In short, collaboration thrives when everyone works together toward a common goal, leading to increased efficiency.

The ODI team regularly meets for a Strategic Workshop. Our recent workshop, which took place on February 27th and 28th, 2025, was held at Kleinkaap Boutique Hotel, Centurion. Our focus was Key 2 of the 20 Keys Management System – Goal Alignment.

As ODI’s Head Office is in Pretoria, it is an excellent opportunity for colleagues across South Africa to get together and catch up on the news. To meet our team, please click here.

20 Keys is a vehicle for creating a culture of continuous improvement in an organisation, energising and motivating all employees to work towards the achievement of goals.

Key 2 of the 20 Keys Operations Improvement System focuses on having an effective organisational structure with goal alignment at all levels. Within the structure, the various work groups are organised as “mini-businesses” or MBs. Each MB is guided by Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, and Morale performance indicators (QCDSM measures).

Die ODI team participated in small goal alignment groups, creating much energy.

Each member had an opportunity to present their findings.

As the two-day workshop ended, everybody appreciated sharing knowledge and experience, great learning, and the importance of Key 2. 

Please click here to read more about Key 2 of the 20 Keys Management System.

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The programme has been put in place in order to support the Foremen and Managers who are expected to lead by example. The programme focusses on:

• Goal alignment and helping one another in their teams.
• The importance and understanding of ethics in the workplace.
• Leadership, the role of team values, and how this contributes to a respectful workplace.
• Creating an understanding of the impact of conflict and how to manage it.
• Improving communication in the workplace between all levels.
• Better feedback skills at all levels for continuous improvement.

The programme also supports their continuous improvement drive by incorporating some fundamental elements of the 20 Keys, such as Key 2, where well-functioning mini-businesses are critical for communication, achieving goals, and making improvements.

National Chicks aims to create a positive, friendly work atmosphere where everyone feels respected and valued.

Each group will have five-day sessions, and after each session, the delegates will reflect on their learning and share their experiences.

To read more about ODI’s Skills Programmes, click here.

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With our head office in Centurion, and the ODI team scattered around South Africa, it was also a great opportunity to have a fun, informal catch-up before the meeting started.

Our focus was on Key 2 of the 20 Keys System for continuous operations improvement. Key 2 of the 20 Keys System is all about Goal Alignment. It’s about having an effective organisation structure, with goal alignment at all levels.

The key concepts of Key 2 are:

• Effective organisation structure, with clearly defined responsibilities
• Coaching on employee performance development
• Defining and cascading vision, mission, values, and goals down to all organisation levels
• Implementing mini-businesses
• Aligning top-down leadership, and bottom-up participation
• Implementing a management system for the implementation of the 20 Keys

As the 2-day workshop came to an end, everybody appreciated the sharing of knowledge, experience, great learning, and the importance of Key 2.  

Organisation Development International (ODI), with its head office in Pretoria, South Africa, is a globally represented productivity consulting company.

Our mission is to provide holistic solutions that promote people development and operations excellence, through training, coaching and consulting, supported by a range of excellent products. To contact us, click here.

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Engaging in Continuous Professional Development is an ongoing process and allows individuals to continually ‘up skill’ or ‘re-skill’. Also, it is a great opportunity to spend time with colleagues and like-minded people, wanting to improve themselves in their chosen professions.

At a recent 2-day workshop held at Irene Country lodge in Pretoria, the ODI team used the opportunity to discuss our learning with our colleagues and help identify new areas for development and ideas for other development activities.

Working to achieve an organisation’s overall strategy, and aligning goals gets everyone on the same page and moving in the same direction. That is what Key 2 of the 20 Keys system for continuous improvement is all about – Goal Alignment.

A commitment to life-long learning and improvement is at the heart of what we do at ODI.  Making use of the 20 Keys system for continuous improvement, the ODI team revisited the key concepts of Key 2:

• Effective organisation structure, with clearly defined responsibilities
• Coaching on employee performance development
• Defining and cascading vision, mission, values, and goals down to all organisation levels
• Implementing mini-businesses
• Aligning top-down leadership, and bottom-up participation

Reflecting on what we’ve learned and what we’ll do differently as a result, was an energising experience. Spending time together, asking ourselves how we can improve, and opening our minds to new possibilities, once again hi-lighted the importance of continuous improvement and goal alignment at all levels.

ODI is a globally represented productivity and management consulting company. We support organisations to bring about a revolution with productivity of people, processes, and technology, by engaging all their people. To contact us, click here.

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• Implement best practices to achieve world class, operational excellence.
• Achieve the strategic goals of a business.
• Improve the speed of learning and innovation of a business.
• Identify and eliminate all forms of waste (non-value adding activities) to improve customer satisfaction and market share by making products and services better, faster and cheaper.
• Energise and motivate all employees to work towards the achievement of goals.
• Improve productivity, profitability and the long-term sustainable competitiveness of the business

ODI’s Director: Johan Benadie, previously wrote: “Is busyness killing our ability to think and learn creatively?” He pointed out that many organisations are caught up in busyness where there is no time to think about doing things better, more cost effectively, quicker, smarter and safer.

