Complex Decision Making Process

International Pharmaceutical Company

The Request

Facilitate a complex decision making process in which representatives from 5 countries and 7 businesses had to agree on a common system to support a company-wide initiative.

The Context

This company has many businesses, which operate, in countries throughout the world. Their computer systems are not consistent across businesses or countries and seriously inefficient and costly. The inability of scientists in one part of the world to communicate readily with colleagues in another part slows development of new drugs in an environment which demands "first to market" and quality.

The Challenge

Each business has a vested interest in maintaining the uniqueness of their computer systems, and each national culture has infused its business with cultural expectations. The situation was filled with self-interested agendas which needed to be channeled into a common purpose and outcome.

The Approach

I worked with the project sponsors and project leader to help them clarify the exact goals they wanted to accomplish as well as the personal, organizational, national and political (small p) that they thought would impact this work. This work was on-going and included coaching the leaders on specifics of leading this effort.

We established a series of face-to-face sessions to focus on the decisions that needed to be made, the processes for making those decisions, what was to be included in the common systems and what could be maintained as local variability, etc.

I met with each team member before the sessions and designed the group sessions around issues raised in these sessions. I facilitated dialogue, discussion and conflict resolution within this group, helped develop a sense of trust and team spirit. and helped expand their awareness of legitimate cultural differences within the company.

The Results

This company instituted a common system for supporting their computer infrastructure that included problem responses to anyone in any country who needed computer help on a 24 hour, 7 day per week, basis.

The people on the team were able to make more and more complex decisions and worked together through significant organizational change.

Decision Making Process | Leadership Effectiveness Assessment | Team Effectiveness
Managing Organizational Change | Organizational Assessment