LOYAC Kuwait : revisiting the foundations. A consultancy project for restructuring -

Abstract

The purpose of this consultancy project is to engage with LOTHAN Youth Achievement Center (LOYAC) organization by leading a systematic assessment of the organization’s activities and operations in order to suggest an organizational structure that takes it from its current status to a future one - described as self-sustainable and systematically led by competent Kuwaiti youth with minimal reliance and interference on the founding board. Data was collected from Board Members (BOD), Head of Departments (HOD), and employees across the organization; as well as from a strategic meeting with senior executives from Kuwait and regional chapters. Another type of data was collected through personal observation of organizational operations for a period of 3 months. The consultancy project was conducted on two phases. Phase 1 was an exploratory qualitative process using an inductive reasoning approach, and phase 2 was confirmatory qualitative process using a deductive approach. The exploratory part attempted to study the organization’s architecture and performance, and tap into the perception of LOYAC board members and head of departments on areas related to Purpose, Quality Services, Organization’s Strengths, Organization’s Weaknesses, Vision, Suggested Changes, Possible Obstacles-Opportunities, Employee Engagement, and Equity. The confirmatory part, attempted to link the results acquired from the exploratory phase to the Weisbord Six Box Module designed for organizational diagnosis. A review of the results suggests that there is partial commonality between the differentiators identified at the exploratory part and those introduced by Weisbord model, and related to lack of strategic focus, staff limitation, inappropriate leadership styles, underdeveloped systems, policies, and processes (including those for HR), and low employee engagement. The final part of the project states the key recommendations in various areas related to Leadership (work strategically, financial management), Structure (moving