Key 2 of the 20 Keys system is all about Goal Alignment.

The following Example will help to show the importance of setting objectives, based on the outcome of activities, rather than on the activities themselves.

This is a fable of the Beekeepers and their bees: Bees Pty Ltd

Once upon a time, there were two beekeepers who each had a beehive. The beekeepers worked for a company called Bees Pty Ltd. The company’s customers loved its honey, and demand for the product was increasing. So, Bees Pty Ltd. assigned each beekeeper a goal for increased honey production.

The beekeepers had different ideas about how to meet their goals, and designed different approaches to improve the performance of their hives.

The first beekeeper established a bee performance management approach that measured how many flowers each bee visited. This beekeeper:

• Created a measurement system to count the flowers that each bee visited.
• Provided feedback to each bee at mid-season on his individual performance.
• Created special awards for the bees who visited the most flowers

However, the bees were never told about the hive’s goal to produce more honey so that the company could increase honey sales.

The second beekeeper also established a bee performance management approach, but this approach communicated to each bee the goal of the hive for increased honey production. The second beekeeper and his bees:

• Measured two aspects of their performance:
  • The amount of nectar each bee brought back to the hive.
  • The amount of honey the hive produced.
• Posted a chart showing the performance of each bee, and the hive’s overall performance in the hive’s mini-business area for all the bees to see.
• Created a few awards for the bees that gathered the most nectar.
• Established a hive incentive programme that rewarded each bee in the hive, based on the hive’s overall honey production; the more honey produced, the more recognition each bee would receive.

At the end of the season, the beekeepers evaluated their approaches.

The first beekeeper found that his hive had indeed increased the number of flowers visited, but the amount of honey produced by the hive had dropped. The Queen Bee reported that because the bees were so busy trying to visit as many flowers as possible, they limited the amount of nectar that they would carry so that they could fly faster, and visit more flowers.

The second beekeeper, however, had very different results. Because each bee in this hive was focused on the hive’s goal of producing more honey, the bees had concentrated their efforts on gathering more nectar, in order to produce more honey than ever before.

The bees worked together to determine the highest nectar yielding flowers, and to create quicker processes for depositing the nectar that they had gathered. They also worked together to help increase the amount of nectar gathered by the poorer performers.

Because the hive had reached its goal, the beekeeper awarded each bee his portion of the hive incentive payment. 

• What was the overall goal of Bees Pty Ltd?
• How did the second beekeeper achieve results that contributed to the overall goal of the company?
• Why didn’t the first beekeeper achieve similar results?

Key 2 focuses on having an effective organisation structure, with goal alignment at all levels. Within the structure, the various work groups are organised as “mini-businesses”, or MBs. Each MB is guided by Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety and Morale performance indicators (QCDSM measures). To find out more about the history of the 20 Keys, click here.

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On August 25 1993, Amy Biehl’s life was tragically cut short in an act of political mob violence in the Gugulethu township just outside of Cape Town. Four young men were convicted of her murder, and after spending 5 years in prison were granted amnesty through the parents of Amy and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Determined to honour Amy’s love of South Africa and her belief in the truth and reconciliation process, Amy’s parents founded the organisation.

The Amy Foundation, formerly Amy Biehl Foundation,  in the Western Cape – South Africa,   is a non-profit organisation that offers programmes which develop and empower youngsters, aged 5 – 35 yrs from challenged and vulnerable communities.

Their after school programmes in Gugulethu and Bonteheuwel provide an environment that allows school-going children to overcome shortcomings in their education, by focusing on creativity. The Amy Foundation aims to make learning enjoyable while fostering the drive to academic success.

The Amy Foundations’ Skills Development programme, based at their Head office in Sybrand Park,  helps young adults prepare for the world of work, employment and entrepreneurship.

The MD of the Foundation – Kevin Chaplan, enrolled members of staff, to complete ODI’s Skills Programme on Goal Alignment, facilitated by ODI’s Director – Gerald McKinnon.

Mr Kevin Chaplin is also the author of a book called Can do!

Doing a full learnership is always a good idea, as there are so many benefits attached to it, HOWEVER, there certainly are times when a shorter intervention is required, to obtain some quicker gains for the organisation.

The Skills Programmes offered by ODI have been carefully selected to offer such interventions, to ensure maximum benefits. This selection of Skills Programmes is based on many years of experience, gained in the environment of Operations Excellence, and has proven to energise the workplace, and to set the foundation for quicker gains.

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I was recently so encouraged again by a group of learners who really took the importance of this concept very seriously.

After their training to gain knowledge about Goal Alignment, an NQF2 learnership group at CTP were asked to role-play the creation of a mini-business, and to facilitate a mini-business meeting.

