Tallinn University — alignment during an institutional merger
Estonia, 2014–2015. 24 working days. Strategy consultant and executive coach.
The problem
A merger produced a matrix organisation whose members used the same words to mean different things. Cross-departmental dependencies were assumed, not documented, and every planning cycle re-litigated them.
The approach
Combined strategy facilitation with executive coaching. Multi-department workshops to make shared vocabulary explicit; one-on-one coaching for the leaders whose role scope was most changed by the merger. LEGO® Serious Play® for the sessions where hierarchy would otherwise have suppressed dissent.
The result
A consensus-backed strategy specific to the new matrix, operational models describing how the departments actually intersect, and a shared vocabulary that let the next planning cycle build rather than restart.
What I learned
In matrix organisations, ambiguity is not a bug to be argued out — it is a structural feature. The strategy has to describe how ambiguity gets resolved, not pretend it has been eliminated.