The Middle
The Middle is a podcast series exploring the challenges of improving middle management since that is widely acknowledged as having the biggest impact on organisational performance. Each podcast will feature an interview with a prominent executive from a wide range of contexts including public, private and charitable sectors. The host is associate professor Stephen Willson from Birmingham City University Business School.
The Middle
Jim DeWaele, Keller Group
Jim DeWaele is the European president of the Keller Group, a global geotechnical specialist building contractor.
He joins Stephen Willson to explore the middle management issues of working in the high risk arena of building foundations in uncertain ground conditions. A local approach is described that addresses the national challenges of different contractual arrangements, material costs and familiarity with alternative techniques.
He discusses the requirements of organisation design to provide rapid access to distributed expertise across the network of 190 branches when unexpected difficulties arise on site.