Chapter 2
Make Everyone’s Dreams Come True
A dream is a wish your heart makes.
Jiminy Cricket
It is no easy matter to convey a dream. Dreams are, by nature, deeply personal experiences. But true to his imaginative genius, Walt Disney was able to transform his dreams into stories that effectively articulated his vision to others. More importantly, the stories served to draw others into his fantasies, thereby marshaling the power of their collective creativity for the benefit of his dream.
In the early days, when The Walt Disney Company was small, Walt used to call his five or six animators into his office to discuss an idea for a new film project. With dramatic effect, he would embark on a story—not a literal narrative account of his idea, but an ancient myth, perhaps, or some other related tale that conveyed the feelings and emotions behind his dream and his hope for the project’s success. In short order, the master would capture the imaginations of his “cast members” (“employees” in the usual corporate parlance) and in the process stimulate the kind of excitement and commitment of minds and hearts that he well knew was necessary to turn Disney-size dreams into reality. For example, he insisted that the castle at Disneyland be built first—before anything else—so that this visual structure could help shape the vision and rally everyone around the dream he was trying to create. (See Figure 2-1.)
Figure 2-1. Bill Capodagli at the castle that helped shape Walt Disney’s dream of the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland—“Mad” King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.
He was such a vivid and persuasive storyteller that his listeners usually found themselves swept up—like Ward Kimball on the Pinocchio project—in a passionate endorsement of Walt’s vision. Long before concrete plans were in place for the next movie or cartoon, before any budgets were prepared or administrative and engineering problems ironed out, Walt had established a team atmosphere around the forthcoming venture. Thus, he began nearly every new project with eager and enthusiastic participants, an enormous advantage in a process that often involved long hours of work seven days a week.
Storytelling can be a powerful tool for focusing an organization on a particular problem or project and for unleashing employees’ creativity by giving them the power to dream. We have helped clients in a variety of industries tailor the technique to fit their particular situations. As you come to understand how this age-old art and other methods are used today by The Walt Disney Company and by many of our clients, you will begin to see how dreams can drive desired change.
Dream Retreats Inspire Creativity
The use of storytelling to rally all project members around a vision is still an important element of the Disney approach, thanks to Walt’s formation in the early 1950s of a creative group called “Imagineering.” Organized during the building of Disneyland, the group’s purpose is to carry on the Disney tradition by dreaming up new creative venues, such as the theme park attractions.
Today, there are approximately 2,000 Imagineers at the five Disney theme parks. They are the inspiration for an event that we call a “Dream Retreat.” As we tell our clients when we explain the Dream Retreat methodology, “If you can Dream it, you can Do it.” Having employed this technique for many years, we know from experience that even seemingly frivolous, blue-sky notions can lead to realistic, yet innovative, outcomes.
When The Walt Disney Company set out to build an additional water park at Walt Disney World, for example, a small team met in the office of the team leader, a senior vice president, to get the project under way. The office was decorated with all manner of personal memorabilia, including those little glass snow domes that, when shaken, produce a flurry of swirling snowflakes.
Picking up a dome and shaking it, the vice president commented, “Too bad we can’t make a park out of one of these.” After a general pause, a team member asked, “Why not?” From that simple question, the team took off on the apparently impossible notion of building a ski resort in the sunshine of central Florida.
One artist sketched a picture of an alligator wearing earmuffs and careening down a slope on skis. Another drew a fanciful rendition of a winter resort enclosed in a snow dome. Not suitable for Florida, everyone agreed, but loath to discard the idea, they turned instead to the well established Disney storytelling method and devised a tale based on a blizzard.
Here’s how it developed: A capricious winter storm brought a heavy load of snow to Florida. An entrepreneur came along and built a ski resort. He did well until the weather returned to normal, melting the snow and turning the ski runs into rushing waterfalls. But the waterfalls were then turned into … what else? water rides for adventurous athletes.
Using this fantasy story as their inspiration, Disney engineers and architects built the new water park and gave it the name Blizzard Beach.
