Charlotte Beers At Om

When Charlotte Beers was appointed CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, the company was experiencing deteriorating business and organizational crisis. The four "vital signs" of O&M point of view the company were not performing well: (1) Power: after the loss of important clients (especially American Express) the employees became disengaged and a "shaken confidence" permeated the whole company. (2) Identity: O&M had an international footprint with very autonomous local offices and there were no systems to promote collaboration among them. (3) Conflict: O&M had a "grotesquely polite" culture, a result of a selection process which recruited "gentlemen with brains". (4) Learning: The previous management team was not been able to recognize the "Forces for changes" (i.e. the economic shock of 1987 and the consequential increase in competition from "boutique" creative shops) that were reshaping the industry environment ("why did we need to change? Just keep doing the same thing, Better") and eventually led the company to be the object of a hostile takeover.

From the moment she joined the company, Beers understood the necessity to be the primary change agent in order to "re-invent" the agency. Her goals were mainly concerned with revitalizing the four vital dimensions of O&M. Beer's mission at Ogilvy was to re-create the agency by redefining its aims, processes, people, and structure in reaction to the demands placed on it by the changing advertising industry.

Despite the company's historical "rejection of outsiders", Beers used her charisma to start a change process which was consistent with Kotter's eight step plan for implementing change . First, she communicated the urgency of change in a message sent to all 7,000 employees. Her two key messages in this initial contact were:

Ð'* She was not going to "change the identity of the company by edict" and on the contrary she was looking for people with a similar desire to change the status quo to join her

Ð'* The change was inevitable and would be quick. Demonstrating this commitment to change she fired a top level executive which opposed the reorganization, exhibiting a top down approach consistent with the E-type leadership style.

The second step was to create a coalition of executives from different functions based on their positive attitude towards change ("Thirsty for change group") to support her process of restructuring the company. The meeting she organized in Vienna incorporated selected employees as key contributors in the change process by delegating them the responsibility for the formulation of a vision. At this junction Beers demonstrated a Type-O leadership style, following a "soft" approach to change aimed to "develop corporate culture and human capability trough individual and organizational learning the process of changing, obtaining feedback, reflecting and making further changes ". The Vienna meeting resulted in an unplanned success. For the first time top executives of the company worked in a "climate of disruption", dismissing the use of a pure theoretical framework. They engaged in straight talk where all the different personalities and strategic priorities came to the surface. Moreover, the team defined the main theme ("brands were what we were going to be about") on which they would build the final vision of the company. In the last meeting in New York, after a long and stressful process of brainstorming, the team finalized the new vision. In this situation