Last Thursday one of my readers, Heather Hindle, shared with you “The Best Corporate Visioning Story – Ever,” a story about how she participated in an experience named Odyssey 2000 – which she had originally shared with me briefly in a comment on my “How to Screw Your Business in One Easy Step” post.
On Monday in “Leadership 101: Values as a Bridge to Vision,” her CEO, Bill Black, shared his perspective on what came before Odyssey 2000 that formed the backbone for its success – the creation of a new Maritime Life Values Statement
And today Bill shares his insights about how the company went from the creation of a Values Statement to Odyssey 2000 and the tripling of shareholder value…
Lisa Petrilli: So then how did you go from understanding the importance of creating a Values Statement and then ultimately publishing it, to Odyssey 2000 and the visioning process?
Bill Black: I told the employees when the Values Statement was published that we were at “the end of the beginning” and now we had to make it real…
Right away we began the work required to bring these values to life – which was, in true essence, our vision. It was the organization living the embodiment of the values that we foresaw as the key to growth and profitability – and what allowed us to more than triple shareholder value from $600 million when the program started to almost $2 billion when Maritime Life was acquired in 2004.
We defined this as, “First to satisfy every customer. Toward that, to satisfy every employee. As a result to have superior profitability and growth.”
We knew we had to give lots of voice to the employees and while Town Hall Meetings with open Q&A are nice, they are just a starting point. We had a group of employees that we knew were our champions, our enthusiasts, and we broke them up into teams of 6-8 individuals and gave them roles.
The team that Heather was on was asked to write a newspaper with stories about the process of bringing these values to life. I told them it was ok to be demanding and challenging but they were not allowed to be cynical. I wanted the stories to be a real reflection of what was happening in the organization – so everyone in the company received the newspaper at the same time with no edits by management. I saw the stories at the same time as everyone else.
One example of how this played out was a story that was written about the disconnect between serving our customers (one of our values) and the bonus structure. As a result of the story the bonus structure across the company was changed to include a customer satisfaction piece. Every single employee became eligible for between $0 and $1000 based on the customer satisfaction score achieved that year. And every employee got the same dollar amount. We even took some money out of management bonuses to enable this to occur across the entire company.
Another example is a story about the disconnect between our value of respect for each other and the fact that so many of our managers were late in submitting their performance appraisals each year. The team asked HR for data on the % of appraisals that were done on time by division and told the division leaders they were going to publish this data. I can tell you this – these types of stories were much more powerful in igniting change than if I had written a memo to the leadership team!
It was because this Odyssey Editorial Team was independent and driven by enthusiasts who were emotionally vested in Odyssey’s success that change came so quickly and impactfully.
Lisa: I always love hearing someone say they felt empowered by management – and that is something that Heather wrote in her post.
Bill: I actually don’t think the word “empowered” applies to the Values Statement; I don’t think it’s strong enough. The word “empowered” implies that you have a choice – you have support on your side if you choose to do something – but you don’t have to. That wasn’t the case with the Values Statement.
The root of our Values Statement was, ““If it’s good for your customer, and you know it makes sense, then do it.” Our employees were commanded to do this – meaning, if they knew that breaking a rule was the right thing to do for a customer then they had better do it – there was no choice.
Lisa: Can you talk a little about the acquisitions you led and the impact they had on the Odyssey 2000 process.
Bill: It was the acquisitions that allowed us to more than triple shareholder value – but it was the values that made the acquisitions successful. Each time we acquired a company I held up the Values Statement and said, “Read it and leave if you don’t like it.” This was the most effective tool we had at driving integration.
As a result, we discovered that out of sight of management our employees were telling employees from the acquired company, “You will love it here.” Our employee satisfaction rate stayed consistently in the 90’s through our acquisitions – which is an extraordinary accomplishment!
On top of that we began being placed on lists of the “best places to work” – which enabled us to attract the best talent and heighten our corporate reputation – which was really good for our shareholders.
Lisa: Can a large corporation involve every employee in the development of values and vision in the same way you did?
Bill: No, a company of 50,000 can’t involve every employee in quite the same way, but with social media tools that exist today they have a lot of options that we did not have.
Lisa: How would you sum up your experience of creating the Values Statement and then seeing them come to life – the Vision becoming reality – through Odyssey 2000?
Bill: Although I did have a good idea about the destination I really had no idea where the process was going to go after that first day with the top 40 people. That was probably a good thing because people realized that they were influencing both process and content. But the result was absolutely the core of our strength—what Jim Collins would call our flywheel. We became known as the company that everyone wanted to be with and we had great alignment under stress—which is always part of making successful acquisitions. ~
Please share your thoughts and insights in the comments… Was this story and Bill’s perspective of value to you? Are there ideas that you can immediately put to use in your organizations? What stood out to you the most when reading Bill’s perspective?
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Photo is Sunrise Paddling on the North Canadian River by FreeWine
7 Response Comments
Lisa,
Respect is key to success. Self-respect, respect for your customers/clients/guests, respect for your co-workers…it is what makes a good company great.
I love Bill’s stories about the customer service bonus. Of course you want all of your employees to provide excellent, even remarkable, customer service, but sometimes they need to learn and rewarding them can work. It validates their efforts on an even playing field.
I recall working for a very small, but successful financial corporation (about 12 employees- including the three owners). One day the owners were complaining to me about employee absenteeism. We were allotted 12 sick days per year, but they did not accrue. I made the suggestion that on the employee’s hire-date anniversary the company pays them for each sick day they hadn’t used during the previous 12 months. The first year the absenteeism dropped to nearly ZERO. It is not quite the same as the bonus, but you see it provided a way for the employees to make a little extra, it saved the company a lot of money because the entire staff worked at 100% each day…employees did not have to cover other’s tasks.
Also, I love Bill’s discussion about timely performance reviews. If people report to you, then you owe them enough respect to complete their review on time. I knew a lot of companies had caved on this when they adopted a “self” or “joint” review process. Basically the employee writes the review and the manager checks a box “agree” or “disagree”. The first time I had to use this style was 1989. (I still have one in my file!)
I think it is much easier to review someone when there is a mission statement, vision statement and personal goals established.
Well, those are my thoughts for today. Such an inspiring story. Thank you.
Judy
Judy, your thoughts always inspire me. And your personal story is a shining example – thank you for sharing it. I especially liked your reminder that absenteeism not only improves the individual’s productivity – but others’ as well since they often have to “cover for” their colleagues when colleagues are out sick.
Yes, isn’t it true about how the performance review is a beautiful example of how to show respect?
So grateful to have you as a reader – thank you for all of your support and for sharing your own experiences so graciously!
“The root of our Values Statement was, ““If it’s good for your customer, and you know it makes sense, then do it.” Our employees were commanded to do this – meaning, if they knew that breaking a rule was the right thing to do for a customer then they had better do it – there was no choice.”
I can be quite cynical toward value statements, however I found this interview to be both refreshing and motivating. Bill Black’s passion and commitment to Maritime Life’s Values Statement cut through my dim views and inspired me.
Drew,
Honestly, I’ve been a bit cynical in the past as well – probably because I was part of an organization that made the values visible in writing, but not necessarily in action. What Bill did in making LIVING these values the core of the organization is absolutely inspiring – I’m so glad you felt the same way!
Thank you so much for your kind words about the interview – I really appreciate them. 🙂
Lisa,
Exactly – too many organizations have values statements that are visible in writing only. The excerpt I quoted stuck with me because it shows Bill Black and Maritime Life’s true commitment to its values statement – in action.