Are you a Complex Organization?
Our best work (and value) happens with organizations that are different or complex:
Multi-department collaboration
Deadline- and Project-driven organizations
Pharma and health care
Massively multi-stakeholder or multi-client environments
If your work is complex and people-driven, we’re built for you.
When traditional managing fails, or you need to find a better way of working.
We help you find the model that you should be using.
We bring a research-driven, systems-informed approach to organizational change. Our methods aren’t built on management trends — they’re built on field data from over a decade of transformations inside real, complex, people-driven organizations.
Team-Based Metrics: We use proprietary diagnostics rooted in cognitive science and behavioral analysis — not top-down compliance metrics.
Research-Backed Practices: Our approach integrates learnings from RAND, Agency Theory, systems design, and human-centered delivery models.
Managerial Efficiency: We don’t layer on more process. We remove the wasteful coordination costs and meeting overhead that quietly drain your teams.
Adaptable Implementation: Whether you need full-scale ops redesign or light-touch coaching, we meet you where you are.
Case Studies: Complex Organizations
1. Fintech “Messy real World” Real Estate Development Company
3. Global Pharmaceutical Communications Workflow
Eliminating decision and information latency within traditional business processes: 2X work velocity
The challenge: our client is in the business of professionalizing the process of acquiring, renovating, and selling of real estate properties. they had assembled an amazing collection of best practices and highly trained professionals, and were hitting great numbers. But they wondered… What aren't we seeing, what can we do better?
Our Work: we ran a set of diagnostic workshops, and very quickly narrow it into a few of their fairly complex processes, identifying root causes of rework and delays of various forms we implemented some simple shifts in the way they operate, along with simplification of some of their systems. Included in this was a broader education program for their leadership team to understand how to look at this part of their business.
Results: within just a few months they had slashed the span time by almost 50% netting a recurring six-figure savings on their cost of capital.
Streamlining cross-departmental collaboration, more than doubling (2X) work output and quality.
The challenge: this was the fourth project in a row that our Pharma client brought to us, a frighteningly, slow process of producing documents for patients, caregivers, and medical professionals. Like many processes in business, they did get things done, but not without significant lag in the work, and frequent rework that should never have happened.
Our Work: we used our 10 point productivity diagnostic in conjunction with several process stakeholder meetings to identify a detailed systems model that sought out and highlighted the root causes of the problems they had been facing. This model and the process of problem-socialization (Prochaska) is a common one for us, is the biggest challenge in instituting process change, especially in a situation with multiple departments and multiple layers of stakeholders, is that of aligning people on the drivers and benefits of the need for change. We also establish a set of benchmark metrics before making the change, which allows for process tuning, and of course, measurement of success.
Results: by the end of the first full quarter of using our revised process and spreadsheet based tools, document production had doubled (as measured at the endpoint), span times shrunk, and the amount of rework and revision had dropped dramatically. A survey of all stakeholders revealed that virtually every aspect of the change was viewed positively. Our client was promoted to be head of the operational innovation team as a result of this success.
Get Started: Diagnostic and Advisory Package
What it is:
Get your own wickedly smart and experienced Better Company consultant, ready to help you and your organization on its journey. The Get Started package includes one organizational diagnostic (for a collaborative group of up to 35 people), analysis and reporting, a ranked transformation priorities and methods plan, and a big handful of advisory hours.
Discovery and 2-Day Diagnostic Workshop
Productivity/Collaboration Diagnostic Workshop – a 360-style workshop involving a cross-section of your organization or whole department or team. For project or delivery-style organizations, the results are then benchmarked against our database of over 80 other organizations. This typically exposes the deep root causes of persistent delivery challenges, such as missing/shrinking margin, high rework rates, and lower-than-planned worker productivity.
For collaborative teams and groups, we use a different, purpose-built 10-point diagnostic that covers the above productivity delivery factors and also topics such as quality, trust, and autonomy.
Transformation Priorities and High-Level Map — we’ll give you our read-out on the diagnostic, including a walk-through of the underlying systems model, including the key (independent) levers for transformation. The transformation priorities list usually contains 2-5 major transformation needs, and a larger number of smaller, easier to implement needs.
Advisory and Consulting — after reviewing the diagnostic report with you and your leadership group, we’ll work with you to develop conceptual launch plans for the major transformation areas, and also advise and guide your team on how to directly address the smaller ones.
Pricing: Starting at $15,000, higher for multi-organizational work. (exclusive of travel)