Herbold’s Approach to
Generating a Plan for Significant Improvement

What kinds of problems are we talking about here?
If your organization is experiencing symptoms such as low productivity, high costs, low profitability, missed targets, lack of innovation, etc., and/or seems to be suffering from bureaucracy, complexity, and/or silos and fiefdoms that fragment the organization, the approach we outline here has been shown to be valuable in getting focus on what needs to be done to generate some major improvement. It can also help you isolate marketing and sales problems, faulty HR practices, out-of-date and overstaffed IT operations and just about any other malady that an organization can suffer.

Who should utilize this kind of an approach?
The head of any organization can benefit from this kind of assessment, no matter whether the organization is large or small, or part of a larger organization. For example, a CFO or a CIO, or the head of manufacturing or sales, may be having big difficulties with these kinds of issues. A CEO may be experiencing problems getting bright ideas to emerge; a Chief Marketing Officer may be under attack by upper management to significantly improve the quality of the marketing.

What are the specific steps that would be taken?
Here’s the process:

• Understand the Issues – This consists of two days of in-depth interviews by Bob of key people related to the area of focus. Key data is reviewed, organizational structure is evaluated, and personnel are discussed
• Testing Hypothesis – This consists of two days of additional interviews (some with people interviewed previously; some new) where issues are probed, data is discussed, and hypothesis tested.
• Conclusions – This is one day of final interviews and discussion of tentative conclusions and recommendations.
• Final Report – A thorough write-up of the findings and recommendations.

There are no mysterious black boxes or disruptive exercises. What we are taking advantage of here is the extensive business experience of Bob Herbold.

How long does this typically take from start to finish?
The four-step program minimizes the disruptions to the manager and can be executed in a brief period of time (usually less than 8 weeks of elapsed time; steps 1, 2 and 3 are typically spaced 2-3 weeks apart).

What are the key advantages for a manager in getting this kind of assessment?
It is often quite valuable to have an independent and very experienced person take a snapshot of how things are currently operating and provide a fresh perspective on what could be done to achieve significant improvement.