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Case Study: Large Group Interventions at AirBus’ ICT Organization

Rebecca M. Price

Sandermoen School of Business, University of Fredericton

MBA 5025D: Leadership in Change Management

April 23, 2023

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Case Study: Large Group Interventions at AirBus’ ICT Organization

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the design of the large-group

intervention used at Airbus by their Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

organization under the management of Chief Information Officer, Guus Dekkers, and team

member Susan Donnan, throughout 2009 and 2010. This paper will explore the intervention

theories and models applied within the organization, examine the agenda flow of the

organization’s summits, and evaluate the intervention’s success.

Large Group Intervention Design Evaluation and Analysis

When Guus Dekkers joined Airbus in 2008, he was faced with an organization that had

experienced multiple failed series of reorganization, a cynical and change-fatigued ICT

workforce, and pressure from senior leadership to produce certain results with respect to time,

cost, and quality objectives in projects and productivity in service delivery (Cummings &

Worley, 2019). AirBus was also being challenged by a continuing global financial and economic

crisis, intense competition in the industry, and increasing budget pressures, forcing Dekkers to

understand that his organizational intervention needed to improve objectives quickly and

significantly (Cummings & Worley, 2019). Dekkers began forming a new executive team which

included experienced internal managers and outside hires with applicable knowledge, and this

team defined a new vision, mission, and customer-facing transnational organization. Dekkers

later recruited Susan Donnan to guide the implementation process as an internal change agent

based on her experience and education, in hopes that she could facilitate the large-scale change

needed in AirBus. Donnan’s intervention design quickly resulted in positive changes for the ICT

team and allowed them to develop successful strategies for meeting their objectives and in-turn

allowed the organization to achieve success both immediately and long-term.

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Intervention Process Selection

According to Cummings & Worley (2019), Donnan searched for a change methodology

that would simultaneously reconfigure design features and engage a critical mass of

organizational members at all levels. With the goal of selecting the correct strategy to encompass

these goals as well as the knowledge of the organization’s burdens and complexity mentioned

previously, Donnan selected a Whole Systems Transformation (WST) to meet ICT’s needs.

WST, an intervention process developed and refined by Roland Sullivan, is designed to

help leaders of large groups engage a large, critical, and representative segment of the

organization (Cummings & Worley, 2019). Carter & Sullivan (2012) state that WST transforms

the organization as a “unified whole”, meaning the organization undergoing the change shifts

from one configuration to another and the change is not just a transformation of all systems in

the organization; it is the reinvention of an entirely new system. Unlike other large group

interventions, WST leads with alignment and transformation of the executive team, then

transforms a critical mass of the organization, and eventually follows up with efforts to sustain

the transformation.

Donnan’s rationale for her selection of a WST intervention process was also supported by

Worley et al. (2011) who found that to change the effectiveness of a system therefore requires

getting “the whole system in the room”; meaning that as many different, relevant stakeholder

groups as possible should be brought into the conference with the intent of bringing the

maximum number of perspectives to bear on the issue, problem, or opportunity.

Theories, Processes, and Models Applied

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Based on previous experience, Donnan recommended the organization put an

infrastructure in place to drive and support the transformation process which was agreed to by

the ICT executive team to support the change (Cummings & Worley, 2019). Donnan’s

infrastructure laid out an ICT transformation roadmap that placed precise timelines on when

objectives should be achieved as well as a WST team organization chart that provided a blueprint

of who made up each team (leadership, event, implementation, and facilitation) and what their

main purposes and goals were. Ensuring that each team member of the intervention knew their

team, their team’s role, and the anticipated timeline of phases allowed the intervention to run

smoothly yet quickly and effectively.

An open-systems thinking, which suggests that an organization’s current state is the

result of the intentional and unintentional interaction among many groups and individuals both

inside and outside the organization (Cummings & Worley, 2019), was necessary in the ICT large

group intervention as changing the organization’s vision, structure, strategy, or work requires the

deliberate, face-to-face coordination of these groups. Open-systems methods were utilized during

the leadership retreat which helped begin diagnosis of the existing environment and how the

organization relates to it and develop possible future environments and action plans to help

implement them. During the leadership retreat, the executive team visualized and described how

ICT would look when its vision, mission, and strategy were fully achieved, they also identified

the priorities to be addressed to take ICT from where it was to where they wanted it to be; a

trusted business partner delighting its internal customers. The teams agreed on actions and

commitments that they would perform to implement the ICT strategy that would allow them to

achieve the ideal future while reducing discrepancy.

