In June 1998, the OD Institute recognized the efforts at the Amalgamated Bank of South Africa (ABSA) by awarding them the Especially Meritorious Award for the OD Project of the Year. The honor was granted in Dublin, Ireland as leading edge organization development (OD) work. The basis for the award was that the system self-facilitated major change within 4 weeks with extraordinary results. In the 5 months following the intervention, profit increased 69%, and the employee moral increased with a significant impact on improved customer service.

ABSA, according to Business Week, is in the top 50 of the most significantly developing corporation in the world. There are 34 divisions and 48,000 employees. Within the divisions, there are four commercial retail banks: Trust Bank, United, Volkskis and Allied. Our intervention was with United Bank Gueteng (Gueteng is a province). With 2,000 employees, United Bank Gueteng (UBG) contributed 38% of all United Bank revenue. UBG was one of the lowest service-quality performers within ABSA.

The larger ABSA organization knew it needed to undergo significant change if it was to survive. A financial commitment equal to five billion US dollars was to be spent just on the change process in the next 4-5 years. The United division was to pilot test the applicability of large group interactive process in helping facilitate change.

The intervention began with traditional organization development (OD) team building process with the Executive Team (ET). The result created the necessary alignment around the strategic plan and unity in the team. During the three-day residential learning laboratory, two key shifts occurred. One shift was that this team chose to operate as a team rather than a matrixed group of individuals coming together to solve problems. The second shift was a decision to focus on "people" as a primary strategy rather than the previous focus on financial results. The expectation became that favorable financial results would follow if the attention was on the people as the most valuable resource.

At launching of the project the ET selected a Design Team (DT) to begin planning the events. This team of 12 represented a maximum mixture of functions and levels within the organization. The parameters were that one-third, or 700, of the employees were to participate in one large meeting for three days. The remaining two-thirds kept the operation going. In addition, the events were to be complete in 45 days.

During their retreat, the ET had identified their expected outcomes with the understanding that the design team might add more outcomes as they found necessary to support or enhance the larger organizational outcomes. The design team was to link outcomes with processes that would move the group from its current state to a new operating level.

The design team was also responsible for keeping the events on track and within the ET's design parameters. They were to consider input from the participants on a daily basis and then implement redesign each night. In addition, they committed to work the few days between events in order to make the necessary adjustments that would optimize progress toward desired outcomes.

The design linked the process with the results from a culture and customer survey recently completed. The survey identified the major issues as: long customer lines, support systems going down, staff not fully trained, tellers not able to answer customer questions, and credit applications not processed in a timely manner.

We have found that three days for the facilitation of a large-group interactive event is a tested process that helps large numbers of individuals through stages of recognition of the need for change and then into action to bring about that change. The process draws on theoretical work about what stimulates individuals and organizations to change. Individuals are most likely to change when they receive change-inducing feedback from their surroundings. Likewise, organizations and systems are more likely to change when their members can collectively experience common and consistent signals about improvement opportunities in their system, accept responsibility for making those changes, and then find common ground for action.

The design team chose to take advantage of all 2,000 participants by seeing the work as a 9-day integrative process to accomplish the transformation rather than three sessions of three days. The fluid design became a series of work products that were either being started and handed to the next event for finishing or started and finished at that event. The key here was that all work was interrelated to the work of the other events.

The facilitation methodology for the event comes from the theories of small group facilitation. Participants are assigned to round tables of eight. They don't sit with their own work group members and they especially do not sit with their superior. This enables a richer grasp of the full system at each table. Participants are able to hear and interact with the experiences of others. Each table is self-facilitated. Clear work instructions are given from the front of the room by the consultants. However, it is the participants that are identifying the issues and creating the solutions. The result of work at each table is either posted for others to use at their own tables, or reported to the whole room for a larger understanding or the generation of a common database.

Designed activities provide the participants with the information to make real-time, authoritative decisions. The on-the-spot data-generation and decision-making occurs with the critical information and players in the room. Because management was present, they genuinely support and know the employees are right with the change they are creating. Owned action plans were developed to take back to work -- action plans they helped developed themselves.