Another example of this tried-and-true approach was when the Imagineers actually constructed a story to enhance the romance of Pleasure Island. To set the stage for the envisioned experience, they wove an entirely fictitious tale about the history of the location, to wit: The land originally belonged to a seafaring adventurer, Merryweather Pleasure, who settled there to build a successful canvas and sail-making company. Pleasure built a thriving industrial complex. As the years passed and Merryweather Pleasure listened to the stories told by visiting seagoing types and other adventurers, his nostalgia for his past proved too strong to resist. He sailed away from Pleasure Island forever, leaving his company in the hands of two sons. They were lazy and indifferent to their father’s legacy, however, and gradually the warehouses fell into disrepair.
Imagineers refurbished the island, turning its rundown warehouses into exciting restaurants and nightclubs designed to reflect the regional themes of Pleasure’s functional buildings. Once again the district bustles with the activity of world travelers who come together in the spirit of fun and adventure, a tradition established here a century ago.
But the real importance of both the Pleasure Island and the Blizzard Beach examples is that they united team members around whimsical notions that piqued their creative playfulness and drew them completely into the visions for the projects. Repeating and embellishing the fantastical stories engaged team members in a way that discussion of budgets and staffing problems could never have done. A team linked by a central idea, even one built on whimsy, is better able to tackle the mundane matters that must be dealt with in order to bring a project to completion. It’s the primary reason that Walt Disney wanted the castle at Disneyland to be the first building constructed.
Today, everybody is referring to corporate this and corporate that and a change is taking place. They want more production and they want it cheaper. But no matter what happens, the creative idea will only be perpetuated by somebody who comes up with a vision. I don’t care if there are three CEOs, it takes one guy with an idea. And Walt (Disney) was the perfect example of that.
JOE GRANT, DISNEY ANIMATOR, WRITER
We often ask our Dream Retreat participants to write an imaginary newspaper story reporting their company’s triumphant turnaround. The chroniclers are asked to describe the winning ways embraced by their company and how they were implemented.
The purpose of this exercise is to force the group to think about how forthcoming cultural changes should be developed, how they would affect their company, and how these employees personally would execute them. A number of different scenarios typically emerge. Some are nuts-and-bolts pieces; others have a streak of fantasy about them; but all evidence an understanding of the company’s goals. “The Dream principle has been crucial for the telecommunications industry as it grapples with disruptive technological changes. Telecom executives need to have the vision and confidence to transform their business models while keeping employees and customers happy at the same time,” comments Scott Stevenson, Telecommunications Association of Michigan president.3
Dream Retreats Foster Participation
Walt Disney instinctively knew that participation by cast members in the development of a new “show” gave them a sense of commitment, both to the project in question and to the company itself. Judging from the extremely low turnover rates at his namesake company, we can say that Walt’s instincts were, as always, right on target. Whereas a 100 percent turnover rate is the norm at most theme parks, rank-and-file turnover at Disney is less than 30 percent. And within the company’s management ranks, turnover is less than 6 percent.
What’s more, everything we have learned in working with companies worldwide lends support to the validity of Walt’s inclusive approach. Employees everywhere, whether in China or India or Italy, basically agree on what is important and what is offensive in a corporate culture. They dislike arrogance on the part of management, and they desperately want real two-way communication that includes them in planning and resolving critical issues.
The employees of CMA Canada are of this mindset. CMA Canada represents 37,000 certified management accountants (CMAs) and 10,000 students and candidates in Canada and around the world.
Since 2003, they have been involved in a journey to change the culture of their organization. One of the exciting developments came out of a full-staff Dream Retreat last summer on The Disney Way of customer service. At that session, they were determined to dream how they could encourage an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. The result of this session was the creation of a Mutual Respect and Trust (MRT) Committee—a cross-functional task force with folks from the internal areas of accreditation, corporate services, and IT.
Dream Retreat participants felt that there was a need to take the ideas and thoughts expressed and to work toward resolving some of the issues identified. The MRT Committee decided to focus on communication and came up with four initial recommendations: establish a company newsletter, create a virtual calendar of events, build an intranet site, and hold regular interdepartmental meetings.
