a "residential block level" were invented by the machine operators who lived in the townships. They matched the system to the environment or context.
• In spite of the difficulty and danger of travel for the operating teams there was almost no tardiness or turnover, which had been epidemic the year before (not only in Colgate but in all workplaces.) No one wanted to miss a day of education and creation.

Carol Sanford was the consultant to Colgate’s Southern Eastern Africa change process working with executives and operators.

Case Study: Colgate-Palmolive, Boksburg

Boksburg, Europe

Situation: Nine businesses scattered throughout the continent and in the United Kingdom were facing European economic integration and related political, market and economic dissonance.

Senior management were called upon to generate a new strategy and operating practices for the collection of companies and to execute an effective and efficient integration of that strategy and related processes throughout a network. The objective was to energize business units to higher levels of performance in order to minimize the effects of an impending recession.

Nature of Engagement: InterOctave was engaged to support the development of a new strategic operational ability and to generate leadership development capabilities that would provide the impetus for operationalizing the strategy through the redesign of business processes and practices. All of this was accomplished by working with cross-functional groups representing each of the business units from around Europe. Teams worked, in most cases, with InterOctave through professional interpreters engaging up to six languages in order to effectively cultivate the cross-system, personal capability building that was required to execute the strategy. Issues of multiple languages, currencies and cultures were all integrated into a comprehensive strategic initiative for operational, system-wide effectiveness. Additionally, a Regenerative Development Strategy ensured that the capabilities that were developed would be transferred throughout the organizations over time. This approach promoted the ongoing re-conceptualization of the role of the various businesses in service to their specific markets.

• The nine business groups evolved toward a higher capacity to work strategically within dynamic and complex economic and political climates.
• Those business that had been moving toward a Developmental Organization design for as little as 18 months (including: body care, household products, oral care/dental cream and fabric care) enjoyed expanded markets, increased margins and cash flow and improved market share (up to 50% in some cases).
• All of this while competitors lost ground and struggled with a severe recession.
• Operating costs for the various business units were reduced on average by 20% per year during InterOctave's engagement, with a system wide productivity improvement of 45%.
• Organic evolvement toward managing environmental and social accountability led to packing changes and distribution approaches.

Case Study: Kingsford Charcoal

Oakland, CA

Situation: Kingsford operated 13 plants and used two contractors to produce its charcoal but was still unable to meet production requirements. Safety levels were the worst in the portfolio of businesses owned by Clorox and product quality was seriously lacking.

Nature of Intervention: InterOctave worked with the Executive team and leadership team to increase their ability to create comprehensive business strategies, while simultaneously producing a strategy for immediate change. This year-long engagement enabled Kingsford’s leaders to: employ critical thinking skills, understand market dynamics, become direction setters with regard to innovation and distribution and to use strategic thinking as a continuous, living process in their day to day efforts.

InteOctave then worked with cross-functional teams to build a systems understanding of the “value adding process” (from supplier through customer) that was involved with the effective creation of a quality charcoal product. This perspective helped every member of the business to hold accountability, just as managers did, for the potential of the business and their role in it and for the stakeholders to the business, including the natural world and communities where they did business.

Results: Using their new skills and systems perspective, employees worked in teams that tied them directly to customers (and other stakeholders) and were able to generate and immediately implement improvements.

• Improvements were made as a part of daily of work and the related efficiencies were 10x every two months.
• Within three years Kingsford increased profitability by over 200% and became Clorox’s second most profitable subsidiary. With only one-sixth of the employees of the whole company, they produced one third of the profits, reversing the exact opposite ratio of two years earlier.
• Kingsford was able to produce tonnage that met the increased sales demands generated by the new strategy, but did so using only 5 plants. All plant closing resulted in letters of acclamation to the company since no one lost a job until they found one at the same level or better. They were supported in this transition with education and skill building.
• Kingsford set the new Safety Plan standard for Clorox and moved well below industry averages for job related injuries. They also continuously discovered means of reducing pollution from products in manufacturing and use as an integrated part of improving the business.
• Employees had developed new capabilities useful in any employment situation; the confidence to manage themselves in changing situations, the capacity to think critically about business issues and the ability to foster innovation as part of day-to-day work activity.
• Quality improved ten-fold and Kingsford was delivering a stream of new and competitively unique products three times faster and with twice the rate of success all increasingly environmental sound.
• Kingsford won awards for product design, and in Kentucky, for extraordinary community services in lifting the level of literacy in families of their employees and then the greater community.

Case Study: Deer Park Spring Water

New Jersey

Situation: Deer Park Spring Water doubled in size in eighteen months as a result of an aggressive acquisition strategy. The new network of facilities and the related management teams were not on the same page in their business strategies, leadership philosophies and practices. Senior management’s “Bench Strength” was lacking and the business system as a whole was hemorrhaging cash and talent. The business was rumored to be sold off by its holding company, presumably at a substantial loss.

Nature of Engagement: Working with senior management, we created a comprehensive strategic direction targeted at moving the company to profitability within six months.

