Preface
In anticipation of your journey through this book I would like to give you some background to its origins and purpose, so you can understand my own motivation for writing it and better appreciate how some of my personal experiences and those of my colleagues’ result in the ability to provide you not only with a strategy for, but also a practical guide to, ‘Leading Your People To Success’. Let’s start with the origins.
When I joined Shell Chemicals as an engineering graduate back in the early 1980’s, little did I realise I would soon be exposed to major cultural changes encouraged by the drive for profitability improvements in the middle of the Chemical industry’s worst recession for a decade. I remember the Carrington site where I was employed being described by a Shell executive as a ‘dog’ in the Shell organisation. At that time the ‘in’ terminology referred to companies as ’dogs’, ‘cash cows’, ‘stars’ or ‘wildcats’ depending on which quadrant the company fitted in the growth/share matrix1. ‘Dogs’ were in the worst quadrant as they had a relatively small share of low-growth markets and therefore needed to be turned around to become cash generators, or be disposed of.
Under this threat, the aim was to transform the ‘dog’ into a ‘star’; to turn Carrington into a business with a relatively large share of high-growth markets, in other words to make the site profitable. What transpired was later termed a blueprint for other sites in Shell. A truly inspirational strategy was implemented with military precision and considerable sympathy for the people affected by the change programme. In terms of a cultural change this has got to be one of the most radical ever undertaken in British industry.
To give you an idea of the scale, the employees reduced from around 1300 to 600 through a redundancy programme backed up by retraining and outplacement, virtually half the site production plant was decommissioned and demolished, organisational structures changed from matrix to profit centres, a single-union agreement was reached in conjunction with a massive training programme for the remaining multi-skilled technicians, and the site turned round from being a cash drain to one of the most profitable in the Shell group.
At the time I felt really privileged to have experienced this dramatic culture change as well as completing my own personal professional training programme and gaining my initial people-management exposure under the watchful and supportive eyes of far more experienced foremen and managers. It fuelled my interest in the people aspects of managing a business, it showed me what could be done, and with this enthusiasm and experience under my belt I left Shell to study full-time for a Masters degree in Business Administration (M.B.A.) at London Business School.
London Business School introduced me to the latest thoughts of people like Michael Porter1 on how to analyse businesses and competitive markets. I also had the fortune to be lectured by gurus on strategic management like Gary Hamel2. Paul Willman also came up trumps and introduced me to the importance of culture through the book ‘In Search Of Excellence’ by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman,3 which is all about how companies with a strong culture excel.
After London Business School I spent some time starting my own business and management consultancy, as well as joining a couple of companies. One of these firms had a particularly destructive, blame culture that became evident shortly after starting with the firm as an employee. Of course, although tough at the time, this now makes it easier for me to compare a blame culture with the cultural requirements for motivation and success.
Then I had a stroke of luck. Attracted by the descriptions of the company culture, I joined the UK firm Carpenter Ltd. The American parent, Carpenter Co., is a privately owned $1 billion turnover business that very few people have heard of, yet millions of people in the USA, Canada, and Europe are either walking or sitting on Carpenter’s products of carpet underlay or the foam/fibre in upholstered furniture. Carpenter Ltd was bought by Carpenter Co. in 1990 and since then has gone through a major transformation with disposals of non-core businesses and a tremendous investment programme. Behind this focus and investment strategy began the cultural transformation towards continuous improvement. I joined the company in 1995 as Plant Manager and later, General Manager, with the brief to help drive the Glossop site continuous improvement and to be a key member of the management team for the company as a whole.
The key reason this book can be written is because of the practical experience the Carpenter team and I have been through in developing the very special continuous improvement culture that reached its peak in 1997, together with recognition of the Glossop site as an Investor in People in the same year. Since then market conditions dictated that we reduce the number of employees, cut overheads and reduce significantly the time and resources available for continuous improvement. We therefore let certain good points drift and had to recapture them again later. In 2000 we were recognised once again as an Investor in People, this time across the whole UK company. The book, particularly in the Continuous Improvement section, includes practical examples of cultural change implemented at Carpenter.
In 2001 I established my own consultancy firm called Leading Your People To Success Ltd, which focuses on guiding corporate culture change; hence the book’s title.
Since the benefit of cultural change applies in all industries, this book also contains case studies about companies in the banking, construction, airline, computer, food, clothing, manufacturing and, of course, petrochemical sectors. All are well-known companies that have already been through cultural change. All tell you their stories for you to learn from. All focus on different aspects of culture change. ‘All’ includes British Airways, Mortgage Express, and Colman’s of Norwich; plus Wates Group, IBM Greenock, Simon Jersey, Alcan Foil Europe - Glasgow, and an update on Carrington. There is also a chapter about Investors in People UK, which has helped over 5 million people change their working culture through the Investors in People Standard.
Leading Your People To Success is a result of the above experiences.
This book is principally aimed at chief executive officers, managing directors and general managers; people at the top of their company. It also applies to everyone with autonomy in their organisation, everyone who manages their own site, branch, division or department. This includes everyone who influences their own sub-culture, indeed everyone who manages a team of people. The cultural changes discussed apply to public limited, private limited, family-owned, or owner-managed businesses, subsidiaries, and even sites within a larger company. It also extends to the public as well as private sector, service industries in addition to manufacturing, and in certain circumstances even voluntary organisations. It is aimed at leaders.
The purpose is to guide you through the cultural change process, to stimulate radical improvements in the way things are performed, and to enable you and your staff to create extra value for your business. Due to the nature of this process, everyone in your organisation is likely to be affected by the changes proposed. Let’s look at what this book is really about at grass-roots level.
This book is about motivating your employees. It is about removing frustrations and empowering your people to think for themselves and implement their own ideas. It is about saying ‘thank you’ for a job well done. It is about supporting your colleagues in a trusting, helpful culture where change is the actively encouraged norm and the word ‘blame’ does not exist. It is about encouraging your staff to go that extra mile because they want to, not because you’ve asked them to. It is all about people and how your company can gain a competitive advantage through leading your people to success, where success is measured in terms of motivation as well as profits.
This book is also about communication, vertically as well as horizontally throughout your organisation. It is about giving your people permanently open channels to ask for change, so they can ask for improvements and see these requests implemented as a priority.
It is about establishing values, principles and standards plus well-defined
ways of doing things. In short it is a guide to creating a strong sustainable
culture in which your employees are happy, fulfilled and motivated so they
help you drive your business forward because they know and understand where
the business is going and they want to share in this success.