Last December, the newsletter, Bridges, was introduced to CMA Canada employees in all provinces and territories across Canada. The first issue focused mainly on introductions and explained some of the roles and new initiatives taking place at the national office. As Richard Benn, vice president of program development explained, “We were very pleased that the newsletter met with such a favorable response. Later this year we will be encouraging submissions from our provincial partners about the exciting things that are happening with them so as to further ‘bridge’ our interconnectivity.”4
The CMA Canada intranet was designed and built to provide seamless access to a host of internal information from CMA Canada’s current Strategic Plan and its Mission, Vision, and Values to a library of documentation for all key projects and activities. CMA Canada also instituted a virtual calendar of events that provides online access to events and projects planned and happenings in and outside of its regional offices. There is also an ongoing effort to hold regular interdepartmental meetings to help realize common goals.
Results of a staff survey show that these efforts have not been in vain. Although there is still more work to be done, CMA’s leadership is encouraged by the data, and the staff continues to work together toward a culture of excellence.
Never is employee participation more important than when a company decides to embark on a program of change. Perhaps customer service is suffering, or employee turnover is reaching unacceptable levels, or the product offering is tired and stale. Whatever it is that provides the eventual impetus, one thing will be clear: the old way is no longer working, and a new framework of operation is needed. When that happens, companies invite disaster if they don’t involve front-line employees in the process. As we have seen so many times in working with our clients, such involvement is a key part of communicating with people during times of change.
A Dream Retreat has proved to be an ideal way of helping companies initiate needed change. Besides involving employees in strategy and facilitating their understanding of the vision and direction the company is pursuing, a Dream Retreat environment propels participants into a world of new ideas that often spark innovative solutions to the problems at hand.
The retreats, which can last anywhere from one to five days, are conducted away from the company premises. We have found that off-site gatherings are a great way to break down barriers and begin the planning process for the kind of change that ultimately revolutionizes a culture. When people are removed from daily routines and placed in an atmosphere that encourages free expression of their dreams, amazing ideas begin to emerge and flourish. Dreaming in this context is not a solitary occupation; participants bat around project ideas, argue, laugh, and brainstorm solutions as a group.
Storytelling is always encouraged at the Dream Retreats, but occasionally a new client will balk at learning and practicing the technique. Such reluctance is understandable. After all, we are proposing a radical departure from the customary business procedure. In the traditional environment, employees are informed of a new project when most of the preliminary details are in place. They are told who will work on a project, what the budget is, and what the deadlines are. To suggest that management invite employees into the strategy and planning process through storytelling is at odds with received wisdom.
Most of our clients, however, are open-minded and willing to experiment once they understand that communicating their vision is pivotal to innovation and project success. We tell them that if they want employees to get behind a corporate vision, they have to let those employees know what that vision is. We often think of a former client that literally kept its strategic plan under lock and key. Employees cannot possibly help advance specific goals if they aren’t privy to the overall plan.
New clients sometimes have difficulty in understanding the basic value of Dream Retreats. “What will my company gain from such an idea?” we are asked. “It sounds like some kind of a vacation to me. Everyone will probably just want to play golf.”
But a Dream Retreat is only a vacation from operating in the old, less-than-optimal style. In reality, a Dream Retreat involves a lot of hard work and grappling with tough decisions. Employees are removed from the administrative details that hamper their creativity at the office so that they can focus on strategy and planning in a fresh, innovative way.
The Dream Retreat in Action
While disabusing our clients of the notion that a Dream Retreat is a break from work, we want them to understand the excitement that such an experience generates. The power of the collective intelligence and the power of teaming amid a spirit of fun create a unique atmosphere that is rich with inventive possibilities.
One of our favorite examples is Whirlpool’s Global No-Frost team (featured in the sidebars at the end of each chapter). In 1994, this team was formed to create a new international product that would require building a plant in India. The team was composed of members from India, China, Brazil, Italy, Canada, and the United States. Under the old way of doing business, leaders from the six areas involved would have gotten together to devise a plan, then taken pieces of that plan back to their respective countries and started working separately.
