What We Have Done

Pelerei has a proven track record in every area of its expertise – whether the client is US-located or international in scope. While some clients need only one, others demand the full range of Pelerei’s strengths. More often than not the strengths from one area are present even when another seems to be the headliner.

Listed in this section is a discussion of the business situation for bringing the particular strength to the table and an example of how Pelerei has worked with clients in each case.

Culture Change and Introducing New Processes
Retreats for Leadership and Work Units
Cultural Dynamics in a Global Workplace

Research and Institutional Analysis
Human Resource Policy
Evaluation

Knowledge Management
Transferring Knowledge to the Next Generation
Information Systems
Learning Strategies

We believe it is the business need that should dictate what is called for. Story is rarely the motivating reason for an engagement. Yet, in all of our engagements, story is a part.

If you will read through the examples, you are likely to see story peeking out from between the lines. But for more information on why we use story so much, go to Story as Catalyst.

Culture Change and Introducing New Processes

Culture change is probably the hardest goal to achieve, because changing a culture involves changing behaviors about how staff do their work and relate to one another. Pelerei has been brought in on several occasions to help in this work. Of the techniques used to help members of an organization to see the value of changing their behaviors, the most common one that Pelerei uses is to collect exemplary stories. This was done with a major accounting firm, an international funding agency, a small boutique communications company. Another technique used is coaching as was done in a major international development institution.

In one specific case, the organization wished for their project managers to begin to use new technological means to work with clients overseas. Personal travel was the preferred way, and entire behavior patterns had evolved that supported this approach. To help staff see the benefits to be gained while achieving success, it was necessary to have successful pilots. A contest was offered in which selected proposals received additional funding from a budget set aside, individual coaching from an expert project manager supplied, and technical support from the work unit sponsoring the change. Out of 21 proposals received, seven were selected. When all achieved stated goals, the shift to the new way of doing business picked up dramatically and has become the norm. Pelerei’s role was to design, communicate, administer, and supply the coach to the project.

Retreats for Leadership and Work Units

Executive teams, especially at the Board level, are reluctant to be led in a retreat unless there is high value from the first moment of engagement. When the team is international, the expectations are still higher. Defining a vision and developing a strategy demand confidence in the facilitator. This is particularly important when groups merge or when the former vision is no longer working because of a change in the environment of the business or a change in leadership. Pelerei tends to be brought in to assist in developing a new vision and strategy because clients feel and often state that they have a level of comfort knowing that the Pelerei team brings strong knowledge of what leadership means and understands the additional leadership challenges when dealing with an international group.

In one case, the team was called upon to develop a future story for their company. In this case, we began with time spent telling stories from the past that allowed the members to feel a comfort of the familiar before jumping off to define the new destination in unfamiliar ground. It turned out that the careful remembering of the past successes spurred the group to reach out much further than they otherwise would. Once done, this group began implementing the very next week.

Cultural Dynamics in a Global Workplace

During the 1990s, international organizations began to recognize that issues of discrimination had become a moral imperative. They were not above the law, but neither were they bound by the laws of the US. Pelerei was the single firm who entered into this complex arena during the early part of this decade. Pelerei conducted the first studies on gender issues at five major international organizations.  Sometimes the work involved the entire organization. Sometimes, we were called in to aid a work unit learn how to identify and correct its own behavior patterns.

When a major player in international finance chose to examine the issue of discrimination on the basis of race and nationality, it called upon Pelerei to conduct the work. Our assistance involved an international team using several techniques that assured that both staff and management had opportunity to express opinion and suggestions.

One study conducted by Pelerei was to examine for the first time, the written performance evaluations of men and women. Content analysis was used. Results revealed differences in the written evaluations of women from men – differences that could be addressed easily by informed managers and staff themselves.

Research and Institutional Analysis

Pelerei’s expertise in research design and techniques is well known. Here are a few examples of the wide range of techniques used – each chosen to respond to the business need and resource envelope.

A nation-wide marketing research study was done through the collection of personal stories about the use of the products of an overseas manufacturer. The company gained enormous insight into the American market.

Benchmark studies were conducted for several groups seeking to compare how they rated in a particular area to other similar institutions. In one case, the organization was so complex that comparators were chosen from different industries to add to the interpretation of the comparison. To aid in benchmarking studies, surveys (both electronic and telephonic), interviews, site visits, and more have been used.

At times the research required is internal. Such institutional analysis has been done on work methods, company-wide policies and procedures, and cost/benefit analyses of ‘soft’ services.

In one case, a knowledge management strategy was shown to provide a 6 to 1 return on investment by using a combination of quantitative savings and qualitative improvements.

Human Resource Policy

Human resource policy demands an understanding of managerial issues as well as what helps staff do their work. Pelerei has been called upon to study special career streams to identify the issues and recommend policy changes that will be win-win. Noted elsewhere in this list is the work Pelerei has done in defining career streams in KM. Pelerei has also been called in to work through other career streams that are as varied as printing and editing, financial, specialized technical, and administrative.

In one case, Pelerei worked with a client Work Group to look at the issues of every staff member that was not part of the core work of the organization. The challenge was to treat these staff with respect while recognizing that their work was in support of the core. Through focus groups, surveys, quantitative analysis, and policy reviews, the Work Group, with facilitation from Pelerei, brought forward new policies that met the objectives.

Evaluation

Evaluation must fit the level of effort of that which is being evaluated. Too often, the evaluation process proposed outstrips the cost of the original piece. This type of evaluation is proposed to get the ‘correct’ answer. Pelerei’s approach is to provide the client with sufficient information to determine if the event, project, workshop had something that can be learned and applied in the future. The designs are done so that the cost is reasonable against the total.

In one of our evaluation tasks, the cost was set at less than 2% of the total cost, and the results were written in the language of the manager, that is to say, in a few pages that were directed at particular actions to be taken.

Knowledge Management

Pelerei’s work in knowledge management comes out of a long history in information management combined with strong managerial experience and deep understanding of how human systems work. Some of our work has been to:

• Develop a coherent career stream and job descriptions that appropriately distinguish between KM and IT (Information Technology) work.
• Conduct cost benefit analysis of selected KM strategies.
• Create learning events that go way beyond the normal workshop and panel designs.
• Creating whole learning programs to aid every level of the organization to discover what KM can do for them as individuals and as a company.

In one case, a large group of technical specialists were assisted in discovering the appropriate communities of practice in such a way that years later, they remain vibrant.

Transferring Knowledge to the Next Generation

The baby boomers are retiring rapidly from the workforce leaving glaring gaps in corporate knowledge. This phenomenon will increase over time given that in addition to a large bulge in the numbers of folks in this category, there is less and less money to provide in service training by junior staff prior to the individual leaving. Consultant contracts after the fact are not proving to be a perfect solution. Harvesting knowledge in a manner that helps others learn attends to the future use of the knowledge,

In one case, the challenge brought to Pelerei was to help subject matter experts who were mature in their areas create improved ways in which they could transfer their knowledge to the next generation. The year before, this group of world-renowned experts were rated at the very bottom. They were rated as the best the year after being coached by Pelerei.

Information Systems

Although most of today’s literature spends time on knowledge, much of Pelerei’s early work was in helping organizations build information strategies through processes that were both fast and understandable. This history has created a remarkable understanding of how information is used to energize organizations. This knowledge remains valid today.

In one situation, an information flow analysis revealed that a company was about to fail altogether. With a new information strategy in place built on this analysis, it survived and remains viable today, 13 years later.

Learning Strategies

Pelerei has recognized for many years that training is best done when the instructor understands from the very beginning that the best that can be done is to create the right learning environment for the student. Dedicated to using the best instructional design concepts and techniques, Pelerei has been called in to design and conduct everything from 2 hour workshops to full orientation programs to special sessions on critical organizational issues to individual coaching for leaders to designing full global conferences. More recently, Pelerei has been called upon to assist in coaching instructional designers themselves.

When Pelerei was asked to create a distance learning course by a company with sites around the world, the course was designed and delivered in less time than any unit had done before in the organization. After observing the quality that can be obtained through efficient methods of design, the bar had been raised.