When Rob Gordon became CEO of Dairy Farmers in 2004, the Australian producer of milk and milk products was facing big challenges. These remarks are excerpted from Rob’s Foreword to GDS’s new White Paper, “Building Horizontal Organizations.”

It’s day one for you at Dairy Farmers. What were your toughest challenges?

Within the fast-moving consumer goods sector, consumers were becoming more and more sophisticated, with ever-increasing demands. The sector was also witnessing dairy production declining, international farm gate milk prices skyrocketing to historic highs, and record global fuel costs.

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Here are field notes from a recent assignment led by GDS consultant Marty Kurtz.

Presenting Situation: The good news: A major division of a food producer was meeting its stretch goals. The bad: delays in new product launches . . . reasons unclear . . . cooperation and communication lacking on the top team . . . functional silos . . . no transparency . . . information hoarded . . . little accountability. . . emotionally charged working environment . . . president and one or two VPs driving for more transparency, others withholding.

Results are in from over 1,900 responses to Quality Progress magazine's national survey on Project-Team Performance, developed by GDS and Kepner-Tregoe, Inc.

GDS's latest White Paper, "Building Horizontal Organizations," features insights from Rob Gordon of Dairy Farmers of Australia; Lisa Piovano Machacek of Liz Claiborne, Inc.; Linda Scard-Buitenhek and Vince Pender of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products; and GDS's Marty Kurtz. It explores a new organizing principle for high performance and drills down to the "how to."

For copies, contact Kathy Cannon (kathycannon@guttmandev.com).