Organizational strengthening and operational coordination in a healthcare services company
After months of staff departures, most of the team was new. According to management, complete job descriptions were missing and decisions rested on very few people.
A diagnostic that measured organizational structure and set four priorities: roles and authority, reliance on key people, coordination across sites, and annual objectives.
Five individual interviews, a workshop with seven members of the operating team, and 70 items assessed across six components of the business.
A healthcare services company replaced a large part of its team within a few months and kept operating. It did so without an organizational chart that reflected reality and without complete job descriptions. According to its management, most of the current staff is new.
The challenge
The company operates across several sites. One of its managers summed up what it needed in a single word: order. It was not asking for new ideas, but for structure around what already existed. It wanted defined roles, processes that did not depend on the manager's own supervision, and an environment where staff could advance on transparent criteria.
What we did
We applied the Business X-Ray, DUAL's initial diagnostic.
- Interviews: five individual conversations, with managers and staff from key areas.
- Workshop: one, with seven members of the operating team.
- Assessment: 70 items across six components of the DUAL Model.
- Document review: the financial and operating information available.
What we found
- Structure without a written basis: positions lacked complete descriptions and authority was exercised by custom. All five interviewees pointed to the absence of defined roles.
- Concentrated decisions: staff escalated to general management matters that could be resolved at the operating level.
- Knowledge in few hands: critical functions and commercial relationships depended on very few people.
- A willing team: the operating team showed motivation and commitment. It needed structure more than replacement.
Results
The diagnostic defined 4 organizational priorities, in this order:
- Roles and authority: define who does what and who decides.
- Dependencies: document critical knowledge and provide backup for key positions.
- Coordination: agree how areas and sites work with one another.
- Objectives: write a few annual goals that give each area direction.
We also delivered:
- 13 prioritized actions at 3, 6 and 12 months, in three stages: stabilize, organize and grow. The plan is preliminary and will be validated in the next stage.
- 1.5 out of 5 as the structure score, the lowest of the six components. Five of its ten items were at the minimum level.
- A heat map, a risk and opportunity matrix and an uncertainty map.
DUAL proposed addressing the four priorities in twelve weeks, with one business capsule for each.
Value delivered
Management moved from an intuition, that order was missing, to a measured baseline and a short, sequenced list of priorities. It knows which component is weakest and where to begin.
This case corresponds to the diagnostic phase. Implementation is the client's decision.
