Case Study
The Hydro CaseInterventions based on Ackerman’s breakthroughs led to numerous positive outcomes among a number of leading companies worldwide. The notion of an identity-centered organization resonated with leaders. Specifically, there was a sense of excitement at the possibility that there was a timeless center of gravity the company could adhere to, even as it changed to meet the many challenges occurring around it. Sticking to this core and using it as a primary lens for making strategic and operational decisions, leaders greatly increased the odds that the company would avoid, or at least minimize, various destructive effects, such as short-termism.
Who are we?
Worth More as a Whole, or Broken Apart?
Norsk Hydro, a $30 billion Norwegian conglomerate was struggling to understand whether or not its three lines of business – aluminum, oil and gas, and fertilizer – actually added up to more than the sum of its parts. What was its center of gravity? Did it even have one?
Working with Ackerman, the company
was eventually able to discover their buried treasure — the identity that lay at its core: Norse Hydro was driven to create a more viable society by developing natural resources and products in innovative and efficient ways. With this profound insight into its identity, Hydro had found what the CEO termed the company’s “north star,” and the three lines of businesses could now be seen as working together because they shared the same goals and the same understanding of their innate capacities, the things they could do that were unique.
