 Staples is a growing company that
cares about its customers and employees. TeamBuilders WorldWide has had
the honor of partnering with Staples in Florida, Connecticut and
at its corporate headquarters in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Profile
Staples launched the office supplies superstore industry with
the opening of its first store in Brighton (Boston), Mass., in
May 1986. Its goal: to provide small business owners the same
low prices on office supplies previously enjoyed only by large
corporations. Staples is now a $13 billion retailer of office
supplies, business services, furniture and technology to
consumers and businesses from home-based businesses to Fortune
500 companies in North America and throughout Europe. Customers
can shop with Staples however they choose, either by walking in,
calling in or logging on.
Initiative
Staples’ home office has an extremely talented group of folks
designing and delivering its training programs. TeamBuilders WorldWide had
a wonderful opportunity to work directly with these two groups
to create a stronger synergy that, at the end of the day,
benefited its internal and external clients. Our focus was on
the challenges and opportunities that a matrix environment
presents when it comes to effective communication and execution.
Objectives
-
Identify, prioritize and strategize on items and actions that
impede communication, seeking and sharing information.
-
Surface and build on issues of collaboration and cohesiveness.
-
Create a “Declaration of Interdependence” for commitment and
accountability.
-
Enhance abilities to react to change.
-
Eliminate the “Us and Them” culture that existed between the
two areas of the business.
-
Have fun and get to know each other.
Results
We identified the drivers moving them towards Staples’
aggressive Human Resource objectives. We then identified and
prioritized the restrainers impeding the group from
accomplishing these goals. Once we had the prioritized items,
subgroups were able to begin strategy sessions to remove these
barriers. The changes were carried beyond our meeting and
presented at the monthly meeting. The teams committed to these
changes in the form of a written document for accountability
known as their “Declaration of Interdependence”.
New York Life Insurance has been in the Big Apple since it was
just a tiny seed. The company (the top mutual life insurer in
the U.S.) is adding products but retaining its core business:
life insurance and annuities. New York Life has added such
products and services as mutual funds for individuals. It also
offers its investment management services to institutional
investors. Other lines of business include long-term care
insurance and special group policies sold through AARP and other
affinity groups or professional associations. The company,
through New York Life International, is also reaching out
geographically, targeting areas where the life insurance market
is not yet established.
Initiative
The leadership team in the call centers wanted to shift the
teams mind set from dialing and answering phones to a more purposeful existence.
How do you take a culture that for many years was “check in the box” and create
a culture of leadership?
Objectives
-
Raise the bar for leadership.
-
Understand the “why’s” of our
business and what we do.
-
Create a vision statement.
-
Experience and practice
opportunities for leadership skills and attributes.
-
Create individual leadership
action plans on how we are going to live this vision.
-
Positively deal with issues of
trust and respect.
-
Enhance abilities to react to
change.
Results
In a four session series we took this group thru the stages of
development as a team as well as through individual plateaus and peaks as
leaders. The team invested many hours in strategy sessions to answer the hard
questions like, what are the “why’s” of our business and what exactly is it that
we do? The results were impressive as they went from dialing and answering
phones to taking on a leadership role providing its customers with protection
and peace of mind. By the end of the session this team was able to give and
receive feedback to one another and raise the bar for delivering to its
customers.
 One of the leading life insurance companies in the United States
used TeamBuilders WorldWide to help in their growth and shift to becoming
a publicly held company. The cultural shift for their employees
is huge with MetLife’s' strong history.
Profile
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (MetLife) and its affiliates
offer life, non-medical health, and property and casualty
insurance as well as savings, retirement and other financial
products and services for individuals and institutions. It is
one of the oldest and largest insurance companies in the U.S.
MetLife has approximately 45,000 associates and 37 million,
count them, 37 million customers WorldWide.
Initiative
MetLife, Inc. (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company) has
approximately $1.7 trillion of life insurance in force with
international insurance operations in ten counties. MetLife has
been a mutual company since its inception in 1863, but since
April 7, 2000 it has de-mutualized and became the seventh
largest IPO ever held in the United States. These changes
require the CCD to adapt to new systems and technology.
Traditionally the CCD has been a “ready…aim, aim, aim, fire”
risk-averse culture. The CCD has identified seven Critical
Success Factors that are crucial and mandatory to its success:
-
Learning
-
Problem Solving
-
Communication
-
Leadership
-
Change Capacity
-
Culture
-
Performance Management
Obviously there is a lot of change needed internally to make
this transition, but none more so than for the Corporate
Controller Department known as CCD. Among other things these
changes require the CCD to adopt new systems and new technology.
The culture within this area tended to be one of "Ready, Aim,
Aim, Aim, Fire." The tradition of this risk adverse culture
created some challenges between the two-year and the 20-year
employees. If each group could trust and effectively communicate
with the other, they could realize, capitalize and benefit from
each other's strengths and talents.