This time, though, things were to be different. Instead of following marching orders issued from the top, an empowered team was charged with examining the options and coming up with an agenda. Team leader Jerry McColgin wasted no time in setting the tone for how he wanted his group to tackle the work ahead. His first order of business was to insist on a new layout for the team’s office space at its Indiana facility. Out went the walls, the cubicles, the compartmentalized look to create a space that resembled an old-fashioned newsroom: open, convivial, and barrier-free.
The project officially got underway with a five-day Dream Retreat for 40 people from all over the world. There, in the dead of an Indiana winter, the Global No-Frost team assembled its collective talent.
The retreat began with people talking about their personal dreams and their sense of the team’s mission. The individual interests of each sector were weighed against the overall goals of the company as the team strove to achieve a realistic balance for the project. As the five days unfolded, however, something exciting and gratifying began to happen: the barriers between the various functional areas started to crumble. Technicians accepted responsibility for engineering tasks; engineers listened attentively to marketing concerns; marketers assumed the critical business role of evaluating suppliers. Even the usually standoffish finance people willingly jumped into the trenches with purchasing and marketing folks. The flow of ideas became a flood. By the end of the retreat, everyone was working together for the common good of the team.
The Dream Retreat was an essential first step on a project that ended up surpassing everyone’s initial expectations. Never before had new Whirlpool products arrived on the market so quickly. That’s because the Global No-Frost team met every deadline and achieved every goal. When, in the middle of the project, team members found that they needed to lower costs further than originally planned in order to increase competitive position, they rallied to the cause and did it without cutting quality. And here’s the icing on the cake: the entire project came in under budget. It’s not unusual for our clients to credit a Dream Retreat for keeping costs in check.
As Brian Hartke, manager of project engineering at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company’s Mead Johnson Nutritional division, aptly points out: “If you change something in the planning stage, it costs you a dollar. If you change something in the design phase, it costs you 10 dollars. If you change something after the plant is built, it costs you a hundred dollars.” A Dream Retreat increases the opportunities for figuring out what’s needed early in the process, before you spend a lot of change for the change.
In 1993, before Mead Johnson Nutritional division began constructing the world’s largest production facility for infant-formula powder in Zeeland, Michigan, Hartke brought his diverse construction team together for a Dream Retreat at a hotel in Holland, Michigan. The team members, both workers and suppliers, “really got to know one another there,” Hartke says. “They put together plans through formal and informal conversations.” And because of that initial interaction, the team continued face-to-face meetings throughout the project. End result: the plant was completed on time and on budget.
Another example of the value of a Dream Retreat occurred when we worked with British Petroleum Ltd. in 1990. But far more than just a single project was at stake in this instance. As the worldwide oil company bluntly admitted, “Nothing short of a complete overhaul … was needed.” The company was too autocratic. It was strangling in red tape. Turf consciousness was impeding efficiency, and the company was hierarchical to the point of paralysis. Not surprisingly, employee morale was also frighteningly low.
“The business climate is challenging,” a company report concluded, “and only the best oil companies will survive into the 21st century.” At the rate the octogenarian BP was going (the company was founded in 1909), that it would live to see the next millennium was far from certain. Old oil fields were declining, and because of fiercely competitive conditions, new ones were tougher to find. Costs were escalating. And skilled technicians were becoming scarcer.
To remedy the situation, the company had an ambitious organization-wide innovation initiative. In fact, it envisioned an entirely new corporate culture, one where a more participatory environment would give employees the freedom and responsibility, within certain limits, to make decisions. A far cry from the rigid command-and-control policies of the past, such an initiative would be quite a change if the company could pull it off.
Bill launched a Dream Retreat that produced a major turnaround in day-to-day office procedures. Managers became visible and present for their employees, not deskbound behind closed doors. No longer were meetings run from on high, with orders handed down and questions distinctly unwelcome. Teams replaced the previous hierarchy throughout the company. Training and coaching of employees was the order of the day. To bring the message of this new company vision to all employees, BP held town-hall meetings.
Something of what this change-management initiative has meant to British Petroleum can be discerned from one small incident. Prior to the overhaul, a team of high-powered geologists and engineers at the company’s U.S. exploration headquarters in Anchorage, Alaska, produced a monthly report for the president that analyzed seismic data and estimated potential oil reserves at the Prudhoe Bay field. It was a complex, time-consuming task that took energy away from other vital duties.
