A global business was developing a revolutionary €200 million technology, but had discovered the diameters of two essential connecting tubes differed by 1.5mm, not for technical reasons, but for all too human reasons — personality differences between two departmental heads.

How, asked the CEO, can we encourage integrated working across international boundaries, help competing groups to be more outward-focused, and improve business sense?

Well, maybe ‘business sense’ was the problem? Our work within the company quickly revealed painful relationships, hidden jealousies, doubts and conflicts which had previously been shoved under the carpet by an obsessive focus on ‘the numbers’.

We brought the two teams together.

We shifted the focus of conversations.

We explored the unquantifiable. 

The tubes were aligned, the teams were aligned, and the €200 million technology got produced.