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Donnan and Sullivan conducted ICT manager focus groups and executive team

interviews which concentrated on key issues in becoming a higher performing leadership team

and helping ICT to become a higher performing function. This data collected prior to the

leadership retreat was shared with the entire team and ensured that the retreat addressed the right

topics. In using this feedback and focusing on the important topics, retreat participants explored

organizational trust issues and worked on improving relationships, exchanging appreciation,

providing suggestions for improvement, and made requests and offers between one another.

Another positive outcome was the development of an annual calendar with dedicated meetings

for operational reviews and strategic topics.

As is the definition of the WST process, assembling a unified executive leadership team

who would act with “one brain and one heart” so they could speak with “one voice” would be a

critical prerequisite for launching the “transform the ICT critical mass” phase (Cummings &

Worley, 2019, p. 316). Donnan understood this need and successfully achieved a unified team by

beginning the transformational process with a leadership retreat where the outcome of which

resulted in the development of a microcosm of ICT with all subfunctions, all locations, and all

levels involved (Cummings & Worley, 2019). This small group of 13 team members whose

backgrounds closely match the organizational issues being addressed, were nominated and

empowered to design an ICT summit with the clearly defined purpose and set of outcomes

developed during the leadership retreat. It was essential that this team was aligning and buying

into the transformation process.

ICT Leadership Summit

As previously mentioned, one of the most important outcomes of the initial ICT

leadership retreat was the decision to design and hold a two-and-a-half-day ICT summit with the
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goal of creating an impactful, memorable, and transformative experience for participants.

Cummings and Worley (2019) state that a design team comprising OD practitioners and

organization members reflecting the general theme of the conference is formed to plan and

organize the intervention. While designing the summit, the team addressed four key components

for successful large group interventions: developing a compelling meeting theme, including

appropriate participants, developing relevant tasks to address the theme, and performing a post-

meeting follow-up.

Using the large group meeting framework, Donnan and Sullivan co-facilitated sessions

with a design team and together the team developed principles to guide the design of the summit.

The principles focused on: ensuring participants represented the critical mass of the ICT

organization (including believers and skeptics of change), creating a safe space for participants to

speak openly and truthfully, guiding appropriate activities and group tasks, and cultivating

generation of ideas and effective integrated decisions. To establish a theme for the summit and

make clear to others the purpose of the large group meeting, executive members must draw on

diagnostic data regarding the organization’s current state and the forces pressing for change.

Trust was a central theme of the summit which was displayed through the preliminary focus

group questioning and executive’s efforts to answer “elephant questions” during the summit.

The ICT summit’s purpose was to accelerate the continued implementation of [their]

vision and mission by creating a single team with one mind and one voice, fully engaged and

committed to change – enabling the success of AirBus (Cummings & Worley, 2019). The

summit allowed employees to hear the main issues brought forward by the focus groups and

interact in a supportive environment where they could communicate, ask questions, and

participate in the change. The summit also allowed many global employees to interact with team
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members they don’t regularly see, allowed employees to identify improvement and concrete

actions and cultivated personal commitments to change, which were many of the tangible

outcomes that the design team hoped to achieve.

Intervention and Summit Outcome

Overall, the ICT summit was an excellent way to generate communication and support

which would allow key stakeholders to fully get on board with the necessary change. Throughout

the summit, teams created implementation plans and took responsibility to follow through on

change initiatives which would eventually allow the organization to transform and sustain future

changes. When employees returned from the summit, they immediately acted as ambassadors for

change in their offices and looked to share the process and results with the rest of the

organization. Many projects, personal objectives, and deliverables were actioned to achieve

business objectives as a result of the ambassadors for change. AirBus continued to hold

leadership retreats and summits to encourage communication, ideation, and innovation, and

focused on a new theme during each iteration.

In this author’s opinion, the interventions implemented at this organization made an

exponentially positive difference for the ICT and AirBus’s employees. The actions taken by ICT

reinforced a culture change that allowed organization members to view their leaders as a unified

team who spoke with one voice and gain the confidence to act in alignment with their leaders for

the health of the whole. When organization members experience aligned leadership, they are

much more likely to accept changes and adapt quickly to new processes. The organization was

able to transform how the organization handles change and their ability to deal with change again

in the future. The WST process has helped organization members in the ICT build a capacity and

capability for change and are no longer paralyzed by changes within the organization. Members
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are able to embrace change, act in aligned ways, and are motivated to help the organization by

committing to personal and team objectives.

