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I am a Professional Interim GM/MD responsible for multiple fast paced, critical factory turnarounds mostly in food manufacturing. Clients include Muller, Arla Diaries, New York Bakery, and Tesco. If you look across my career, I have made all of the items on your plate that make up a complete ploughman’s lunch – including the beer!
The first time I worked with Martyn was 7 years ago. I was tasked with putting a new production line into an existing factory. We had first stabilized and fixed the critical problems at site to justify spending money on a new production line, but I also saw this as the opportunity to change expectations and show the team what “good” looked like. Martyn came in and worked with me to push the boundaries on the ‘art of the possible’ and we actually changed expectations, establishing the new line in ways that allowed us to run it separately from the rest of the factory and making the new production line team accountable for their line. It was revolutionary!
The buy-in we got took that team from non-engaged workers carrying out repetitive tasks, to a self managing team responsible for and reporting their line performance. They were doing their own planning, maintenance, stock management and work order activities. We changed the environment on that new line and it worked. It also changed the self belief of the people on that line, some of that team have gone on to build their own careers, including some that have moved into management and follow great careers.
Latterly, working with Chasm for one of the largest operations in the country Chasm were already on the ground and had their team embedded on the factory floor. I came in to hold the site management team accountable to do the things they should be doing, On-site management often want to leave responsibility with the consultants and/or interim, which is proven repeatedly not to be a winning formula. Our job is to empower the team on the ground.
The Chasm approach is different to other consultants; you will find the Chasm team working in your factory, embedded and working on and from the factory floor, boiler room, planning room and the board room bridging all the gaps in performance change.
Martyn leads this behaviour – he can take an argument and complex analysis to the CEO, but he and his team are equally at home on the shop floor outside of normal manager hours working with real people.
The depth of the Chasm analysis does a lot of heavy lifting for the client, bringing skills and insight that supplement and complement the existing team, enabling you to start a project with real clarity on what needs to happen in the business. Chasm have the big picture helicopter view and can zoom in to ensure the job gets done.
– Kevin Anderson, Interim GM/MD