The Middle

Jim Hamilton has played a leading role for over 30 years in the Life Sciences, Health and Nutrition industries, including as a CEO and Board Director in the Dietary Supplement, Food, Animal-feed and Personal-Care product sectors.He joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management challenges in a business to business context.The discussion covers topics such as adding value through staying close to evolving customer needs, maintaining an appropriate culture and the selection of measures to include non-financial aspects.

Robert Kirby is the director of People-People, architects and engineers of behavioural, attitudinal and cultural transformation in the workplace.He joins Stephen Willson to explore the negotiating, conselling and conflict-resolution skills required by middle managers to maximise their contribution to organsational performance.The discussion opens by considering the selection of industry, company and role to enable managers to fufil their potential.

Tom Clarke-Forrest is the founder and CEO of the youth-focused charity Sport4Life. He joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management challenges for a founder  developing a business from start-up to thirty employees, balancing fund-raising and operations. The parallels with commercial businesses are numerous and striking.While growth has always been an objective the issue takes on new proportions with the prospect of working nationally .

Andy is a junior doctor in an NHS trust hospital sharing his observations in five NHS trusts. He joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management challenges in hospitals in the national health system. The episode focuses on numerous tensions implicit within the NHS constitution of improving public health and wellbeing.Should doctors be encourated to share staff across deparments given fluctuating demands that may push one over capacity while an adjoining area has surplus capacity?How can the demands of different departments be reconciled when it comes to prioritising the limited capacity of shared services such as operating theatres and  laboratories?Are general hospitals the appropriate channel for patients with mental health issues since they appear to disproportionately absorb resources and disrupt throughput?

Shakti Singh is the senior finance director at Ramboll Group A/S an international engineering consultancy based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management challenges in bringing about successful business transformation. A particular issue is whether shared services should be local or centralized.Shakti draws on her international experience to illustrate approaches and pitfalls when businesses obsolete their existing business models before a competitor does it for them.Consideration is also given to the influence of the nature of the industry and the international setting rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all approach.

David Spencer is the head of marketing for Old Speckled Hen at Greene King, Britain's leading pub retailer and brewer. He joins Stephen Willson to explore how marketing philosophy and practices inform middle management action.David discusses the challenges of gaining a deep understanding of customer behaviour in a context that is evolving both in terms of points of purchase and consumption.This subsequently raises the issues of how such insights are suffused into the organisation to ensure that customer desires are fulfilled in the best possible way.

Richard Morgan is the chief operating officer of LKQ Euro Car Parts, a national supplier to independent garages. He joins Stephen Willson to explore the issues of managing over 250 branches in order to be able to deliver the most common parts within 20 minute time slots.He discusses the role of central and regional management in stock control and developing local community engagement and expertise in the face of a changing market.

Liz Herridge is the Director of Network Claims and Transformation at National Highways, the public sector organisation responsible for the strategic road network. She joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management issues within reconfiguring the  claims workflow processes.Liz addresses the challenges of establishing a consistent information gathering system to improve national system throughput despite regions have diverse and potentially conflicting objectives.The issues within the transformation journey include work re-allocation, stimulating team support and motivation by leaders and the multi-skilling and mobility of resources. 

In this episode Stephen Willson questions the intuitive presumption that achieving the best overall outcome is attained by maximising results within boundaries. The executive contributions illustrate unintended damaging behaviours that can occur across boundaries. These boundaries include between territories, business functions, alternative customer offerings and over period ends.Stephen then explores the importance of aligning all business units and functions with the  overall organisational purpose and provides examples of tactical, structural and cultural  ways to manage boundaries.

Jim DeWaele is the European president of the Keller Group, a global geotechnical specialist building contractor. He joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management issues of working in the high risk arena of building foundations in uncertain ground conditions. A local approach is described  that addresses the national challenges of different contractual arrangements, material costs and familiarity with alternative techniques.He discusses the requirements of organisation design to provide rapid access to distributed expertise across the network of 190 branches when unexpected difficulties arise on site.