The failure to address the culture of the organization is frequently the reason for many management initiatives either having limited success or failing altogether. Understanding the culture of the organization and using that understanding to successfully map the transitions needed to accomplish successful change will be an important part of the journey towards excellence.

There is widespread recognition today that major change initiatives will not succeed without a culture of good teamworking and co-operation at all levels in organizations. Much training effort has therefore been expended in trying to establish good teamwork principles and practice in the workforce. These efforts generally meet with some success in the short-term but in the longer-term the effects often do not persist. There can be a number of reasons for this:

• The senior management does not embrace the principles of teamworking for themselves.

• Major attention continues to be focused on the task, with relatively little focus on the people who are to carry it out.

• Functional management structures do not lend themselves readily to cross-functional co-operation.

• The principles are not practised at all levels in the organization, leading eventually to cynicism and low morale at the coal-face .

Breaking down the departmental barriers is essential to the spread of team-working within the organization. The experience of the author and his colleagues shows that this will not be successful unless it is addressed by the senior management, starting with themselves. Thus a management team that demonstrates good teamworking itself and widely supports...