Transformation
Ripples offers an array of services which can help your organization deal effectively with highly complex challenges in strategy, transformation, and leadership. As these challenges are deeply interconnected, many of our engagements include a blend of these services.
Business Transformation
In today’s business world change is not just an option but a necessity. As organizations mature there is always need for renewed focus and energy.
The majority of organizational change efforts do not lead to improved results and sustained impact. However, business transformations can and do succeed if guided by a clear end-result, a committed workforce, and sustainable momentum.
The Ripples Group can help you:
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Set a clear direction for change and articulate the details
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Assess current reality—help you face the brutal facts you might not want to see
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Develop a vision for the future and help build alignment
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Prioritize where to begin and how to organize for maximum impact
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Create a sense of urgency for change and communicate the vision
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Build a change leadership community that can infuse passion and energy
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Communicate results and celebrate progress to build momentum
Information Technology Implementation
Building information technology infrastructure does not end with the selection of a desired vendor or the acquisition of a needed system. Successful integration requires appropriate project management that aligns strategic priorities and tactical work streams with the anticipated functionality, ongoing needs and potential issues that arise when incorporating a new technology.
The Ripples Group can help you understand the changes required when transitioning to a future system and manage the process. We provide leadership with the necessary tools to manage the change, monitor progress across all areas of an organization while establishing the governance structure necessary to facilitate decision-making, to mitigate risks, and to expedite issue resolution.
Organizational Design
The effectiveness of an organization stems from a multitude of interdependent factors. Restructuring alone can never lead to high performance. Simply put, organizational behavior is a result of strategy, structure, systems, and culture. In an effective design, strategy dictates the structure and the systems such as HR, and IT supports the strategy. Culture cannot be "designed," but the context within which it evolves can be constructed.
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Are the strategy, structure, systems, and culture of your organization aligned? How can the design be improved to achieve your vision and mission? What needs to change?
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The Ripples Group can help you create the optimal design for your organization.
Project Management
We are well-versed in project management. From establishing strategic clarity to revamping business processes to formulating project progress dashboards, we act as catalysts for change, build organizational momentum, and in many cases, provide full implementation support. Our planning expertise is enhanced by our experience in overseeing projects to completion, so we can recognize issue areas and have a full recognition of critical path activities. We pay particular attention to organizational commitment.
We sincerely believe that strategies and tactics on paper are worth very little and implementation only moves forward when the organization owns the direction and adopts an execution mindset from the beginning. In most of our organizational design and strategy work, implementation starts long before the planning is finalized.
We are well-versed in project management. From establishing strategic clarity to revamping business processes to formulating project progress dashboards, we act as catalysts for change, build organizational momentum, and in many cases, provide full implementation support. Our planning expertise is enhanced by our experience in overseeing projects to completion, so we can recognize issue areas and have a full recognition of critical path activities. We pay particular attention to organizational commitment.
We sincerely believe that strategies and tactics on paper are worth very little and implementation only moves forward when the organization owns the direction and adopts an execution mindset from the beginning. In most of our organizational design and strategy work, implementation starts long before the planning is finalized.
Organization Diagnostics
Values in Action
Culture Change
How impactful is your change effort? Do you witness visible changes in behavior that drive results at all levels of the organization?
With culture change the odds work against you. The degrees of freedom are tightly bounded by the DNA of your company. You can only shape certain elements of your culture. This can be done through developing leaders who serve as role models for the desired behaviors at all levels. It takes time, diligence, and perseverance.
Yet there is no bigger reward than seeing the impact of culture change, whether it brings out a spark within an organization or transforms a company into a "winner."
The Ripples Group can help you:
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Understand your culture and how you can use it to drive change
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Diagnose the dysfunctional behaviors that need to change
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Identify the elements of culture that will be conducive to high performance
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Develop a comprehensive plan to shape the culture in the desired direction
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Build the leadership team who can actualize the culture change
Organization Diagnostics
Critical to any project, transformation or organization is a shared understanding of current reality. Once you acknowledge where you stand and agree on the biggest challenges you will be in the position to move ahead. Shared understanding of current reality and facing the brutal facts is not an easy quest.
We have seen in many instances, even in small leadership teams, big divides when it comes to assessing where we stand as natural biases tend to get in the way (sunk cost, status quo, framing, and overconfidence to name a few).
Ripples proprietary tools and methods allow us to build consensus over current reality in teams and organizations.
Performance Improvement
How can we improve our company’s ability to execute? How do we know that performance is improving? And is it sustainable? These are the key questions that differentiate winners.
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The Ripples Group can help you:
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Identify key value drivers and measure your success in execution
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Develop a scorecard that can enable you to intelligently track progress
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Build the appropriate tool set and processes for performance management
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Develop new processes for continuous improvement at all operating levels
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Anchor new processes in the company culture for sustained change
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If you are not capturing the whole potential of your business, consider our powerful methods for dramatically improving effectiveness and efficiency in multiple domains of practice.
Merger Integration
Even mergers with great business rationale, if left unmanaged, can lead to poor business results if hindered by skepticism and a fear of change. Once a deal is closed, convincing the employees of both organizations to commit to the combined enterprise with all their passion is the critical challenge. Many companies remain silent for too long while focusing on next steps, and they shy away from transparency. To ensure success, companies must tirelessly communicate why the merger makes sense for the employees, how everyone will benefit, and exactly what is being done to integrate the two organizations.
The majority of mergers fail—research claims up to 75%. But we believe there are ways to help improve the odds.
The Ripples Group can help you:
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Focus relentlessly on synergies improving business results and delivering on expectations from the merger
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Create a master integration plan to inform expectations, with defined delivery milestones & ownership
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Identify key people and address every case individually to ensure that they remain committed to being part of the combined enterprise’s future
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Capture the learnings to inform future decisions and undertakings
A majority of organizations make an effort to define their values. You can find endless literature that states the importance of culture to the success of business (e.g. culture eats strategy for lunch). Defining a set of shared core values is fundamental to shaping the desired culture but it is only the first step.
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The bigger challenge is having ownership of these values by the entire organization and defining behaviors that brings these values to life. Culture can only be sustained in the long run if everyone demonstrates the values in their daily behaviors and the organization finds ways to recognize and celebrate the values in action.
In both rapidly growing businesses and established organizations, we have witnessed the return on investment. Yes, it requires deliberate management attention and perseverance to stick with it, but the magic occurs when it takes hold and becomes a true fabric of the organization.
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