As part of the new atmosphere of empowerment, the scientists and engineers scrutinized the process, evaluated its costs, and discovered that an inordinate number of worker-hours were being devoted to it. Then they asked why. Was the monthly process really vital to the interests of the company? Or was it being done just in case the president happened to ask for an estimate of the latest oil reserves? They made their case to the president, who agreed that since the report was, at best, an estimate, an assessment every three months was entirely sufficient. The savings in time and money were considerable.
Although the revitalized BP is still evolving, old habits have been eliminated, and the refrain “we have always done it this way” is rarely, if ever, heard these days. In June 1998 Industry Week reported that British Petroleum expects 20 percent more oil from its oil-production operations in Alaska. Officials reported that reduced costs and technological advances have made expansion on the North Slope feasible. Moreover, as the Prudhoe Bay example illustrates, management is upholding its end of the bargain by supporting empowered employees who make smart, solid recommendations. And as for the bottom line, John Browne, BP’s group chief executive, speaking to the financial community recently, recounted sustained improvement in cost reduction and volume increases in the five years from 1992 through 1996. During that period, Browne said, profits grew by more than $3 billion.
Tracking Good Ideas
Dream Retreats offer the fastest and most productive way to achieve flexibility and openness within a company’s ranks. But once people become accustomed to acknowledging their own creative powers, you must implement a system outside the retreat setting that encourages them to bring their ideas to management.
Mike Cryan, president of Windsor Capital Group, clearly understands the value of harnessing the ideas of his management team. Windsor Capital Group, Inc. is a Santa Monica–based hotel company that owns and manages nationwide properties, largely Embassy Suites and Marriott Hotels. In 2002, Mike championed a two-day Dream Retreat for his management team in the Arizona desert, where they turned their organizational “Dream” into concrete objectives: track customer perceptions through feedback; contain costs; and grow the business. “The process helped us work on our goals, corporate team arm in arm with the hotel staff members, through the creation and visualization of the storyboard. This really simplified our ability to communicate these goals to the department heads and line-level employees when we returned to our properties. After the Dream Retreat, our president provided a platform at subsequent operations meetings for us to discuss how we were achieving these goals,” commented Regina Samy, vice president.5 Today, WCG is one of the leading companies in the hospitality management business with a results-oriented approach that produces bottom-line operating numbers that are among the best in the industry.
When Walt Disney was at the helm of the company, everyone was invited to voice his or her opinions and to make suggestions—in fact, not just invited but required. The corporate hierarchy dissolved when it came to offering ideas for improving a movie script, a theme park ride, or an animated sequence. Anyone could bring suggestions for cartoons and features to Walt himself. Basically, the same holds true today, but the size of the company makes a casual approach impractical. The company does provide regular opportunities to harvest good ideas from all corners of the organization, however.
In the early days at the helm of The Walt Disney Company, Michael Eisner instituted a thrice-yearly event known as the Gong Show, named after a television program popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Animators, secretaries, and anyone else who thought he or she had a good idea could formally make a pitch to a panel of top brass that included then CEO Michael Eisner; vice chairman of the board, Roy Disney; executive vice president of animation, Tom Schumacher; and president of the animation division (now president of the film division), Peter Schneider.
On average, 40 ideas were presented as succinctly as possible. It was a tough milieu because the listeners at the table provided immediate and honest reactions. “You must have immediate communication and not worry about people’s egos and feelings,” Schneider says. “If you do that enough and people do not get fired or demoted, they begin to understand that no matter how good, bad, or indifferent the idea, it can be expressed, accepted, and considered.”6
The “Gong Show” was a valuable learning experience for many employees, helping them to see why one idea works and another doesn’t. It was also an experience that enhanced the atmosphere of freedom—freedom both to dream and to share those dreams with the company’s highest authorities. And by creating an environment in which people felt safe to express their creativity, the The Walt Disney Company opened itself up to literally thousands of good ideas—ideas so good that they have sewn the seeds for many of Disney’s animated features. Hercules, for example, grew from an animator’s idea that a man is judged by his inner strength and not his outer strength. Though the story line ended up changing, the basic premise stood and the movie went on to be a commercial success.
