A global manufacturing company needed to adjust their operating model to compete in an increasingly competitive, faster paced, and more diverse business environment. They had tall silos between business units and functions that made it difficult to align objectives and accelerate efforts to support a more agile operating model. They needed to break down barriers across departments, and build leadership skills to establish a more collaborative, accountable environment that could compete.

The team worked with HR leaders and executives to assess what areas they needed to improve. They identified three key skills: prioritizing work, driving accountability and effectively managing performance feedback. They redesigned their approach to the annual objective setting process to build intended leadership behaviors, focus the organization on key objectives, facilitate alignment, and ultimately drive performance.

• Instituted offsite forums to keep organization focused on top five key strategic initiatives and objectives, align priorities, and build critical leadership skills.
• Established monthly and quarterly review process to drive two-way communication about progress, barriers, and successes.
• Added leadership behavior criteria to year-end performance review to drive the intended leadership behaviors.
• Adopted new objective setting and performance planning based on honest and direct feedback with employees, leading to improved business results.