"Job and organizational systems must be designed to encourage and support people showing up to be their best at work and beyond." — Carolyn Miller, CDI Founder

Ripple Effect

Transformations such as RR Donnelly’s typically have ripple effects. RR Donnelly was no different.

One of the plants head pressman reported becoming a much better father; a packer decided to go for a degree in industrial psychology; and a manager went on to become a CEO of another company and bring high performance redesign to that business. It is no accident that employees see these changes impacting everything they do – their work, their family and community life. It’s a natural result of designing work where people are invited, indeed, almost required to show up as whole persons for the organization to succeed.

Our Results

From the Inside Out: CDI Affects Change at the World's Largest Publishing Company

One of CDI’s earliest successes with organizational redesign began with the world’s largest publishing company, RR Donnelly. In the mid-80s they acquired a new publishing plant in Oregon. With the new acquisition came a major contract, with Microsoft, to publish print instruction manuals – on one condition. They had to become a high-performance work system. CDI’s Carolyn Miller was tapped as the consultant to accomplish this task. Working with a design team comprised of people from every level of the organization and across all functional levels, Carolyn spent six months crafting, leading and fostering this dynamic transformation.

Carolyn’s team began by asking questions — lots of them. The goal was to get a feel for how things were working. Interviews were held; technical workflow was analyzed; and visits were made to high performance manufacturing plants around the country – Sherman Williams in Tennessee, A.E. Staley in Indiana and Lake Superior Paper in Minnesota. Involvement at all levels stimulated deconstruction of the inefficient hierarchical nature of the plant. Employees were engaged at every stage of the redesign process — in meetings with customers; discussions around streamlined work; design of dynamic communication systems; and team evaluations.

The results spoke volumes. In four months, the new plant turned profits that typically take a year to reach. The plant felt different, too. In the old hierarchical plant, the head pressman was “king of the roost.” In the new one, people collaborated as equals in teams. Everyone contributed and everyone was accountable for the accomplishment of team and organizational goals.

Change quickly multiplied. The rapid success of this plant led to the redesign of the older telephone printing plant next door. Due to the Oregon success, RR Donnelly requested Carolyn lead redesign teams at 10 more plants. Once complete, Carolyn’s work had affected change for over five thousand employees across the country, streamlining work flow, stimulating on-going innovations and increasing plant profitability.

What Worked?

Carolyn’s approach, called Socio-Technical Systems Redesign focused on integrating the whole system to achieve common goals. Each redesign step was grounded in principles of high performance where jobs and organizational systems are created to streamline work, break down barriers to innovation, connect with customers and support people in being their best. Redesigned work environments fostered people showing up at work with not only their hands for working – and heads for thinking – but hearts for caring about each other, their work and beyond.

“This kind of work always goes beyond the work and affects everything we do (not just our jobs). We become partners creating a better world, one in which everyone can contribute,” Carolyn said. “This is powerful work!”