The work accomplished in nine days included:

• An Executive Team draft of the strategic plan finalized by the large-event participants.
• A list of action steps including organization-wide steps, steps specific to branch offices, and individual action steps.
• An outline of expected cultural behaviors to guide the relationship among employees, managers, and the ET.
• Commitments for meeting objectives with "matrix partners" outside one's own work group.
• Expectations established for providing "Wow!" customer service.
• The process identified for continued learning and development for individuals at the branch level.

Empowerment continued as participants themselves chose the implementation steps and identified the kind of culture that they wished to work within. Empowerment became a living word.

Throughout the event a change occurred in how participants interacted with one another. Barely perceptible at first, this transformation was resoundingly clear as each event drew to a close. People started to believe in themselves and each other, and to find or rediscover ways of understanding and working together. They gained confidence in themselves and in their ability to solve their own problems.

The three events go far beyond what might be categorized as rational-linear planning. While action plans were created, a more important goal was to tear down barriers and put in their place a rich web that was weaving the organization together in a profound and fundamental way.

Our yardstick for a successful event is a paradigm shift which the participants can feel as the event progressed. Special skills are developed by participants such as listening for understanding rather than contradiction, paying attention to the larger organizational issues, brainstorming, recording the truth of others, and facilitating group decisions. In addition, a feeling of belonging and community is developed.

The impact of this intervention exceeded our imagination. During the last day of the last event, comments came from the observers. A minister who had been involved in the uniting of South Africa said: "Today I have seen the most powerful organizational transformational experience in history of South Africa! I know because I have been one of the transformational leaders in this country." Participants were on their feet, singing and dancing, full of celebration for having done hard work, which produced a rich product. They were full of a new spirit of accomplishment.

The proof of the effectiveness of this work is in the continued bottom line results. With each event, individuals found themselves committing to a higher level of client service and stating boldly that they could make a difference. Faces physically changed, the mood of the group went from individual and disconnected to community and purposeful.

More importantly, ABSA used the same kind of process with their top 300 executives from around the world. Their stock price has gone up substantially as they have used this new facilitation technology to totally restructure their organization from a functional to a customer driven process organization.
 

The Presenters

His book, Practicing OD: A Consultant’s Guide, was published by Pfeiffer. It has become a best seller. Ten years ago he was honored by his colleagues as the Minnesota OD Practitioner of the Year and was named as a Wisdomkeeper by the Minnesota Chapter of ASTD. In 1997, at the 17th World O.D. Congress in Colima, Mexico, he was named the International OD Consultant of the Year.

Kristine Quade is a Registered Organization Development Practitioner (RODP). Combining her background as an attorney (JD) with her Master’s degree in Organizational Development from Pepperdine University, Kristine links her management experience and her experiences in coaching, facilitating, planning, and project management for whole systems change efforts with groups ranging from 8 to 2,000.

Kristine was named the Minnesota OD Practitioner of the Year for 1997. In addition, she has co-authored The Essential Handbook: Behind the Scenes of Large Group Interventions and is a chapter contributor in Practicing OD: A Consultants Guide.

Kristine teaches Organization Development and Team building at the University of St. Thomas and Mankato State University. She is a frequent presenter at the Organization Development National Conference, the International OD Congress in Mexico, and the International Association of Facilitators. She has served as President of many organizations including the Minnesota Chapter of ASTD, the YMCA, National Federation of Business and Professional Women, and the Saddleback Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees.

Together, Roland and Kristine are the editors of a new Pfeiffer Jossey-Bass OD series on leading edge work that will begin publication in 1999. Their work is pioneering with the large group technology. The scope of their work includes highly-charge conflict situations such as facilitating 1700 individuals in the same room for 4 days at the 7th American Forest Congress. Together, they have facilitated of 7,000 individuals in large group change projects over the last 4 years.