Fonterra is a New Zealand-based cooperative that is owned by 12,000 New Zealand dairy farmers. It is the world's largest exporter of dairy products, with revenues of $16 billion. John Doumani is managing director of Fonterrra's domestic businesses in Australia and New Zealand (Fonterra ANZ), which represent one-quarter of Fonterra's total business and employ 4,000 people. John recently sat down with GDSI to discuss the challenges he has faced since taking over the newly structured entity.

When did you join Fonterra, and what did you find when you arrived?

I was brought in three years ago, when Fonterra was reorganizing its consumer business in the two countries. Previously, the business had operated as a patchwork quilt of nine separate companies: seven in Australia and two in New Zealand. My job was to integrate all nine into a cohesive, high-performing entity.

What do the Internet and high-performance organizations have in common?

Plenty.

Here is what Gary Hamel recently said about the Internet in his Wall Street Journal blog ("Imperious Institutions, Impotent Individuals," April 15, 2010): "In recent years, millions of us have rushed to take advantage of the Internet's open and meritocratic architecture. We have used the Web to express our opinions, to expose the misdeeds of the powerful, to build online communities and launch new, grassroots initiatives. And as we have done so, we have become less tolerant of the closed, top-down power structures we encounter in the offline world."

Like the Internet, the architecture of the high-performance organization is horizontal.

Jack Jefferies is an associate senior consultant with GDS. He is also a noted skydiver, who won three world championships as captain of the U.S. Skydiving Team.

Presenting Situation: A multibillion-dollar global chemical manufacturer based in the U.S. Midwest moved to centralize in order to achieve greater strategic integration and leverage from its far-flung operations . . . some functions-Corporate Affairs, for example-resisted . . . regional CA staff fragmented, operated independently, and disconnected from global CA agenda.