Critical Intervention Features for Success

One of the first critical intervention feature that ICT utilized for the success of their

organization transformation was choosing the correct person to lead the process and act as an

organizational development practitioner. It cannot be overlooked that Susan Donnan was a

crucial stakeholder in the entire process and spearheaded a change within an organization that

had made many previous attempts to achieve the things she did, unsuccessfully. Dekker chose

Donnan based on her education and experience and ultimately, her knowledge and

recommendations led to the organization’s intervention success. Donnan led the ICT through the

WST process, which was chosen by her through research and education, and worked with each

necessary team through each phase. Through Donnan’s guidance, the proper leadership team was

selected, the summit was designed with clear objectives and purpose, the large group meetings

were executed, and continuous follow-up was completed. These integral steps were what

successfully transformed the organization and allowed the ICT to meet their goals for the summit

while moving closer to the organization’s new vision.

Another intervention feature that was critical for the success of the ICT organization

transformation was leadership’s commitment to building trust, openness, and respect on each

level of management. An important theme that was upheld throughout AirBus’s large group

intervention was communicating that leadership was “one mind and one voice” and there was a

strong desire to unify the organization by building trust between executives and their teams.

According to Otto (2016), one big step in attaining that trust is by having a transparent

environment and transparency allows employees to feel confident in what they do and to get
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things done. Trust and transparency were achieved by ICT during their leadership summit by

including opportunities to ask “elephant questions” on each day of the summit. Employees were

encouraged to ask something that they had always wanted to but were too afraid to and executive

leadership would answer to the best of their ability. Allowing employees to pose questions

without fear of repercussions creates a great deal of trust between employees and leadership and

creates a more transparent working environment. Executive leadership demonstrated to

employees that authenticity and commitment to values are essential across the hierarchy by

working as an aligned unit and sharing their voice throughout the summit. This critical

intervention feature allowed employees to embrace the changes being made by a unified

organization and help their teams by acting as change agents themselves.

Summit Agenda and Flow

Participants of ICT’s 2010 Summit were provided a detailed purpose, tangible and

intangible outcomes, and an agenda prior to the summit to ensure the organization addressed

employees’ concerns, led employees through meaningful activities, and created a space for

openly sharing opinions without discrimination. The summit’s purpose was to accelerate the

continued implementation of ICT vision and mission by creating a single team with one mind

and one voice who are fully engaged and committed to change, and it was successfully

accomplished through the summit’s agenda and the activities that were planned.

The flow of the summit allowed each day to bring something new to the participants

while also bringing forward ideas and questions from the previous day and allowing employees

to provide feedback about the previous day. This type of agenda strategy makes sure that ideas

are not cast aside or forgotten and that employees know that their contributions are being

appreciated, accepted, and used throughout the entire process. As mentioned previously, the
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summit also allowed for “elephant questions” to be posed and answered each day which was one

of the most impactful activities that the meeting executed therefore it was a great idea for this to

be a recurring activity throughout the entire summit.

Break-out sessions were planned and executed in the summit’s agenda and included

activities which allowed the sharing each of participant’s vision of the organization’s future and

identifying actions to turn the vision into a reality (Cummings & Worley, 2019). This activity

had a significant impact on the participants as it engaged everyone for feedback and solidified

common objectives therefore assuring employees that they were a part of the process of change

within the organization. Employees that feel they are part of a change from the beginning are

more likely to accept the change process as it is implemented.

Conclusion

It is evident that AirBus successfully planned and executed a large group intervention

which significantly helped the challenges they were facing in a changing business environment,

increasing competition, and budgeting concerns. ICT at AirBus successfully unified their

executive leadership team and developed a “one brain and one heart” outlook and alignment

within their organization and was able to onboard the critical mass and achieve the outcomes that

they had outlined. AirBus has continued to evolve and innovate based on the initial iteration of

this intervention and enforce a culture of continuous improvement. The organization’s

commitment to the WST process has ensured a positive, open-system, that will continue to

evolve. As a result, AirBus is truly a leader in successful change and should be able to inspire

similar large group organizations that are also in need of transformation.

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References

Carter, L., & Sullivan, R. (2012, January 1). Whole Systems Transformation; The New Paradigm

in Strategic Change for the 21st Century. Best Practice Institute.

https://www.bestpracticeinstitute.org/images/ls_references/ls_780/

WST_FINAL_LRC_FINAL.pdf

Cummings, T. G. & Worley, C. G. (2019). Organization Development and Change. Cengage.

Boston, MA

Otto, N. (2016). Thriving workplace culture hinges on trust: Thriving workplace culture hinges

on trust. Employee Benefit News (Online), Retrieved from

https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/thriving-workplace-culture-hinges-on-trust/

docview/1911872108/se-2

Worley, C. G., Mohrman, S. A., & Nevitt, J. A. (2011). Large group interventions: An empirical

field study of their composition, process, and outcomes. The Journal of Applied

Behavioral Science, 47(4), 404. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-

journals/large-group-interventions-empirical-field-study/docview/904383309/se-2