Seven Critical Success Factors were identified for this six-unit
team, which included 225 participants including Senior
Management, Budget and Expense Management, Accounting, Financial
Reporting, Treasury and Investments. Originally TeamBuilders WorldWide
designed a series of three action based team development
sessions, which included ground level, mid-level activities and
high-level challenges at one of our Outdoor Learning Centers in
Florida. The Corporate Controller Department of MetLife has
partnered with TeamBuilders WorldWide for three years now and we are very
proud to be assisting them with our third Team Jump-Start
session. The CCD consists of six units:
-
Senior Management, administration and leadership
-
Budget & Expense Management, budget reporting
-
Accounting, cash reconciliation, corporate ledger, billing
-
Financial Reporting, consolidated financial statements,
regularity
-
Treasury, check writing
-
Investment, real-estate, securities
Objectives
-
Build on a sense of community and cohesive membership.
-
Break down walls that may impede communication, seeking and
sharing information.
-
Surface and build on issues of collaboration and cohesiveness.
-
Experience and practice opportunities for leadership skills
and attributes.
-
Create awareness, understanding and applications for the
insights from the day as a jumpstart for their new careers at
Met.
-
Positively deal with issues of trust and respect.
-
Enhance abilities to react to change.
-
Promote risk taking.
-
Have fun, lots of it!
Results
The Corporate Controller Department of MetLife has partnered
with TeamBuilders WorldWide for the past three years now and we are very
proud to be discussing further performance development programs.
Employee appreciation has been outstanding as new members of the
MetLife team are integrated immediately into the culture, goals
and expectations that await them.
 As a result of our partnership with Washington Mutual Finance
(now part of Citi Group) TeamBuilders WorldWide was called in to partner
with the Human Resource Specialist to design and deliver a
series of team and leadership development programs.
Profile
Founded in 1927 with a history of the parent company dating back
to 1889, Washington Mutual has grown to well over 500 offices
across the United States. Recent growth has included the opening
of several hundred more branches on the East coast of Florida
alone. With its consolidated assets it is the largest savings
institution and eighth largest company in the United States.
With an ever changing economy, a continuous stream of
acquisitions and six principal subsidiaries, change has been the
constant for Washington Mutual and its affiliates.
Initiative
The President is a believer, a leader and a driver in the
development and performance of his Executive Management
Committee as a team. Due to his strong belief in this concept,
he has experienced several different versions of action based or
experiential learning in other parts of the world, the states
and locally in the Tampa area. After a few disappointing
attempts with other organizations, TeamBuilders WorldWide was called upon
to design, develop and implement an ongoing team performance
process. The objectives for the various teams team were very
clear: function as a team, provide unconditional support for one
another as a leadership team and enable your people.
TeamBuilders WorldWide has partnered with several areas of business within
Washington Mutual from Tampa, to Seattle and Long Beach: The
teams include:
-
Specialty Finance
-
The Mortgage Group
-
Information Systems
We decided on the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as the instrument
of choice to complement a day of action based learning. The
group was able to not just understand, but also literally
experience the differences in behavior preferences when
experiencing the activities. Much of the debrief at the end of
each session not only transferred back to the world within WaMu,
but the realization that these folks have differences in their
preferred pathways to success. Nobody was wrong, but many were
greatly misunderstood. The second session with the Executive
Management Committee was an outdoor business learning
simulation, which was kicked off with an advanced Myers-Briggs
presentation, which delves into the Lenses of MBTI to better
understand leadership and fellowship style, dealing with change
and culture. In the past three years the partnership has
advanced dramatically to measuring and tracking the teams stages
of development thru out the use of the
Five-Star Team
Performance Indicator. TeamBuilders WorldWide and the WaMu
Executive Management Committee meet every sixty to ninety days
to continue the process and strive to advanced developing the
groups into an accountable Self Managed Work Teams.
Objectives
-
Build on a sense of community and cohesive membership.
-
Take on a “do different to do more” attitude.
-
Accept and embrace the changes needed to move the organization
forward.
-
Surface and build on issues of collaboration and cohesiveness.
-
Create awareness, understanding and drive at the applications
of interconnectivity as a “one organization” approach to problem
solving.
-
Have the group take on individual ownership and accountability
for actions, behaviors and decisions (or lack of).
-
Strategize actions that will develop us as individuals and as
a whole for this group.
-
Have fun, lots of it!
Results
At present, WaMu’s success is unmatched. This group of
individuals is one of the finest examples we have of a team that
experienced awareness-understanding and now has second nature
behaviors for high performance application. Other teams within
WaMu have followed the Executive Management Committee’s example
and are developing teams in partnership with TeamBuilders WorldWide
including:
-
Marketing
-
Information Technologies
-
Legal
-
Operational Vive Presidents
-
Central Finance Committee
-
Executive Management Committee Commercial Finance
 TECO is Tampa Electric Company, an electric and gas utility
holding company headquartered in Tampa, Florida, with utility
businesses located in Florida, and other energy-related
operations in Louisiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Alabama. It’s Customer Service Management Team wanted to make
some aggressive changes to enhance customer satisfaction to its
users. The first step was to get on board as leaders and to
enlist all of its managers in this effort.
