Initial Situation
Adolf Zimmermann founded AZO in Osterburken in 1949. Starting as a small mill construction company, AZO has grown into an internationally operating specialist in raw material handling. Today, AZO systems and solutions are used worldwide in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and chemical industries, as well as in the processing and manufacturing of plastics.
Rainer Zimmermann and his colleagues in management tirelessly drive the development of AZO forward. The starting point of our collaboration was the question of how to integrate the company strategy more deeply into the daily work of all employees and encourage them to contribute more actively to the design and implementation of strategic issues.
Goals and Topics
Our collaboration with AZO is rich in facets and topics, and can only be outlined in part here. Together, we worked on questions such as:
„Working with Accentus has been incredibly enriching and beneficial from my perspective.
The organization is one thing, but how people successfully interact and collaborate within it is another. With our new forms of collaboration, we have given our company a forward-looking direction.
Our goal is to create interdisciplinary interfaces from interfaces.
Openness, trust, appreciation, inclusion, and participation are values that both Accentus and our company exemplify, and this synergy is, in my view, the key to successful collaboration.
Inspiring and convincing, the engaging MICRO-trainings provided impulses that empowered our employees to independently introduce and implement new practices such as decision-making by consent, more efficient meeting cultures, trying new things, applying retrospectives, feedback culture, and much more within our company.
Another powerful tool is the introduction of storytelling. Through such narratives, we convey messages, values, and emotions, providing important orientation for everyone.
Our most important resource, people, was not only reached but actively engaged and coached, making them independent contributors in a culture of mutual support.“
Hartmut Eckert
COO Chief Operations Officer
“Accentus does not act as a consulting company that has the solution in hand. Instead, Accentus provides the right guiding questions, teaches methods for teams to achieve good and quick results, and supports people in the company through changes. The magic formula: Turning those affected into participants!”
Rainer Zimmermann
CEO Chief Executive Officer
History
Our project began with an observation phase. We aimed to get to know the company, its employees, its leaders, its offerings, core processes, and coordination routines as thoroughly as possible. We achieved this through participant observation and personal conversations with employees at all levels and hierarchies. The patterns and routines identified in this phase formed a valuable foundation for our subsequent work in the project.
When our collaboration with AZO started, strategic work was mainly conducted within the management team. They wanted to broaden the scope of strategy work and involve more leaders and employees with their ideas and energy. Initially, the focus was on opening up this space. We did this by working on four pilot projects. These served as safe spaces where employees and leaders could meet under specific themes (such as reducing throughput times) and collaboratively develop results. The interest in participation was overwhelming, with more than a quarter of the workforce at the site wanting to actively engage.
This presented the first opportunity to experiment with new forms of collaboration.
We defined and established specific roles to structure the work in these projects, drawing inspiration from agile work methods like SCRUM. In large project groups, we distinguished between the Core Team (actively working, consistently involved, and allocated sufficient time for the project) and the Periphery (engaged, informed, and contributing sporadically). Retrospectives during the project (when changes can still be made) replaced traditional lessons-learned sessions at the end (when it is too late to change things).
The quick insights gained from the pilot projects were then used to design an extensive strategy dialogue. The goal was to bring clarity, focus, and direction to the strategy topic and enable involvement at various levels. The implementation of strategic topics took place in expert groups of varying sizes with participants from all hierarchical levels. Again, new forms of collaboration were tested and applied.
To expand this approach, we concurrently initiated a series of MICRO-trainings.
Despite the increased openness in strategic work, some barriers remain that can hinder new ideas. Inspired by the ADOBE Kickbox, we developed an AZO Idea Box. With this simple tool, any employee can create a protective space around their idea, think it through, and only present it once it has become a real, convincing proposal.
Many of the topics initiated during the project are now being independently continued and developed further by AZO. We are pleased with this, as the goal of our support is achieved when new practices become the norm.
„Imagine a world where business success and job satisfaction are inseparable.“
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