Taking a company's pulse

A company specialising in the distribution of building materials was bought by a large group. It had just implemented two redundancy plans‚ had numerous internal disagreements, and its staff was rapidly losing faith in it. On top of this‚ the computer system was based on a proprietary system which the previous shareholder had only maintained for eighteen months, and needed to be replaced very quickly. For Jean-Daniel Elbim‚ who was in charge of integration in the company, the staff was under so much pressure that there were likely to be more crises, endangering the success of the computer system change and consequently putting the company’s future at risk. He asked Emmanuel Mas to devise a method to ‘take the pulse’ of the company and help ‘lower the blood pressure’ in the most troublesome departments. He created a ‘barometer’ which worked according to a colour-coding scheme, making it easier for staff to express tensions they felt and identify the problems which needed to be resolved. This tool seemed to be very straight-forward, and, due to its simplicity, was accessible to everyone in the company. It became easier to provide feedback about problems, thereby contributing to the success of the implementation of the new computer and IT system.