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Consensus - case study Regional Office of Large Telecom Company
The Challenge: A large Canadian telecommunications company was having difficulties at a regional office with 40 employees and 3 managers. This group had been having severe moral problems, high numbers of conflicts, union grievances and personality clashes over a period of 2 years. Factors adding complexity to the situation included language since half the group had English as their first language and half French, corporate culture differences since there had been a recent merger so that half were from an old established institution mindset and half from a fast, entrepreneurial growth mindset and labour relations issues, since the employees were members of a local in a large Canadian union.
The Response: A consensus process was designed and completed. It began with an assessment , including confidential interviews with the employees, managers and union vice president. The assessment report compiled the interview results such that comments were not attributable to specific people. The report provided an excellent summary of the 4 key areas of interest, a breakdown of comments as coming from management or employee, and included positive comments as well as concerns. The assessment also included a detailed plan for a series of facilitated group meetings aimed at dialogue on the issues identified and agreement on specific actions to address concerns. Initial meetings were held with managers only and employees only. These meetings were to prepare the participants for combined meetings. Training on interest based discussions and communication was provided at these meetings. Following these sessions, four small facilitated groups met. These groups were composed of a cross-section of all major categories including managers, employees, union, French speaking, English speaking, old institution culture, new entrepreneurial culture. In effect the intent was to create 4 mini groups with the same character as the whole workgroup. Each of these sessions resulted in spirited and respectful communication and with suggested action plans agreed to by all present. To arrive at overall consensus the groups were then mixed up and two large groups considered the output of all 4 groups and reached consensus on a list of actions. Consolidation from these consensus meetings and creation of a memorandum of understanding for sign off by all parties was done by the facilitators.
The Results: There were 10 specific solutions agreed on by all participants. Each solution was presented along with the important interests that the solution was to address. The final package of solutions was reviewed and approved by company and union executive. A congratulatory note was drafted and approved and signed by both executives and sent to all participants. After six months a follow up survey was carried out that specifically determined level of satisfaction with the implementation of all 10 solutions and asked for feedback on the group intervention. There was good participation in the survey at a tough overall time for the company which demonstrated continued commitment to improving the workplace. The responses indicated improved satisfaction in all areas of communication, respect and recognition of each other's strengths and styles. Operational solutions met with mixed reviews and the survey highlighted areas that were resolved and areas that needed renewed effort. The survey also allowed for new management to be briefed, and to better understand the time and goodwill that went into the process. This new management team took the results of the survey into team meetings and redoubled efforts to address the remaining issues. Comments on the process itself were positive and congratulations and thanks were included. Although some were concerned about the pace of implementation of various solutions, there was not a single complaint with the facilitated process included in the survey results.
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