To give a sense of the extensive possibilities for personal and organizational transformation when working with Bridgeway Partners, we’ve included brief descriptions of some of our past projects. They demonstrate the broad range of clients and projects we support, and give a sense of the unique perspective and skills that we bring to our client work.

 Organizational Change

• We were hired by a $3.5 billion retailer to help them navigate a period of tremendous change in the industry. We worked with the senior management team to align around a new mission and strategy, learn to lead improvements in strategic as well as operational performance, and engage employees in cross-functional teamwork. In the first year of applying these new capabilities, the company made breakthrough progress in five strategic initiatives and achieved record profits while outperforming its competitors in a difficult market.

• A major health care company asked us to help its senior management team rethink its emergent e-business strategy after the collapse of most web-based businesses. The results were a clearer understanding of the underlying business dynamics, increased alignment around the strategy required for success in a changing environment, and a more productive use of business resources.

• A leading non-profit organization asked us to work with them because they were stymied around strategy and structural issues. In addition, they wanted to create a more collaborative culture. We conducted an organizational assessment, worked with the management team on communication and decision making, facilitated several staff retreats, and led many educational sessions on organizational learning. This work resulted in clarification of the organization’s goals, great improvement in staff communication skills, and a more harmonious atmosphere.

• A state department of social services asked us to faciliatate the implementation of teaming, a groundbreaking child welfare practice which addresses the issue of front line social worker isolation. The program reduces isolation by creating teams with shared responsibility for families. Our role was to help the organization integrate this change within the larger management system; design and facilitate large group reflection meetings among the social workers, supervisors and managers involved in the change; provide coaching and shared learning opportunities for the team leaders of the seven pilot units; and plan for scale-up of the program. The pilot has been very successful in not only reducing the stress of individual social workers, but also in empowering families to receive more effective support from the department. The project received an Innovations in American Government award and has drawn the attention of other state social services departments around the U.S.A.

• For a major bank, we developed a program for 20 change agents on applying systems thinking to facilitate organizational change. The program included training in advanced systems thinking skills; project work by participants to solve complex, chronic problems in the bank; and a train-the-trainer process that enabled participants to teach basic systems thinking skills throughout the company. Participants increased their abilities to diagnose “messes”, identify core issues, and mobilize key stakeholders to resolve the issues and improve performance.  TOP

 Team Effectiveness

• We were asked by an international development bank to facilitate a Team Leadership Program for one of its multidisciplinary country management teams. The project challenges included creating an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to development in line with the bank’s new strategy and helping team members to work with government officials in a coordinated way. Three years later the Country Director reported that the team continues to work closely together, deliver outstanding results, and be well recognized throughout the bank and by the client country.

• We worked with five product development teams at a major footwear company to help them improve their communication skills, identify barriers to productivity, and engage in joint problem solving. They were able to transform their communication patterns, overcome barriers, and raise key issues with senior management. In all cases, team members reported greatly increased efficacy in accomplishing their goals.

• We helped the patient safety committee of a leading hospital define and develop a new approach to increasing safety for staff and patients hospital wide. They were able to significantly improve their ability to identify and achieve their desired results. Senior management then approved the proposed safety principles and are now using them as a foundation for organization change.

• We worked with the staff of a university student services organization to help them build their sense of cohesion and communication skills. They reported that they had a great year of innovative programming and more effective responses to student needs. In addition, they experienced more good will and the sheer enjoyment of working together.  TOP

 Leadership Development

• We coached all members of the senior management group of a large social services agency to become a more effective self-managing team. We developed their individually and collective abilities to envision and communicate new possibilities, take a stand for their beliefs, raise and resolve conflicts, plan and implement strategic change projects, delegate responsibility, and manage time and priorities more effectively. After only three months, the Board saw remarkable growth in the effectiveness of the entire leadership team.

• We helped over 30 fellows become more effective in leading environmental public health projects. Our focus was on training the fellows to think systemically about the changes they wanted to make, i.e., to understand the root causes of the problems they wanted to solve and to identify solutions that would produce significant, sustainable results. Over the 9 months of the program, the fellows tackled such issues as coordination of environmental public health services among multiple agencies, reducing radon risks in residential communities and building local capacity to respond to indoor mold problems. Their final reports demonstrated keen insight into both the technical and political dimensions of the changes they were leading.

• A major foundation asked us to improve its grant-making and managerial effectiveness by developing the capacity of its program and administrative staff in systems thinking. The staff directly applied the principles and tools they learned through workshops and coaching to focus the foundation’s grant-making in such areas as ensuring sustainable food supplies and reducing child obesity, and to improve such internal processes as evaluation and knowledge management.

• We worked with a senior member of the marketing organization in a major pharmaceutical company to help him take on increased managerial responsibilities and improve his responsiveness to requests from his direct reports. Our work enabled him to increase his managerial skills and lead a highly effective marketing team to become the one of the best in his department.

• We helped a recently promoted front-line engineering manager assume his new responsibilities. Our work supported him to relate more effectively to his internal customers and suppliers, supervise staff, address challenges posed by particular individuals, and translate his own natural leadership capabilities to a different environment. He is now being targeted for a second promotion.  TOP

 Collaboration for Social Change

•A community coalition asked us to assist them in developing a ten-year plan to end homelessness in their region. We first partnered with a broad group of stakeholders – including leaders in the social, public, and private sectors as well as homeless people themselves – to identify the system dynamics underlying chronic homelessness in the area. We then worked with them to target interventions that would solve the problem permanently, and used this information to help the community establish high leverage goals and strategies. The coalition’s plan was approved by the state government and has received funding for implementation.

•A Massachusetts town hired us to design and facilitate a visioning and problem-solving meeting for a representative group of its citizens. The purpose was to enable people to rise above special-interest concerns and focus on the overall potential and opportunities for the town as a whole. One immediate result of the forum was that 52 of the attendees (nearly 50% of the total) volunteered to help expand the civic engagement process to include their fellow citizens.

• An international organization asked us to explore the potential for adding a systems thinking dimension to traditional conflict analysis methods. To do this, we worked with a group of NGOs working in Burundi on issues of reconstruction and peace-building after many years of civil war. We collaborated with the NGOs to develop a common understanding of the system dynamics underlying the conflict and to identify leverage points where they could focus together to create a stable and peaceful nation. We introduced participants to the principles and tools of systems thinking, suggested alternative ways of mapping the conflict, and gathered their input to produce an integrated map. As a result, participants developed a shared picture of the conflict and identified four areas where their actions could make the greatest difference.

• For a national African-American nonprofit organization we co-developed and facilitated a workshop for 30 CEO’s of their affiliates. The focus was on helping the executives meet the leadership challenges of integrating a business orientation into a nonprofit organization. The CEO’s came away with a clearer understanding of their personal capabilities, a vision of an organization that achieves both a social and economic mission, plans to get support for their new venture, and an approach to managing the organizational changes required.

• We have helped several companies develop the capacity to align their financial, environmental, and social accountability goals. In all cases the purpose has been to improve collaboration with company stakeholders for mutual gain, rather than to take from society on the one hand and give back to it on the other. Sample projects have included: