Case Study / Change Management in a Fast Paced Start Up Environment Incorporating the Human Side of Change. 01/ The Client

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1 Case Study / Tailored Vision To Results surveys pinpoint the organisation s weaknesses around change management and establish a clear path for improvement. Change Management in a Fast Paced Start Up Environment Incorporating the Human Side of Change 01/ The Client Gilt is an online fashion flash sales website. It was founded in 2007 in the United States as an internet start-up and has grown significantly, now employing over 1000 people in offices in the USA, Ireland and Japan.

2 Gilt approached rogensi for help when the company was about a quarter of the way into implementing the FIFO project. 02/ The Challenge The company had issues with change management. As an internet start-up Gilt was operating in an environment where things were constantly changing: new technologies were frequently being introduced and the culture was fast-moving but the company s people faced challenges keeping up with the pace of change. Gilt was in the midst of a large organisational change as the company implemented a new FIFO (an accounting term for First In, First Out) system in relation to the way it process its inventory. Originally the company selected the products to be photographed and featured on the site according to what would create the biggest aesthetic impact and when the sale would occur. Gilt used fashion designers and professional photographers to create artistic pages and often waited for the goods to come in that would create the biggest buzz. By implementing FIFO to create efficiencies, Gilt changed this approach completely, focusing instead on photographing the products that were first available rather than waiting for items. This change impacted the merchandising, creative, technology and operations departments and people did not handle it well. The company needed to equip its leadership team to handle change management more effectively ahead of another company-wide change. 03/ The Solution Gilt approached rogensi for help when the company was about a quarter of the way into implementing the FIFO project. The consultants from rogensi used their Vision To Results assessment to gauge the company s ability to change and discover its strengths and weaknesses around change management. rogensi produced diagnostic data indicating how the different teams in the company were performing against ten leadership factors. This was followed by qualitative interviews with individuals across the organisation asking them about their alignment with Gilt s strategy and the implementation of the FIFO process. After this two-pronged approach had been completed, rogensi produced two documents detailing the results of the quantitative and qualitative assessments which they shared with the company s senior leadership team at an off-site meeting. The Vision To Results survey highlighted the company s strengths and weaknesses in detail and these findings were backed up by qualitative quotes from the interviews with individuals. A number of themes around handling change emerged from the feedback and the rogensi consultants presented five key areas or change imperatives for the leadership team to concentrate on to improve their ability to manage change. These included establishing a culture of accountability and clarifying and communicating the vision and strategy for change. When they communicated as a leadership team it wasn t consistent, so rogensi recommended an improved communication planning process.

3 After obtaining the buy in from the leadership team, the rogensi consultants worked with them to start developing the skills needed to improve in key areas. These included running a short term Vision To Results survey that was tailored to fit Gilt s culture and coaching the management team to prepare them for another forthcoming change project which involved some of the company s departments changing location. One of the key benefits of working with rogensi was to get their outside perspective on what we were doing, says Susan Riskin, Director of Human Resources at Gilt. We were concentrating on the smaller details and they helped us look at the bigger picture and consider the impact of factors we might otherwise have missed: they broadened our focus and that was very important. 05/ The Achievement Gilt has gained a number of significant benefits as a result of this engagement: The Vision To Results survey enabled the leadership team to validly test the organisation s performance in an area where they suspected they had a weakness. The combined quantitative and qualitative data proved where the weaknesses were and enabled them to address them. Gilt s leadership team did not have the time and resources to lead this programme themselves and the tools were not available internally to identify the specific areas for improvement. Having rogensi s expertise at their disposal has allowed the leadership team to pinpoint how to address the change management weaknesses and put an improvement plan in place. rogensi s consultants recently worked with Gilt s leadership team on the communication planning strategy for the organisation s next change project. As a result, the organisation now has a clear plan of what the specific messages are, how the messages will differ for each shareholder group and who is responsible for delivering each message. The executives responsible have practised delivering the messages via role play and received feedback from the consultants and their peers. As a result the messages communicated will be consistent, engaging and have much more impact. The organisation now has a number of change imperatives to work on that will significantly improve the way Gilt handles change management. These include establishing a culture of accountability, developing an effective communication cascade, placing additional emphasis on the groups most impacted by change and putting in structural parameters to ensure that people don t go back against the initial change.

4 The biggest thing rogensi helped us with is to make our leadership team more aware of the impact of the changes we make to the company. Our main objective of working with rogensi was to ensure we could roll out our next change management programme successfully and that we had our people on board: excited, engaged and involved, says Riskin. rogensi were amazing they had us thinking through every single area and their approach was very granular: they ensured that we practised having conversations with people and that really helped us achieve what we wanted. 06/ The Legacy The approach to change management that rogensi introduced to Gilt has been particularly successful because it focuses not only on the rational but the emotional drivers for change. This holistic approach ensures that people not only understand the strategic reasons for implementing change but they are also engaged and excited by the change process. By focusing on the organisation s people as leaders of change rather than on systems and operations, Gilt has been able to ensure that those impacted by change are fired up and motivated to implement it and sustain it in the long term. The biggest thing rogensi helped us with is to make our leadership team more aware of the impact of the changes we make to the company, says Riskin. However minor we might think the changes are, we now realise that our people see them as much larger and we have to work hard to communicate our plans to them in a way that engages them and keeps them on board. The company s latest change programme involving the relocation of two teams has recently been implemented and the outcome has been a marked success compared to the FIFO project that had caused the initial challenges. The difference between the previous project and the one we ve just done is like night and day, says Riskin. In terms of how we executed it and the morale level after it was rolled out, everything was much better this time around and I believe that s because we put into practice everything that rogensi taught us. 07/ The Verdict rogensi s change management approach is different from other organisations because they don t focus purely on the rational or systems change, they focus on the emotional or people change. They are very knowledgeable and very good at steering us in the right direction without being too forceful. They helped our leaders recognise that in order to execute change it has to be done through people and we have to win over their hearts, minds and spirits to implement it effectively.

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