Canadian Dental Association

Organization Assessment and Redesign

Organization's web page url

Note: This information was produced using AI analysis of the video presentation transcript and has not yet been reviewed and approved by the client or the consultant.

The Issue:

George Weber was appointed Executive Director of the Canadian Dental Association in 2000. The membership of the Canadian Dental Association numbered some 10,000, organized into eight classes of membership. Its corporate members, who govern the association, were drawn from the ten provinces and the Armed Forces. There is a complex committee and council structure in place. The objective of the review will be to assist the Canadian Dental Association to optimize its performance.

The Intervention:

Capelle Associates was engaged to complete an organization design review. The review included all 47 employees, of whom 16 were managers. The 16 managers were interviewed, together with 25 stakeholders representing the corporate membership. The objective was to focus on the staffed operation of national office of the organization, and to gather information from the membership levels at selected points. This had the advantage of developing a broad perspective, getting the staff structure right, and gathering information on the best points for further improvement.

Results:

The major suggestions for improving the organization design included the following:

The design of the Canadian Dental Association is fundamentally a four stratum organization with some Stratum 5 work requirements;
The Directorates were realigned into four functional areas (membership recruitment and retention, membership services, support services, and governance support and external relations)
The enhancement of managerial accountabilities and authorities, including related performance planning, measurement and review systems;
The creation and implementation of a structured system of cross functional accountabilities and authorities;

A total of 27 suggested actions were delineated.

In 2002, an evaluation of the implementation, which had been carried out by the organization, was conducted by Capelle Associates, had the following observations:

There was a solid team in place;
The silos had been dealt a death blow;
Cross functional accountabilities and authorities had improved;
Managerial accountabilities and authorities had improved.
There was a palpable change in the orientation of the management team in a positive direction;
There was a much better sense of the managerial role.

Project Information:

Industrial sector	Types of organization	Governance	RO Stratum of the organization	Number of Employees	Labour relations	Region	Country
Non-profits - charities, associations, service providers etc	Professional association - National	Not-for-Profit	4	47	Not-unionized	North America	Canada

Types of interventions	Specific functions targeted if any	Strata in which RO interventions were used	Approximate Years of project interventions
Levels-based strategic planning and or competitive analysis, Time-span interviews, Levels of work complexity, Research including pre-and-post project measures, employee and customer surveys etc	CEO & general management	4, 3, 2, 1	2000 to 2002