Not long ago, we were showing an executive from British Petroleum around Disney World. “What a pity that Walt Disney did not live to see this place,” he remarked. “But he did see it,” we said. “That’s why it’s here.”
Obviously, The Walt Disney Company is involved in an industry that is equal parts art and commerce. But there is no industry, no matter how basic, that couldn’t benefit from injecting a dollop of Walt’s unfettered visionary spirit into too-often sclerotic corporate veins. Many of the greatest figures in American business—from Thomas Edison to Bill Gates—have been dreamers, and it’s no accident that Steven Spielberg, an American icon approaching Disney status, has named his new company DreamWorks SKG. Companies must give themselves permission to dream. Whether or not they come up with an equivalent of Walt Disney World in which to showcase their fantasies, the simple act of letting imaginations run free will increase creativity and innovation.
Any kind of cultural change comes slowly, and the powerful transformation to be fueled by adoption of the Dream principle is no exception. If your company is large and if old attitudes and methods are firmly entrenched, it may take three to five years for the new culture to take permanent root. However, we have worked with organizations that began realizing improvements in service and productivity within a few months.
In spite of visible short-term gains, however, some companies will still voice concern over the slowness of the overall transformation process, at which point we relate the story of the hundredth monkey.
In the 1950s, on the Japanese island of Koshima, scientists studying macaque monkeys dropped sweet potatoes in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the potatoes, but they found the sand to be unpleasant. One innovative monkey discovered that washing the potatoes in seawater eliminated the grit and made the potatoes taste better. She quickly taught this to her mother and several of her playmates.
As one would expect, other young monkeys in the troop were soon imitating this monkey’s intelligent behavior. Then, after several years had passed, the last lines of resistance were finally eroded after one particular incident. Legend states that one morning, a certain number of monkeys were washing their potatoes. The exact number is not known, but for the sake of the story, we’ll say that it was 99. Later that morning, one more monkey learned to wash his potato. As the day progressed, each of the remaining dirty-potato-eating monkeys began washing his or her potato until, by evening, every monkey in the troop had developed a taste for clean potatoes!
A similar transference of learned behavior also occurs in organizations that are undergoing change. Although the exact number may vary, a point is reached where, if only one more person adopts a new set of values, the synergy is so great that nearly everyone else will internalize the behavior too.
Whether or not this story is legend or fact, there are several lessons that we can learn from the hundredth monkey story.
First, total transformation takes time. In the case of the Koshima monkeys, it took several years.
Second, the benefits of transformation must be real. Just as the monkeys enjoyed the benefits of eating clean potatoes, employees must be able to experience real gains as they adopt cultural change.
Third, management must consistently model the desired behavior. The innovative monkeys continued to exhibit the potato-washing method before other members of the troop. Be persistent.
Fourth, there must be top management commitment at the outset. When the first monkey learned to wash her food, she taught the skill to her mother and to a handful of adults. The adult converts provided positive feedback by embracing and using the newly learned skill. Without their early commitment, it’s unlikely that the entire troop transformation would ever have taken place.
Time, persistence, and commitment are the keys to long-term benefits. And remember, as we always say, “The first 99 are the hardest!”
The Dream concept is first and foremost a visionary undertaking, but both management and employees must keep the overall organizational values firmly in mind as they plan new strategies and set about implementing cultural change. In other words, if innovation is to be successful over the long term, it’s imperative that a company remain true to itself. In the chapter that follows, we explore what Walt Disney did to ensure that his dreams and those of his company remained firmly grounded in a set of basic core beliefs. And we examine how a Disney-like adherence to a values-based approach is helping other companies to achieve bottom-line success.
Questions to Ask
Does top management acknowledge that the process of “dreaming” inspires creativity?
Does top management understand that adopting new paradigms takes time and commitment? Is it willing to see the transformation through to its fruition?
Do your teams participate in off-site retreats where they engage in strategy and planning?
Do you utilize the storytelling technique in planning projects?
Actions to Take
Hold annual, off-site Dream Retreats for top management and all departmental teams.
