Change Management – Croixstone

Croixstone Welcomes Brian McLaughlin as Director, Organizational Effectiveness

We are excited to announce today that Brian McLaughlin, MBA has joined Croixstone Consulting in a newly-created role as Director, Organizational Effectiveness. In this new role at the firm, Brian will deliver high impact programs and initiatives that support the firm’s corporate strategy and operational goals.

“I am thrilled to welcome Brian as an internal consulting resource to our senior leaders and teams at Croixstone,” said Patti Weber, Croixstone’s Chief Executive Officer. “In his new role with the firm, Brian will offer guidance and support with major short and long-term initiatives, especially those related to organizational design, leadership behaviors, team performance and change management.”

Brian brings to Croixstone over 30 years of experience in business transformation, process reengineering, change management, human resources leadership, and consulting. Prior to launching his consulting career in 2019, McLaughlin served for over 4 years in a variety of senior human resources leadership roles with The Chemours Company.

Additionally, Brian served more than three decades in a variety of corporate and site leadership roles with EI DuPont de Nemours including Global Human Resource Manager for 3 global business units with $4.3 billion in annual revenue and 37 manufacturing sites.

Read our Press Release here.

Consulting Industry Insights: Restructurings & Turnarounds

The global pandemic has fueled an increase in consulting engagements focused on restructurings and turnarounds over the past 15 months. In its May 2021 newsletter, BDO Consulting Group published the below informative chart highlighting U.S. corporate bankruptcies with debt greater than $10MM by industry. Interestingly, approximately 40% of the 302 bankruptcies filings were in two industries: 1) Oil & Gas and 2) Retail & Consumer Products.

Source: BDO Consulting Group, LLC, Debtwire Restructuring Database
* Includes companies with at least $10 million in funded debt

So what are the common restructuring and turnaround services that consulting firms like Croixstone offer? As published in a recent article by Consultancy.eu, these services include:

Diagnosing the problem: Identifying drivers for the crisis, stage & severity of crisis
Stabilizing operations: Managing short-term liquidity & working capital concerns
Cost efficiency & austerity strategies: Evaluating business needs for cost-cutting measures; designing & implementing austerity plans
Procurement cost reduction: Analyzing contracted spend & redesigning & renegotiating contracts
Business model innovation: Rethinking operating & core business models, value creation & enhancement
Divestiture strategies: Offloading non-performing business units, distressed segments, portfolios, etc.
Organizational effectiveness: Streamlining resources; revamping processes & business segments; interim C-level deployment
Change management: Developing change implementation plans to ensure minimal people disruption

A Compelling Argument

Many (if not most!) companies view “change” as an extraordinary event that must be dealt with using change management techniques and special skills. A leading management consulting author (Robert Schaffer) offers a compelling argument that this common view of “change” is outdated. He argues that rather than view change as a subspecialty of management, companies should consider the fact that “all management is the management of change.”

Read this article to learn more.