The U.S. Defense Distribution Center (DDC) is on mission to improve continuously, and Denison Consulting has been a strong partner to the organization in this journey.

DDC is the largest unit of the U.S. Department of Defense - Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). It delivers logistics services worldwide for every branch of the U.S. military. With 26 major sites around the world, and more than 8,000 civilian and military employees, the DDC stores, ships, and maintains the full range of equipment and supplies used by U.S military personnel globally. It fulfills millions of purchase requisitions annually, and its logistics operation is larger than that of many Fortune 50 companies.

Four years ago, DDC mobilized a business transformation initiative, with a focus on enhancing the organization’s culture. Since that time, the Denison Organizational Culture Survey has been used on a regular basis. And more recently, both DDC and DLA have applied a 360-degree leader-rating tool also supplied by Denison Consulting – the Denison Leadership Development Survey.

Initial survey results helped DDC’s leadership identify gaps and problems, including employee and leader competency issues; a need for more standardized processes; a business infrastructure that, in many areas, was perceived as being obsolete; and more. But, the top issue that concerned DDC leaders was a climate of mistrust between managers and employees.

Rebuilding trust emerged as a major theme of the DDC business transformation, and three key areas rapidly became focal points: communication, teamwork, and leadership. DDC moved immediately to develop and implement employee-selection and promotion processes that would be perceived as being fair, transparent, and consistent with the mission and goals of the organization. To develop and support effective leaders and managers, DDC established a leadership-training institute, and all senior and mid-level managers to date have participated in this training.

In 2005, a DDC Transformation Office was created to drive for the deployment of world-class business systems and processes throughout the organization. This office has played a major role in helping DDC facilities institutionalize lean business practices, processes and systems based on the approach initially used globally by Toyota and called the Toyota Production System.

DDC leaders at the local level have mounted facility-specific strategies to improve communication, teamwork and leadership. “Managing by walking around,” regular employee meetings, open-door policies, communicating, empowering teams to make decisions, visual management, and celebrating success have become routine at DDC facilities worldwide.

At DDC, the organization’s business transformation is still a “work in progress.” But, its scores on the Denison Organizational Culture Survey have improved significantly. In addition, DDC’s metrics have reached historical highs, and continue to trend upward in virtually all areas of business performance.

Kevin Cummings, director of the DDC Transformation Office, has this to say about the dramatic change at the organization: “DDC’s commitment to continuous improvement is generating results, and it’s clear that culture has been a major driver of performance improvement."

Our Consulting Network members offer a wealth of experience in a vast range of industries and areas of expertise. They continue to share their valuable insights to help improve the overall effectiveness of organizations around the world.  Recently, John Baldoni, author of How Great Leaders Get Great Results (McGraw-Hill 2006) and founder of Baldoni Consulting L.L.C based in Ann Arbor, MI, commented on how individuals can reinforce or improve their organizational culture on FastCompany.com's Expert Blog.  In his commentary, Baldoni recognizes that culture is akin to the overall environment within an organization and he gives suggestions on how individuals and teams can directly impact it.

Read his article, “Bottom-line: Culture Matters,” online at FastCompany.com.

The study linking organizational culture and bottom-line results, co-authored by Ryan Smerek, Research Analyst and Dan Denison, was featured in a recent press release.

Serving as a warning to company leaders, the article focuses on the results of the study by Smerek and Denison, which indicate that companies lagging their peers in key measures of organizational culture achieve less favorable outcomes in return-on-assets (ROA), sales growth, and shareholder value. The message is clear; neglecting organizational culture may pose risks to bottom-line business outcomes. Can organizations today afford not to pay attention to their culture?

Read the article, "Company Leaders Beware: Neglecting Organizational Culture May Pose Risks to Earnings, Growth and Shareholder Value," written by Ken Stockton.

