Breaking Down Silos to Increase Effectiveness

Snowy Hydro Ltd.

8%

Year-on-year growth in earnings

42%

Improvement in Cultural Index

From 22 to 0.5

Reduction in lost time injuries per year

Client

Snowy Hydro Ltd.

Industry

Gen. Business

Snowy Hydro Limited operates in Australia’s Southern Alps. It provides renewable energy and energy-related products & manages critical water flows. It is also involved in implementing a range of community initiatives.

Challenge

As the organisation emerged from a semi-government business, it needed to shed its ‘silo thinking’ and embrace a culture of innovation where proactive behaviour was encouraged.

Although senior leaders had a clear vision of the organisation, the larger workforce of 400 employees did not share or have a sound understanding of the direction of the business.

Solution

A 360 ‘inside-out’ approach was taken, guiding individuals across the entire organisation through a process of personal mastery and goal alignment & then using this as a basis to apply similar principles to their own leadership and organisational development (leadership mastery).

Results

Over the 10 years (2003-2013) Snowy Hydro realised the following measurable benefits:

  • Financial Performance: 8% year-on-year growth in earnings.
  • Safety: Lost Time injuries reduced from 22 per year to 0.5 per year.
  • Cultural Improvement: 42% improvement in Cultural index.
  • Industrial Relations: Zero days lost to industrial relations issues over 10 years.
  • Environmental Factors: Neither performance nor environment impacted by 1-in-500 year fire, 1-in-500 year drought and 1-in-500 year water inflow.

“We have a forward-focused, flexible, performance-oriented culture and the mindsets within our business that were essential to our evolution of business strategy. We have achieved a shift in accountabilities and processes that allowed us to look for opportunities for continuous improvement which led to substantial increases in our effectiveness.” Terry Charlton, CEO