In spite of all the challenges regarding Microsoft Teams (poor sound and video quality, difficulties to log in, load-shedding, etc.), they pulled together, and delivered an incredible mini-business role-play.  As the images will show, they learnt the importance of:

• Working together as a team.
• Agreeing on common Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety and Morale goals and objectives.
• Understanding how these goals and objectives are aligned to those of the organisation.
• Regular communication at team level.
• Creating a sense of purpose, belonging, worthiness, and creativity.
• Using techniques such as the mini-business, to generate a tremendous amount of energy.

They also learnt that all of the above will inspire every employee to become a true ambassador of the organisation that they are a stakeholder in!

The learners were divided into two groups, and I could sense the positive competitiveness between the groups, even via Microsoft Teams.

Group 1 was named Kailin’s Nails, and Group 2 – The Footwear Factory.  At The Footwear Factory, staff members even wore specially branded overalls, which represented the look and feel of the business.

The two groups of learners enjoyed the role-play, and took real ownership of the brief given to them. Enthusiasm about their businesses, their product, and how to improve quality, were the order of the day. Both groups showcased their vision, and how they value their “customers”. They want to deliver – on time, all the time!!!

The objectives of the day were achieved, and next steps are to ensure that everything that was learnt is also implemented in the workplace.

Well done CTP NQF2 Group 5. I was highly impressed with your two mini-businesses – SO SO proud!!!

Please note that Goal Alignment also forms part of the ODI E-learning platform. This programme, which allows learners to complete their course/s online, has yielded great success.

To read more about this Learnership – NQF2 in Production Technology, click here.

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The 20 Keys is an intuitive evaluation and rating system that measures operational performance and guides ongoing improvement activities.

Recently, at ODI’s strategy meeting held at The African Pride Irene Country Lodge in Gauteng, Keys 2 & 15 of the 20 Keys system for continuous improvement, featured very strongly.  Goal alignment and setting objectives were the focus of the meeting.

To read the article about Key 2 at the recent strategy meeting, click here.

Key 15 of the 20 Keys system for continuous improvement, is all about Skill Versatility and Cross Training. It is about ongoing implementation of learning and development as part of the business strategy, to develop individuals to have more skills, and higher levels of competencies. Apart from individual development, the aim is also to have flexible teams, with a high level of skill versatility within, and between all teams; in production and supporting functions.

They key concepts are:

• Flexibility for teams and the organisation, and skill development opportunities for individuals
• Skill versatility through cross training
• Making work easier, to facilitate on-the-job cross training
• Start within teams with skill development, then address opportunities between teams
• Tracking progress of skill development with skills matrices

The ODI team rolled up their sleeves and everyone worked or coached on a module of the NQF5 Productivity Certificate to ensure Continual Professional Development. ODI’s National Certificate in Productivity consists of one Management System Module, to create a common vision, and eight practical Modules, to make operations more competitive. To read more about this qualification, click here.

The benefits of coaching can improve the workforce of a company, improve employee morale, and help achieve organisational goals. Effective coaching involves building a relationship with trust, motivation, and accountability.

At ODI, our Operations Management and Improvement Coaching process is an ongoing process, and aims to give guidance, opportunities, and support. The focus of our coaching process will always be to ensure performance improvement.

ODI’s strategy meeting was a great success and reinforced the goals we set out for ourselves and to encourage the work it takes to accomplish them.        

To read more about ODI’s Continuous Operations Improvement System, click here.

Author: Huibie Jones: MD at ODI

ODI is a globally represented management and productivity consulting company. Our mission is to provide holistic solutions that promote people development and operations excellence. We do this through training, coaching and consulting, supported by a range of excellent products.

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• Published my first (and just about only) article in my third study year (1972) on “Bonuses”
• Implemented my first real working bonus system in 1988 at Glamosa Glass factory – it is still in use 30 years later
• Implemented a full system at Wispeco in 1998 – complex operation – still in use 20 years later
• Implemented various others during this time; consulting companies etc.

Successful Bonus systems are powerful management tools, and operate optimal if the environment is receptive, thus:

• management attitude,
• worker attitudes,
• level of goal alignment from top to worker-level,
• ‘flatness’ of the organisational structure,
• open communication, etc.

If implemented in an environment which is not fully ready, bonuses can still work, but can also fail easily and sometimes fail negatively by doing harm to the relations in the organisation.

Successful bonus systems at least do require open and open-minded support from the top level in the organisation. If this exists, early corrections to areas where implementation is wobbly, for whatever reason, can still be done. (This is in any case how I stumbled to workable solutions over time).

Both Bonus Legs, and especially the Profit Bonus Leg only work successfully if there is integrity in the system. Integrity comes from the top!

Author: Roland Röhrs – Chairman

To read more about why sustainable improvement is the pathway to the future, click here.

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Goal alignment focuses on having an effective organisation structure, with goal alignment at all levels. Within the structure, the various work groups are organised as “mini-businesses”, or MBs. Each MB is guided by

• Quality
• Cost
• Delivery
• Safety and
• Morale performance indicators (QCDSM measures)

Recently ODI’s Maryke Viviers-Bergh facilitated a group of GWK learners completing a Skills Programme at their offices.

To read more about ODI’s Focused Improvement Projects, click here.

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