Profile
The energy industry across America is becoming more competitive.
This is intensifying competition between existing companies,
drawing competition from across traditional state and regional
boundaries, and spawning new competitors. One of the keys to
success in this new environment is top-notch customer service.
In order to respond to service requests promptly and
predictably, company service representatives need to know who
and where customers are when they call. Succeeding in this
increasingly competitive environment requires greater customer
focus. It also requires new information systems to facilitate
the delivery of service and the resolution of problems.
TECO Energy presents a case in point. TECO is an electric and
gas utility holding company headquartered in Tampa, Florida,
with utility businesses located in Florida, and other
energy-related operations in Louisiana, Illinois, Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Alabama. One of TECO's subsidiaries is Peoples
Gas, which it acquired in 1997. At the time, TECO Energy
Customer Service brought on a new director to deal with an
outdated customer service culture.
Initiative
The Executive Management Team decided to participate in an
offsite to align itself with its vision, mission and values.
There was a heavy emphasis on balancing task, process and
people. The offsite was kicked off with a very powerful Team
Jump-Start session. This program was designed to include several
intellectual challenges that would create the appropriate
transfer back to the customer service world and the day-to-day
operations for this group. It was imperative to pick activities
that were not physically demanding yet very rich with insights.
The challenge to follow was to turn these insights into customer
service applications...back to the meeting room they went.
After several follow up sessions with the Executive Management
group, it was time to enlist the buy-in and ownership from the
Front Line Managers. A roll out had just occurred and three
management areas were being rolled into one Customer Service
Organization. As a result there were several lateral transfers
with ongoing change. Members of the teams were reassigned
resulting in some uncertainty and confusion. The message to
these folks was a very kind “get over it”. Everyone needed to be
flexible to the change because it is the customer service
direction that was necessary. They were asked to be aware and be
sensitive to the changes that all were asked to make as a
result. Because of the three areas becoming one, there was
plenty of opportunity for “common understanding” and process
improvement. Each area must have an understanding of the way
they impact one another and the impact they have on providing
service to their clients.
Results
Congratulations to the Customer Service Teams at Tampa Electric
Company for being voted
Number One in customer satisfaction out of 118-power utility
companies nationwide.
And for Tampa Electric Company being named to the Fortune 500
List …now these are some results!
 Casper’s Company is the largest McDonalds franchise owners in
America. Their growth has been so rapid that it was becoming
hard to keep up with the change. Since 1999 TeamBuilders WorldWide has
partnered with Caspers including its executive leadership team
and McDonald’s regional managers creating strategic action plans
for its aggressive initiatives.
Profile
As the largest franchise owners of McDonalds restaurants,
Casper’s Companies growth has been unprecedented in the
McDonalds world. As a result TeamBuilders WorldWide partnered with them to
create high performance leadership that would enable high
performance team members.
Initiative
An aggressive Initiative was being rolled out with a philosophy
to return to the basics. However, these basics must be executed
extremely well in order to provide fast service with the new
“Made for You” production system (making sandwiches to order
versus the large bins in the old days).
The past two meetings with TeamBuilders WorldWide and Casper’s Company
have included, not only team development sessions, but also
strategic action planning sessions as well. The action-based
learning did a wonderful job at creating the insights and
awareness, but it was the time spent back in the meeting rooms
that really helped to provide the tangibility needed to turn the
insights into actions.
The
initiatives:
-
Reducing turnover
-
Enhancing morale
-
Providing stability
-
Generating higher levels of performance with less effort
-
Stop/start/continues for last year's actions
-
How do we get the regions to help one another?
-
How do we get all departments interfacing and supporting the
Initiative?
-
How do we maintain a passion for what we do?
When all these principles are in place and monitored closely,
they can deliver high levels of Quality, Service, and
Cleanliness.
Objectives
-
Evaluation of previous year’s Initiatives.
-
Take on a “do different to do more” attitude. Improving
profitability “Beyond the Box”.
-
Build on a sense of community and cohesive membership among
managers.
-
Surface and build on issues of collaboration and cohesiveness.
-
Create awareness, understanding and drive at the applications
for Top Gun Roll Out.
-
Start to create an empowering culture that moves away from the
traditional “top-down” management.
-
Strategize actions to minimize turnover, identify and address
opportunities to enhance support for Top Gun Initiatives from
all departments.
-
Have fun, lots of it!
Results
Restrainers that would impede complete success for the
initiative were identified, prioritized and assigned to manager
task force to brainstorm and provide the what, where, how, when
and who(m) for addressing these challenges and create the
foundation for a strategic plan. We used a very simple
Stop-Start-Continue model to create the actions needed for
complete success. After participating in a day of ground level
problem solving activities with applicable transfers back to
this initiative, six hours later Casper’s had created the
foundational elements for what is now the active culture of
their business.
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