In the Company of Sacred Cows
A True Story of Organizational Change
by
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One cold day in January 1997, I was sitting in the boardroom of Mitel’s headquarters along with the entire Senior Management team. Opposite us in this emergency meeting sat six of our most important customers, known as the “Elite Dealers’ Council”. These six people were the chosen representatives of the top 54 sellers of Mitel products in North America. This was a powerful and influential group and they were not happy. The group had demanded this meeting and there was only one topic on the agenda: product quality.
As the Vice President of Research and Development (R&D), I had known these people for a long time. They represented 80% of the revenue from our indirect distribution channel. We sold our products to the 54 dealers and they distributed them to end customers across North America. They also provided technical support to end customers and their message to us was crystal clear; they believed Mitel had released a new product too early. Problems were showing up in the field – problems that never should have escaped our lab-testing environment. The dealers felt that they were debugging our products at their own expense and at the expense of their customers.
The telephone business is a high-stakes game with little room for error. Any business without dial tone is like a company without oxygen. The very people who controlled the lion’s share of our revenue were running out of patience with us and they were not going to continue to do business with us unless we got very serious about fixing these problems – fast. Without access to customers through these indirect distributors, we were done. Simple as that – Mitel could not continue to operate.
I was shocked. Not about the problems – for I knew these problems well, and the engineers in R&D had been working on solutions, although not nearly fast enough for the dealers. What shocked me was the realization of the impact that these problems were having on end customers and on the businesses of the dealers. To become an elite dealer these people were contractually bound to sell Mitel’s products exclusively, so their business was essentially tied to ours. They could of course switch suppliers and leave us, but such a move would be hugely disruptive to their businesses. Their livelihoods were being threatened by our product problems.
Everybody in the room knew the same thing I did: this was squarely an R&D issue. It was my job to fix the products. The future of the company rested on my head and in the hands of my R&D department.
Things had to change.
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About the Book
While 70% of all organizational change initiatives fail, this one succeeded – and improved telecom producer Mitel Corporation’s bottom line profitability by a factor of 40.
Like many organizations, Mitel’s entrenched processes, procedures and policies – its “Sacred Cows” – had resulted in products that were slow getting to market. When they did get to market many products had quality problems. The sluggish company culture was also making it impossible for Mitel to face a looming technology shift and do battle with new brand of competitors who threatened to wipe the company out.
Authors Geoff Smith and Stephen Quesnelle were front and center driving the change that saved Mitel: Geoff as the Vice President of Research and Development with 500 engineers reporting to him and Stephen as the Organizational Development (OD) professional partnered with Geoff to help lead the turnaround.
Refreshing and engaging, this book tells how Geoff and Stephen met the challenge head-on. They used a behavior based leadership approach based on over 50 years of scientific research, plus their own creative initiatives to “kill” the Sacred Cows.
More than a fascinating case study, this book provides all the hard-hitting lessons learned by the company, by Geoff as the Change Champion and by Stephen as the Change Agent. In the Company of Sacred Cows provides you with a framework for making organizational change in your company. Whether your business is growing or shrinking, this book provides you with a how-to manual with the real-life tools and techniques you need to meet rapidly changing business demands.
About the Author
Stephen Quesnelle is an Executive Coach and Behaviorist who has a successful track record of utilizing change management and leadership practices to enhance the performance of organizations in
Geoff Smith is a Senior Executive who has worked with companies around the globe to help them fulfill their strategic objectives and execute change management programs that led to faster times to market, higher quality and increased profitability. His specific areas of expertise include Leadership and Coaching, Strategic Planning, Customer Relations, Partnerships, Acquisitions and R&D Management.