DMA Consultancy Limited

Latest News and Articles by Brian Dive

The Market: What Market?

January 2021

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a well- run organisation has an effective leader. Good CEOs deserve to be well rewarded.

Forty years ago, there was a consensus emerging in Europe that pay differentials should be around 5:1 (gross) from top to bottom in any organization. While that was shown to be unworkable, today we have more like 500:1, and climbing. How did this happen?

Read More


Brian J. Dive Recognized for Excellence in International Organizational Design and Leadership Development

January, 2020

Brian Dive is the author of three books, including the new  “Mission Mastery: Revealing a 100 Year Old Leadership Secret”

WEYBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM, December 9, 2015, Brian Dive, Managing Director of DMA Consultancy Limited, has been recognized by Worldwide Branding for showing dedication, leadership and excellence in international organizational design and leadership development.

With unparalleled expertise in his field, Dr. Dive lends more than four and a half decades of industry experience to his role with DMA Consultancy Limited, which designs, develops and supports processes which enable organizations to apply the logic and principles of decision making accountability (DMA) to assess and improve organizational health. During the course of his daily routine, in his role as managing director, he oversees the company’s operations. In addition to his work with DMA, Dr. Dive is the author of three books, “The Healthy Organization: A Revolutionary Approach to People & Management,” “The Accountable Leader: Developing Effective Leadership through Managerial Accountability,” and “Mission Mastery: Revealing a 100 Year Old Leadership Secret.” Mission Mastery will be released at the beginning of 2016, described by Professor Perkins as a “Masterwork.”

Dr. Dive shines because of his prior industry experiences, including chairmanship of the Conference Board’s Council of International and Management coupled with his educational background, which includes a Bachelor of Arts in psychology with a major in business administration from Victoria University of Wellington, as well as an honorary Doctor of Business Administration from London Metropolitan University, where he now serves as a visiting professor.

Looking toward the future, Dr. Dive intends to continue applying his ideas on a worldwide scale. He is widely experienced having worked with over 70 clients across the private, public and not for profit sectors in every continent around the world.

Read More


Can Councils be run effectively without a CEO?

January, 2013

Good quality politicians and competent senior officers working seamlessly together are needed to ensure the delivery of world class services in a local authority. Both are needed and expected for effective governance and leadership of our communities.

But a new fad is sneaking onto the local authority landscape, which runs counter to the above. Wiltshire County Council, Reading and Kent have removed the post of CEO. It seems these moves are justified by a desire to cut costs. Is this convincing or could it be that political and managerial leadership risk being confused? Can the primary functions of political and managerial leadership successfully be carried out by the same person? Or is the “strong leadership” being espoused actually party political interference?

This paper aims to bring into sharp focus the issues that intersect between good corporate governance and effective leadership. Clear accountability in the governance, executive and political domains is the vital interlocking component. This is not straightforward as they have different aims in achieving a common purpose. The development of the chiefless council will be critiqued to ascertain whether it enhances or undermines accountability and ultimately a council’s sustained long term performance in providing what its community desires and needs.

Read Article (PDF)


Brian Dive Helps Companies Boost Business Performance

July 12, 2010

International organizational design expert Brian Dive helps businesses diagnose specific problems and prescribe solutions to enhance performance through DMA Consultancy Limited located in Surrey, UK. Mr. Dive is the author of "The Healthy Organization" and "The Accountable Leader." He has advised many major companies, most of them international, such as Air New Zealand, Barclays, Marks & Spencer, Reed Elsevier and Unilever. He has also worked with education departments in Australia and New Zealand, the UK Cabinet Office plus various UK Government Departments. Mr. Dive's ideas are not only efficient but universally applicable.

