A large urban local authority in the UK had internal problems with poor performance connected with bad relationships between key stakeholder groups. 

Each group felt like the victim of one or other of the groupings, for example the public complained about poor services from the political leadership, which put pressure on executive directors who put pressure on to the rest of the organisation. At the same time the executive directors withheld information and resources because they knew the pressure would continue and be renewed. Other groups behaved in the same way.

BCG helped them to see that each group was not only a victim but also created the conditions that made life difficult for other groups. At the same time, the local authority had a very effective way of working, which was when informal task groups worked together for short periods of time with specific purposes. At a personal level they knew each other well and were very productive in this setting.

BCG worked with each group to help them understand the problems when they worked the old way and then to look at how they could move from a formal way to using a more informal approach. Action learning sets were set up to help managers spot “over the horizon” issues and direct them into the informal system where the virtuous circle was operating.

The key successes from this process were significantly reduced management costs and better communication and cross-boundary working.