InterOctave used a series of tiered workshops designed to challenge management to re-conceptualize the strategy, develop leadership capabilities and upgrade operational effectiveness.

Cross-functional leadership teams understood how the actions they took daily effected earnings, margins and cash flows and how to develop their people toward self-managing and self-motivating capabilities.

Functional and operational groups learned to ensure that all of their business process work was in alignment in the new strategy which included extensive evaluation and re-design of the IT infrastructure.

Results:

• Development of a distinctive, compelling, executable strategy that aligned all efforts toward profitability and value creation in the market and communities.
• Development of a “value adding process” (from supplier to customer) view that integrated 48 locations into an effective, highly profitable network. ·
• Final product cost reduction of an average of 20%, with simultaneous improved client relationships.
• 250% improvement in profitability in two years, with the company “in the black” in the first four months.
• Capability to lead change provided large numbers of promoteable managers for the next 3 years that were greatly sought after by the rest of the company and other companies as well.
• Consciousness of systems impact led to bottle reformulation and changes in research and delivery model.

Case Study: Hidden Valley Ranch

Evanston, IL

Situation: After it was acquired by Clorox, this division experienced flat sales and failed to develop any new products for six years. With no prior experience in the industry, Clorox’s management had tried on several occasions to take the bottled product to market nationally, but had experienced short falls in both strategy and implementation.

Nature of Intervention: InterOctave was invited to help the division executives create an executable strategy that would carry the brand to national prominence and set the stage for the release of related product offerings in the near term.

A complete revision of the R&D process was the initial step leading to a test market of the new products which was so successful, they achieved first and second brand status in every category.

Results: Bottled Hidden Valley Ranch, a product that Clorox had tried unsuccessfully to launch for six years, was in the market within one year of our intervention. This was followed by four more new products that moved through the re-designed R&D process and into market within six months. Hidden Valley won awards for packaging and their products continue to enjoy sustained market position.

Case Study: Dupont Canada

6 Plants

Situation: In the face of a stubbornly lingering recession, Dupont, along with many other companies worldwide, was struggling to find the combination of restructuring and right-sizing that could lift them out of the economic doldrums.

Nature of Intervention: InterOctave colleagues worked with Dupont Senior Management and cross-functional teams to launch a comprehensive, whole system, improvement effort. A goal was set for a return on equity in the upper quartile of all Canadian companies.

Results: DuPont Canada enjoyed upper quartile equity returns for seven years straight while using our human and business systems technology to improve productivity by 62% - the highest any company had achieved in Canada. (During this time DOC won the Canadian Government’s Gold Medal for productivity improvement)

• The DuPont Canada plants maintained the lowest total delivered product cost in the industry, worldwide.
• Their product tested out at over thirteen times the reliability of their best competitor’s product.
• All of their businesses were running at a cost level a minimum of 15 to 20% below the best of their competition.
• Other Noteworthy Outcomes: As a result of the developmental process, DOC set a new Canadian industrial safety record of 23 million man hours (over 4 years) without a lost time injury.

Bottom Line: During a time of economic unrest, DuPont Canada ’s six plants were continuously sold out – both commodity and specialty products. They maintained the best margin position and lowest total delivered product cost of all their competitors worldwide. They increased productivity by 62%, the highest of any company in Canada.

Case Study: Protein Technologies, Pacific Operations

Hong Kong

Situation: Gaining strategic alignment, across counties and regions, became imperative when a new strategic direction was developed in 1998. The strategy hinged on gaining FDA approval of a marketing claim for health benefit, approval that needed to be capitalized on quickly to gain the return needed. In order for the organization to be "up to the task" of realizing the enormous potential of the opportunity, it was crucial to build capability across the workforce to exercise consciousness (self-management of actions and thoughts and collective consciousness toward a compelling singularity of purpose) while engaging with the strategic work developed by the executive team.

Nature of the engagement: A year-long series of capability building and decision-making events were held in four regions around the world, bringing together the leadership of the businesses in each area (Asia Pacific, Central and South America, Europe/Middle East, and North America). We worked on capability to exercise intellectual capacity and then engaged in the development of strategic thinking and execution. In the capability building sessions new execution strategies were developed that were rolled out over the following two years. These strategies led to market growth that exceeded the total growth-to-date throughout the company’s 30 year existence. The new capabilities and processes continued to develop and were carried back into the organization and continued to accelerate the results.

Bottom line:

• Transnational alliances formed organically among those attending and were still sustaining several years later. These led to operational improvements and cross-national collaboration – there was a great multiplier effect.
• Leadership roles necessary to carry out the new direction were exercised with greater clarity than had ever been achieved through traditional alignment processes. We greatly reduced the time usually lost to telling people repeatedly what their actions were to be and redoing off target work.
• Greater will to contribute to the strategic direction of the business and toward overall business success was generated and is still sustained several years later.
• Highly successful marketing campaign was executed with full support of all functions and stakeholders.
• Built a sense of “one world” as we effected one another deeply and permanently by our actions.
• A decision to create markers that would accurately identify genetic modification made to seeds and a strong decision to continue to offer non-modified seeds in their portfolio as a supported and advocated product.