VIEW THE VIDEO


Balancing the Leadership Equation - Good organization and holding leaders to account

University of Bedfordshire White Paper Series - March 2011 Brian Dive and Clive Wright

Leadership studies invariably focus on only part of the leadership equation. Studies generally cover individual leaders, particularly those at the top of an organization. They are prone to ignore an important part of the leadership equation – the context in which a person has to lead. Furthermore leadership is needed throughout an organization, not just at the top. This is distributed leadership. If it is not effective throughout the organization the negative impact multiplies as the number of ineffective leaders increases. But little attention seems to be focused on this impact of wider leadership capability. Read Article (PDF)


Getting Rid of Grades to Boost Performance

a strategy+business exclusive 04/14/2009

The practice of assigning letter grades to jobs has had perverse consequences. Aligning jobs with accountability is a much better idea. Read Article (PDF)


Level Pegging

15 JANUARY 2009 | www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/features

Job evaluation was laid to rest in the 1980s and 90s – or so we thought. But did it ever really die, and is it now enjoying a revival? Duncan Brown and Brian Dive report Read Article (PDF)


Hierarchies for Flow and Profit

by Brian Dive

from strategy+business issue 52, Autumn 2008

In mid-2007 I ran a Webcast for the management research organization The Conference Board on the subject of organizational design and leadership.We polled the executives of about 40 companies,
asking about their layers of management. Upward of 72 percent said they felt the business had too many
layers. Worse yet, they did not know what the right number should be....Read Article (PDF)


Leadership Levels

Empowering Leaders To Deliver Customer Service

Does your organization have the right number of hierarchical tiers? Are your leaders fully empowered with decision rights? Are you motivating employees in line with your business strategy? Do you have information processes in place to coordinate activities and measure performance? Read Article (PDF)


Accountable leadership

Strategy Magazine Issue 17 I September 2008

The key ingredients of strategic leadership programmes are a platform of clear accountabilities coupled with differentiating competencies, which identify those leaders who have the potential to climb into higher
levels of accountability. Read Article (PDF)


Why do banks continue to waste talent?

jINDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING Research Paper Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to respond to a claim in a recent McKinsey publication (24 July
2008) that European banks are short of talent. The paper argues that banks generally waste talent. They
are not short of talent. It argues, based on the author’s book The Accountable Leader, also published in
July 2008, that accountability is the key to effective leadership and management of talent.
.Read Paper (PDF)


Bonsai or big fish?

PMCRR I Summer Volume 1.4

Consider talent. That is, you, your peers, your staff — within any organisation are those with drive, intelligence and leadership ability — ergo ‘talent’. Brian Dive looks at financial institutions and ponders the reasons for the lack of true leadership during these trying economic conditions. Read Article (PDF)


Global Management Trends…

Why Organization Design Is Critical To Global Leadership Development

Executive Action | No. 144 April 2005

Talented individuals cannot contribute to their full capacity and potential in a cluttered, top-heavy organization that blurs accountability and stifles initiative. Yet, for some reason, the critical linkage between effective organization design and successful leadership development is often ignored.
Read Article (PDF)


Grades, Rank and Status: Issues and Challenges

IThere have already been two articles in this series on the link between job evaluation and organization design. This one takes a closer look at the people implications of having a system of grades, ranks and the link with status. This linkage is often unintended but in most cases it contributes to ineffective structures, unwieldy bureaucracies, and administrative ‘grade’ or rank promotions. These invariably result in cost drift, hollow jobs and dissatisfied staff. Read Paper (PDF)


Job evaluation and organisation design – the solution

In this, the second of two articles, Brian Dive explores the relationship between job
evaluation and organisation design and explains why he thinks that organisation
design should drive reward systems. Read Paper (PDF)


Problems with job evaluation and organisation design

Most job evaluation schemes drive organisation design. In this article (the first of two on the topic), Brian Dive looks at why often the unintended consequence of this can be ineffective structures, unwieldy bureaucracies, and administrative “grade” or rank promotions, leading to cost drift, hollow jobs and dissatisfied staff.Read Paper (PDF)

DMA