Unleash creativity by encouraging all employees to participate in structured dreaming to solve problems and develop solutions.
Engage employees in developing the story of what the organization could be like in five years. From these stories, develop a vision of what the company will look like five years from now.
Determine the values the organization must embrace to achieve its vision.
Communicate the organizational vision and values to your coworkers, customers, suppliers, managers, directors, and stockholders.
Display the organizational vision and values in prominent places throughout the company.
Use the storytelling technique as a method to assist teams in launching projects.
A Shared Vision
When Jerry McColgin agreed to take on the job as leader of the Whirlpool team, he drew on past experience. He had headed up a team whose structure and way of operating were entirely company-mandated. “We did not have full-time dedicated resources,” Jerry explained, “the engineers on whom I was dependent actually reported to the engineering department in their respective locations.” Furthermore, he had been asked to work with a lot of part-time people. The people on the project had lacked cohesion and a unity of purpose. If Jerry came to them and explained what should be done, they would agree, but when they discussed it with their department heads, the answer was, “That’s all very good and fine, but here’s how we’re really going to do it.” It had been an international project with no contribution from the targeted markets. As a result, the project failed.
McColgin was determined that there would not be another failure. When the company tried to tell him how the project was to be run, he dug in his heels. He believed that he now knew how to create a successful team. This time, he brought together an international group of people and announced that there would be no part-time participation and no divided loyalties. From the outset, the team would be unified in a shared vision.
The company was also building a new plant in Pune, India, to manufacture the product. Among its many goals, the team was to design the equipment, figure out costs, and plan the marketing, all for a number of different countries. All these countries needed representation on the team, whose numbers included engineers, designers, and finance experts speaking different languages and coming from dissimilar cultures. Style differences between the members were apparent at the beginning of the project. Yet people from Brazil, China, Italy, and India would all be sitting next to one another every day and working together. Their main goal was to develop the model for a common refrigerator that could be built around the world. As a selling point, it was also to be manufactured with a frost-free freezing compartment—hence the name of the team, the Global No-Frost Team.
Our Featured Organization: Griffin Hospital
WHERE IS THE HOSPITAL?
It was early in the morning when we arrived at Griffin Hospital. Visitors and day-shift hospital staff were still at home having breakfast. We parked our car in the lot several hundred yards from the entrance. As we started walking toward the building, a strange feeling came over us and we wondered, is this really a hospital? For starters, the pavement was impeccably clean and there was tranquil music wafting from concealed speakers along the walkway. Did we get on the wrong flight? Were we really at Walt Disney World? We checked our tickets and, indeed, we were in Derby, Connecticut. This Disneyesque experience continued as we wandered into the softly lit lobby adorned with beautiful art work, a grand piano, and a reception desk that looked like it belonged in the Four Seasons Hotel of New York. We were nearly an hour early for our appointment with Patrick Charmel, Griffin’s president and CEO, so we decided to experience the cafeteria. We found that the Disney similarities were not merely limited to the physical elements of brass and glass. Of the six or seven employees we encountered on our way to the cafeteria, each, without exception, either said “Good Morning,” or stopped to ask if they could be of assistance to us.
