Siemens: Culture and Change Agents
The Change Agent Program at Siemens Nixdorf
Post-script – What actually happened?
The following material is excerpted from the original article and provides some overview of the actual evaluation that took place. * In terms of “hard” financial results, SNI produced its first profitable year in 1994-95, the first year of the CCP. Until Siemens intervened, it remained mildly profitable, with reported sales of almost DM18bn and net income of DM500m in 1998. This performance was insufficient, however, to convince senior Siemens management that SNI should remain as a stand-alone information technology company. On the “softer” side, employee satisfaction surveys indicated a steady improvement in morale and confidence over the period of the CCP Unstructured observations indicated that, after a slow start, a growing number of employees at all levels of the organization saw both personal and institutional benefits from changed and more focused values, beliefs and attitudes. The take-over by Siemens came as a shattering psychological blow to many SNI personnel, as the CCP came to an abrupt end with the parent company showing a marked reluctance to consider the culture change initiatives previously undertaken. In truth, SNI was seen as something of a dilettante privileged, overpaid and a constant drain on resources - so that there was little willingness to adopt their ideas, regardless of merit. * An objective measure of program outcome is a count of the number of participants who remain with the company. Over the six years of the program, 142 “graduated” as change agents. By December 2001 - one year after cessation of the program - 85 (60 per cent) remained with the company. Of these, many are now in strategically important positions within Siemens AG. For those who left, exit interviews revealed that the main reasons were `couldn't find an appropriate post-SNI position” and “was not being used properly.” Indeed, a large number left in the 1998-99 period, in
Post-script – What actually happened?
The following material is excerpted from the original article and provides some overview of the actual evaluation that took place. * In terms of “hard” financial results, SNI produced its first profitable year in 1994-95, the first year of the CCP. Until Siemens intervened, it remained mildly profitable, with reported sales of almost DM18bn and net income of DM500m in 1998. This performance was insufficient, however, to convince senior Siemens management that SNI should remain as a stand-alone information technology company. On the “softer” side, employee satisfaction surveys indicated a steady improvement in morale and confidence over the period of the CCP Unstructured observations indicated that, after a slow start, a growing number of employees at all levels of the organization saw both personal and institutional benefits from changed and more focused values, beliefs and attitudes. The take-over by Siemens came as a shattering psychological blow to many SNI personnel, as the CCP came to an abrupt end with the parent company showing a marked reluctance to consider the culture change initiatives previously undertaken. In truth, SNI was seen as something of a dilettante privileged, overpaid and a constant drain on resources - so that there was little willingness to adopt their ideas, regardless of merit. * An objective measure of program outcome is a count of the number of participants who remain with the company. Over the six years of the program, 142 “graduated” as change agents. By December 2001 - one year after cessation of the program - 85 (60 per cent) remained with the company. Of these, many are now in strategically important positions within Siemens AG. For those who left, exit interviews revealed that the main reasons were `couldn't find an appropriate post-SNI position” and “was not being used properly.” Indeed, a large number left in the 1998-99 period, in