Strategic transformation, Adizes methodology implementation

Our project began with a quite specific management question. We were looking for a way to improve the company’s efficiency, and initially we were considering changes to the organizational structure, creating new management roles, and strengthening individual business areas.

While studying various approaches to management, I became acquainted with the Adizes methodology and concluded that local improvements can give a quick effect, but rarely lead to long-term results. If a company truly wants to reach a new level, it needs not individual solutions, but systemic changes.

That’s exactly why we decided to go further and work on changing the management system as a whole.

Choosing Irina Sotnikova was a fairly conscious decision for me. The project was large-scale and important for the company, so I studied the experience of other organizations that had already gone through this path, met with executives, and gathered feedback. All the reviews were exclusively positive. In addition, it was important to me to work with someone who represents the original source of the methodology and has practical experience implementing it.

The project lasted several years, and each of its stages brought concrete value. At first these were individual improvements, then work with teams on problem-solving, a strategic session, structural changes, development of management practices, role descriptions, work on accountability, the interaction system, and other elements of management.

At the same time, it gradually became clear that the value of each individual tool is revealed only when it becomes part of the overall system.

I’d like to separately note the format of the work. It was important for us not just to receive a consultant’s recommendations, but to learn to use these tools on our own.

We tried to understand each stage as deeply as possible, asked a lot of questions, discussed details, and adapted the tools to our company’s specifics. Irina was always ready to explain the logic behind the decisions in detail and to support us through the implementation process. At some point we realized that we were starting to confidently use many of the tools on our own. At first with the consultant’s support, then increasingly autonomously.

For me, this is one of the most important results of the project. We didn’t become dependent on the consultant. On the contrary — we gained knowledge, skills, and management practices that became part of the company’s everyday work.

Over the course of the project, the management system itself changed noticeably.

The organizational structure became clearer. Executives better understand their roles, areas of responsibility, and what’s expected from their departments. There’s now a clearer understanding of who should really be entrusted with which tasks, and where a person actually has the resources needed to achieve a result.

The quality of interaction between departments changed dramatically. People learned to listen to each other better, understand different points of view, and discuss issues constructively. There are significantly fewer conflicts. Many issues that used to lead to tension and disputes are now discussed calmly and professionally.

For me, one of the most important results was that the company became easier to manage.

Easier not because there’s less work. Easier because there’s less misunderstanding, less unnecessary resistance, fewer situations where an executive has to manually sort out the consequences of poorly prepared decisions or put out internal conflicts.

Interestingly, the speed of decision-making in some sense even decreased. But along with that, the quality of these decisions grew significantly.

Previously, many decisions were made quickly, but were far from always implemented successfully. Today we spend more time on discussion, preparation, and involving the people who will be implementing these decisions. As a result, the decisions themselves are made more slowly, but they’re implemented significantly faster and produce a much more sustainable result.

I’d like to separately mention the strategic session. For me, this was one of the most valuable stages of the entire project.

That’s when we were able to look at the company from the outside, understand what we’re actually doing, which products are key for us, where we want to move, and what our main resources should be directed toward. After that, many decisions became significantly simpler and clearer.

In terms of business results, during this time the efficiency of executives’ work grew, the company’s manageability improved, and the resolution of many tasks that used to sit unmoving for months sped up. We started to better understand our weak points and to work on eliminating them systematically.

But I see the main result as something else.

The most important thing this project gave us isn’t individual tools or individual solutions. It helped create within the company the ability to improve the management system on its own.

Over these years we went through a path from local improvements to a full-fledged management system. And today there are many things that used to require outside help that we now know how to do on our own.

That’s exactly why I believe the main value of the project isn’t that the consultant helped solve our problems. The main value is that the company learned to solve them on its own.

I would recommend this kind of work to companies operating in a competitive and rapidly changing environment, where success depends directly on the quality of management, the speed of adaptation, and the ability to continuously improve one’s processes. Where change happens constantly, the change management system needs to become part of the company’s DNA.

Roman Goloborodko,
CEO BelAvtoMazService