But things were not always this “magical” at Griffin Hospital. In 1980 the community perception of Griffin was less than stellar; in fact, 30 percent surveyed said they would avoid Griffin Hospital at all costs. Of the eight local hospitals surveyed, Griffin was the lowest on the list. Patrick Charmel told us, “On top of this bad rating, the hospital was struggling financially, so there was a serious question about our future viability. We knew we couldn’t compete, based on the clinical prowess of other area hospitals that are much larger and have greater capabilities, so we decided to become extremely consumer-focused and responsive. This was a pretty radical concept for healthcare 20 years ago.”7
The transformation began in 1987 with an innovative renovation of the Childbirth Center and continued into the 1990s with hospital-wide improvements. But the road to becoming the hospital of choice in the area involved more than brick, mortar, and ingenious architecture. Employee pride became the roadmap to patient satisfaction. Rallying around a common vision consistent with the personal values of the employees, looking at patient care from the patient’s perspective, and eliminating fear were goals Patrick and his team set out to accomplish. To achieve the desired results, Griffin implemented a mandatory two-day employee orientation program that had to be completed before beginning patient care. Within the first six months, employees must also attend an additional two-day retreat where they share rooms and really absorb the experience of being patients. During this retreat, employees participate in exercises to increase handicap awareness, such as leading one another around blindfolded, walking with crutches, and feeding one another. “It makes you think twice when you’re doing things with patients...about what they must be going through,” says nurse Cathy Higgins. “You understand what it’s like to lose control of your life.”8
During most of this transformation, Charmel was COO and had responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the entire hospital. His popularity seemed to increase proportionate with the hospital’s escalating employee engagement. Then, in 1997, Patrick and the former CEO of Griffin began to differ on the hospital’s future goals and direction. The two men’s dreams for achieving a world-class culture collided and forever altered the state of affairs at Griffin Hospital. In Patrick’s words, “He was de-emphasizing the acute-care side of the hospital and trying to develop our HMO. We were spending a lot on this and depriving the hospital of the resources it needed.” The former CEO decided it was time for Patrick to go and represented this decision to the troops as “mutual.” No wonder people didn’t trust him! It was Thanksgiving of 1997 when the announcement was made: Patrick would be leaving at year’s end. The news not only shocked hospital and medical staff, it also stunned many in the community. After all, Patrick had been the architect of Griffin’s metamorphosis. Griffin Hospital was the largest employer in the community and, if it failed, the community would be devastated.
As the New Year dawned, Patrick was gone but not forgotten. There was a rumbling in the hospital halls; a series of maneuvers were underway to bring Patrick back. The employees cried out in protest and penned an underground newspaper, Griffin Uncensored; hospital physicians voted “no confidence” in the current administration; and the community started a yellow-ribbon campaign in and around the town of Derby. Local newspaper headlines: “We Want Pat Back” … “Employees & Docs, United We Stand” … and “Unforgettable Thursday” spoke volumes. “Unforgettable Thursday” referred to January 8, 1998, when as Griffin Uncensored reported, “We made history when we stormed the boardroom and stood proud and principled for our hospital and our community. This show of unity finally awakened the few who had yet to believe how much we are willing to sacrifice to get Griffin back.”
In early February, Patrick was asked to return to the hospital and informed that the former CEO would be leaving. Charmel returned as Griffin’s deserving leader on February 23, 1998. “There was an emotional reception with hundreds of employees,” Patrick recalled. “When I came in ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘round the Old Oak Tree’ was playing. There were banners, balloons, and speeches.” What was really striking was Patrick’s humility through all of this pomp and circumstance on his behalf.
As CEO, Patrick began a thorough investigation of the hospital’s finances and discovered that things were worse than he thought. “The HMO never grew to become a significant player in the market. It was losing money and using depleting hospital funds. We had to get out of the HMO business and cut our losses.”
Can one even imagine how Patrick must have felt coming back to a hero’s welcome, and then weeks later having to lay off some of the same employees who had stormed the boardroom on his behalf? Patrick told us, “I had to make this type of decision about people who supported me so strongly. That was extremely painful. We cried together.” Several laid-off employees we interviewed told us they were later rehired when the hospital’s financial situation improved. Though none relished having been fired, they all said that they understood what would have happened if Patrick had not reduced expenses. Newspaper headlines might have read, “Griffin Hospital forced to close its doors.” Better to have 100 people lose their jobs than 1,000.
Was all of this worth the effort? Today, 18 years after “Unforgettable Thursday,” Griffin Hospital enjoys in-patient satisfaction rates of over 95 percent, and it captured the fourth highest ranking on Fortune magazine’s 2006 “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Not only is this the highest ranking ever achieved by a hospital, but Griffin is the only hospital in the United States to be named to the prestigious list seven times.
A leader’s job is to create an environment of mutual respect and trust. We have yet to see any other place where the level of respect and trust is so great that employees will put their jobs on the line and storm the boardroom in support of their leader. That type of culture does not happen overnight. It takes hard work to create and to maintain, but Patrick and his team have kept the focus, and the results are exceptional.