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Changing Culture Through Strategy

Helping Hand Transport – Changing Culture through Strategy and the Balanced Scorecard

Introduction

Helping Hand Transport   was founded in Bradford in 1966. Its aim was to help the local community it served with access to affordable transport to groups such as the boy scouts. Helping Hand Transport is now a National Charity and a Company limited by Guarantee operating twelve projects covering the Midlands, North East and North West of England. The Charity supplies affordable, accessible transport services to the Voluntary sector and other non-for profit organisations. It works closely with local government and other partners to overcome barriers individuals face in accessing services, filling the gaps left by conventional providers. As a natural continuation of the Charity’s expertise in minibus transport it also moved into the provision of training, primarily focused on driving and passenger assistance. Helping Hand Transport (HHT) employs some 130 paid staff and over 300 volunteers and carries out 500,000-passenger trips per year with 100 vehicles.

Helping Hand Transport – The Complexity of Cultural Change through Time

Unlike many other national charities, HHT’s emergence into the Charity it is today has been influenced by a series of factors not normally associated with successful operations:

• chance
• responding to political will  
• lack of leadership
• over dependency on consultants
• self interest on the part of the project managers
• skill deficiencies of the CEO

Throughout the course of HHT’s life these factors have combined to result in major changes which have had a notable influence on the success of the Charity. As such, HHT’s evolution can be demarcated by a series of stages which culminated in a major cultural and strategic change.

1. Growth   - The Wonder Years
HHT’s founder was a vicar in the Church of England who worked to support those in the community who did not have the resource to gain access to social, health...