At SIOP’s annual conference in New York City this April, Denison Consulting will present some exciting research co-authored by Dan Denison, Lindsey Kotrba, M.A., and Dr. Sandy Lim that explores the impact employee age may have on perceptions of leadership. A rapidly aging population has led to an aging workforce, and to an increase in the number of older workers being hired for jobs traditionally held by younger people. Focusing on leadership, this new research explores some of the potential implications of these trends by examining whether employees of different age groups differ in their perceptions of themselves and others as leaders. Preliminary research suggests that younger leaders (those less than 30 years of age) typically underrate their leadership skills in comparison to others’ views, while middle-age workers (those between 30-49 years of age) overrate themselves. To learn more, visit us at SIOP and attend our presentation. We hope to see you there

Event Details:

• Title: Leadership, Trust, Retention: Generational Differences in North America and Europe
• Time: Sunday, April 29th at 8:30 am
• Location: Majestic Music Box (6th floor) (room changes possible, please check your SIOP program)

Denison Consulting was the focus of a major feature story that appeared in the March 2007 issue of Consultants News, a national trade publication targeting the business-consulting community. The three-page article was entitled “The Corporate Culture Performance Key: Research Shows a Link Between the Organization’s Culture and Its Bottom Line.”

In the story, the development and application of the Denison model of organizational culture are profiled. In addition, results of a recent Denison study are highlighted. In the research, companies that achieved high scores on the Denison Organizational Culture Survey delivered better business results than those with lower scores.

To prepare the story, the reporter for Consultants News interviewed Bill Neale, founding partner of Denison Consulting. In the article, Neale has this to say about the value of the Denison Organization Culture Survey to consultants and the businesses they serve.

“The whole concept of corporate culture is historically considered to be pretty squishy. For example, in a business meeting with…someone like Bob Ulrich, CEO of Target – known as ‘seven-minute Bob’ – you don’t go into that meeting talking about corporate culture. You better talk about improving the bottom line. The Denison tool allows a consultant to speak the language of business, rather than what’s looked upon as the soft-and-fluffy stuff.”

Consultants News is one of five publications available from Peterborough, New Hampshire-based Kennedy Information. Founded in 1970, the company provides products and services to enhance the performance of consulting firms.

The professionals at Denison Consulting often serve as “media experts” -- providing insights about organizational culture and culture change. In many cases, they’re sought out to comment for emerging business stories, including news items on mergers and acquisitions, turnarounds, business reorganizations, and corporate downsizing initiatives. Dan Denison, founding partner of Denison Consulting, recently was quoted in a column in the Ann Arbor News about the reorganization and downsizing of Pfizer, a major pharmaceutical company. The company has announced plans to close its Ann Arbor operations within two years, and there has been significant media coverage in the local area about this development. In the column, Dan Denison comments about the influence of organizational culture, in these words: “Organizational culture is extremely important to business success, and the good news is that it is not a ‘soft science.’” To read the complete story, click here.

The Denison model of organizational culture – and the diagnostic tools based on it – are gaining traction in China and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. In April 2005, Denison launched a joint-venture operation in Shanghai to serve clients in these areas. Called Denison Consulting Asia, the new operation emerged out of long-term collaboration between Denison Consulting and the managing director of Denison Consulting Asia, William H. Mobley, who also serves as Professor of Management at China International Business School in Shanghai.

Increasingly, companies with operations in China are using the Denison Organizational Culture Survey as a key performance-improvement tool. Clients of Denison Consulting China have included multinational firms such as Motorola Asia and Haworth, as well as the Shanghai Public Health Center and many more.

On October 18-20, Denison Consulting China will host the company’s annual Forum, in which organizations share their “best practices” in organizational improvement.

Staffing Denison’s Shanghai office, in addition to Mobley, are Nancy Zhang, senior consultant; Lena Wang, client manager; and Kate Fang, client manager. Contact information for the office is as follows:

Denison Consulting Asia
Suite 2006-2007
One Corporate Avenue
222 HuBin Road
Shanghai 20021
P.R. China
Phone: (86 21) 6340 6222
Fax: (86 21) 6340 6226

In 2007, Denison Consulting again will proudly sponsor the Adams Racing Formula Ford 2000 Championship Team.  This year's racing schedule includes SCCA and F2000 races in the first half of the season:

• April 28-29 Gingerman Raceway, South Haven, Michigan
• May 19-20 Blackhawk Raceway, Beloit, Wisconsin
• July 7-8 Indianapolis Raceway Park, Indianapolis, Indiana
• July 13-15 Mid-Ohio Sport Car Course, Lexington, Ohio
• July 28-29 Road America, Elkhart Lake Wisconsin
• Aug 11-12 Grattan Raceway, Grand Rapids, Michigan
• Aug 25-26 Mosport, Toronto, Ontario