By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A story in the November Harvard Business Review is a boost for the University of Cincinnati's business school and a symbol of the new transparent Procter & Gamble Co.

HOW THEY DID IT

Here are six steps Procter & Gamble Co. used, with the help of two University of Cincinnati marketing professors, to survey its own employees and map a restructuring of its marketing unit. • Start with a clean slate. • Shadow a sample of employees. • Conduct a series of focus groups - off-site. • Use a series of in-depth interviews. • Develop a survey instrument that embraces the issues - using your employees' own language. • Examine the prevalence of the issues that exist throughout your organization.

Written by P&G global marketing officer Jim Stengel and UC marketing professors Chris Allen and Andrea Dixon, the story details the remaking of the P&G marketing department.

What started as a new training program in 2001 turned into "the most dramatic and sweeping redesign of P&G's marketing organization in 60 years," according to the 10-page article.

The story describes how during the late 1990s, P&G marketers had grown disillusioned with the lack of training and support they received from P&G. To find those opinions, P&G used the same techniques it has employed for decades to chart consumer attitudes.

While it's been mentioned in numerous stories in national journals, P&G hasn't produced or bylined a story in the prestigious business journal since a 1985 interview with then-CEO John Smale. Under current chairman A.G. Lafley, Procter is both more open and more openly solicitous of its employees.

As for UC, the business school has been trying to shore up its connections with local companies. This year, for example, every freshman in the program is part of a team studying a local company.

And Allen and Dixon have been working with P&G for several years on the marketing redesign.

"This kind of visibility is good for any author," Allen said. "But to me, the more important thing is the partnership with P&G. To survive in today's world, you've got to have alliances with the important institutions in your community."

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com