Techniques used: Discarding the Box^TM Combined With Opportunity Landscaping (Part of the Transforming Capability^TM Toolset).

With increased competition threatening lucrative niche markets, Belzona wanted to keep ahead and come up with radical ideas for new market-changing products. They were looking for ideas to be teased out of the existing team in a short sharp session using creative idea-stimulating tools and techniques. The objective was to generate at least one (preferably more) great ideas that ticked all their boxes; i.e. revolution not evolution, great sales potential, relevant to all regions, a good fit with the existing business and exciting for the shareholders.

The results:

By the end of the 2-day workshop, hundreds of individual ideas had been connected and combined to create 48 new workable, next generation and beyond, product concepts. Many would be longer term projects but 17 of these were determined to be of immediate/urgent importance. Some of these were revolutionary and completely new to Belzona. In effect this was the icing on the cake because the team produced so many ideas that only a proportion of them could be processed during the two days of the workshop. Literally remaining on the boards to be developed at a later stage were another 50 new market development applications.

"Many heartfelt thanks for helping us take what is an enormous leap forward in learning, understanding and teamwork. We really have enjoyed the experience and are very excited by our enhanced project pipeline".

Bill Ashcroft, (former) Managing Director

Belzona Polymerics Limited

Development of the Transforming Capability^TM Toolset

Whilst with the Warwick Manufacturing Group, (WMG - Warwick University) our principal associate Clive Reynolds was the lead investigator in a £multi-million R&D programme (2004-2006) involving Jaguar LandRover (JLR). As a result of this programme, the powerful innovation enabling toolset ‘Transforming Capability^TM’ was developed. This toolset was instrumental in securing the ongoing success of JLR, improving its supply chain capabilities, the launch of the XF model and consequently more rapid upgrades and new model launches. Clive continues to work on projects with JLR and has also used these tools with a number of other companies to improve their innovation capabilities and generate competitive advantage.

Various Transforming Capability tools are used to great effect in conjunction with core Accretis methods. These are used under licence via Strategic Capability (Transcap) Ltd (a joint venture between the University of Warwick and Strategic Capability Ltd)

The WSABI^® Advanced Profiling Programme

The WSABI^® Advanced Profiling Programme was developed by analysing questionnaire and interview responses from over two thousand test subjects recruited as part of ‘Executive Search’ campaigns between 2004 and 2011. These responses were compared to psychometric and team style reports to identify their errors and inaccuracies. The recorded work style preferences, and associated attributes, were then mapped to significantly reduce the inconsistences between what was being assumed and how the respondents actually performed.

Between 2011 and 2015 further observations were made of subjects involved in other recruitment campaigns together with profiles of teams and participants of facilitated workshops. This enabled the scope of the WSABI^® system to be extended for such purposes particularly within the context of innovation programmes.

Since January 2015 we have been working to devise the logic systems and complex algorithms required to create a fully functioning on-line programme. Due for launch in 2018 this will enable greater access to the most accurate profiling systems to be used as aids for:

• Advanced recruitment (including motivational criteria and suggested interview questions)
• Internal assessments (including values statements and cultural alignment)
• Leadership development (including benchmarking)
• Creating effective ‘Innovation Teams’
• Optimising facilitated workshops

Techniques used: the '2FR^TM' facilitation process plus various research and analysis methods.

During 2012 & 2013 our discussions with companies and consultants involved in the UK Growth Accelerator scheme, showed that the biggest obstacle to achieving economic growth was the common difficulty in successfully recruiting for business-critical roles. This was backed up by ‘The CIPD 2012 Resourcing and Talent Planning Survey’ which reported that 82% of organisations experienced difficulties in filling such vacancies”. We then conducted a year-long research programme to identify the main causes and develop solutions. The findings were published in our 2014 report “Emerging Best Practice in Talent Acquisition” (copies available on request) and in ‘Recruiter’ magazine.

"APSCo certainly welcome this report and the evidence provided that there is a real need for a truly consultative relationship which allows for clear communication and a level of trust throughout the recruitment supply chain." 

Marilyn Davidson, Director, APSCo

As part of the solution discovery programme we employed our '2FR^TM' facilitation process to create an ideal ’25 Step Talent Acquisition Critical Path’ along which we identified over 120 common reasons for process failure. Our '2FR^TM' facilitation process is a novel way of visualising a future perspective of the outcome of a project which encompasses a retroactive discovery process for recognising where and how things can go wrong and what to do about them. This technique together with the findings of our report have enabled numerous businesses to vastly improve their talent acquisition success rates leading to notable performance improvements. This technique is also extremely effective in ensuring the success of innovation projects and has also been successfully employed to improve other business processes such as production systems, supply chain planning and sales.