Organizational Strategy Consulting
Through organizational strategy you bring your vision of the future into the present, enabling you to make confident decisions about how to organize and build your resources.
Strategy has to do with making choices. Organizational strategy is about making choices about one of your most important levers – the resources you will buy, build and manage to achieve your business goals.
Make today’s resource decisions in a planful and deliberate way, and build your strategic staircase towards the future.
Simplicity and clarity are hard to get right. I work with leaders to clarify broad business goals, reveal workforce insights and shape strategic choices for designing their team or organization
I have conducted countless discussions with leaders who wrestled with common obstacles when trying to unlock the potential of their organization.
It’s never just one thing of course, it’s both forest and trees, and with the relentless pace of change, it’s no longer even just about managing multiple moving parts, its now about how to keep many spinning plates in the air.
Mary delivers thoughtful, thorough and completely independent analysis backed up by sound logic. Part of her talent lies in being inquisitive and challenging without being confrontational. She’ll tell you what you need to hear even if it’s difficult and help refine your objectives through focused conversation. I’ve particularly appreciated the evidence-based frameworks she provides—they’re easy to follow and continue to generate value long after the contract ends.
Michel Cavallin, Former Chief Operating Officer, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada
When leaders describe what’s getting in the way of executing on their strategy, it typically involves an inter-related collection of organizational challenges.
Just a few of the tensions that often stop an organization from achieving its purpose include competing priorities, a mismatch between demand and capacity, no alignment on strategic goals, and misalignment between their strategy and structure.
“Every system is perfectly designed for the results it gets.”
W. Edwards Deming
What has emerged from my decades as a dedicated clarity seeker and problem solver is a systematic approach to reinventing organizations. My approach integrates learning from a career spent studying work, how organizations work, and now, the future of work.
“Workforce productivity is primarily an organizational problem and so requires organizational solutions.”
Michael Mankins, Eric Garton
With a huge volume of work and limited resources, I needed to create an organization that could deliver quality service on day-to-day operations and complete capital projects as part of a multi-year strategic plan. Mary and I worked collaboratively to build an agile and responsive service structure that was based on solid research and a successful business case. She’s a quick study with considerable experience, great intuition and an infectious, positive attitude. Thanks for your visionary work and expertise, Mary!
Pamela Mills, Facilities Director, Ottawa Police Service
Designing for the Future
This business-focused approach includes an innovative and practical methodology for sharpening business goals and success objectives, and optimizing organizational structure, roles and resources. The thinking path below involves a suite of structured and creative thinking tools, configured to meet your organization’s requirements.
What is?
Reveal the current state of the structure, resources and the essential work of the group.
What matters?
Create a high-level map that reveals the pain points that require attention and further strategic thinking.
What if?
Identify which strategic workforce gaps will impact your ability to manage effectively and support growth.
What works?
Evaluate options, identify risks and anticipate implications of alternative designs and resource choices.
What now?
Develop clear and coherent action plans with the right level of detail to enable execution.
Transform your organizational strategy with this fresh new perspective and a future focused approach to shaping organizational and resource investments.
An approach that optimizes your success
Push through complexity with focused, strategic problem solving
Clarity creates alignment
Clarify broad business goals to resolve conflicting demands and interests about the essential work of the business. This clarity enables consistently sound decisions on structure, roles and capabilities.
Collaboration is key
Create, shape and explore the merits of strategic choices. This dialogue stimulates and guides your thinking to help you make the best possible decisions for your business.
Visuals inspire insight
Facilitate collaborative problem solving, test possibilities and explore new ideas. This visualization approach is useful when systems are complex, problems are hard to describe, and solutions seem invisible.
I work with clients on one-off projects, small and large organization designs and major long-term change efforts to provide:
A framework for assessing whether the right resources are allocated in the right proportion to the right priority areas.
Decision-making guidelines for choosing between competing options for structure and roles.
A common language and thinking approach for designing around the needs of the business, not the people in the business.
Clarity on goals, structure, and roles that facilitate the design of aligned HR management programs.
A simplified system for facilitating organization levels, consistent role design, titling and compensation.
A clear narrative for how your operating model will enable you to achieve your vision and objectives.
Transform your organizational strategy with this fresh new perspective and a future focused approach to shaping organizational and resource investments.
It’s always refreshing to work with Mary because she knows how to get to the root of a challenge: She asks the right questions, listens critically, then identifies potential solutions and the dynamics involved with each one. A big part of the value she adds comes from her broad range of knowledge and experience with many organizations in strategic planning, organizational design, total-rewards design and more. As a result, she sees both the big picture, the small details and builds long-term relationships with everyone she works with. After completing her role, Mary stays engaged and follows up, by sharing a related article or new insights.
Sue Kavanagh, Practice Leader, Talent, Culture, Leadership and Coaching, CleaHRStrat Consulting Inc.