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Home/Rockford
500-Person
Whole-Scale® Plant Strategy Meeting Follows a Year of Careful
Planning
The Rockford Adams Story - Part I
The Planets Are Aligned For Change
Walking through the sparkling clean, half-century old Rockford,
Illinois plant of the Adams Division of Pfizer Corporation, it
isnt immediately apparent why there should be urgency for
change. The plant produces some Americas favorite products
and often must run around the clock, seven days a week to keep
up with demand for products like Dentyne Ice chewing gum. Productivity
gains have been recorded year after year and the highly-skilled
people of the plant are proud of what they do. So, why virtually
shut down the plant for two days to bring the people together
to plan for the future?
The planets are aligned for change,
says Rockford Site Leader Steve Townshend. The things that
we have been doing for the past 10 or 15 years that have made
us successful simply wont work in the future. In fact, dramatic
changes in our strategy and culture are needed and they needed
quickly. That is why we decided to involve everyone in the change.
Townshend ticks off the trends and forces that
are driving the case for change:
Productivity Demands: For more than a decade, improved
technology and increased automation have helped keep the plant
competitive in an increasingly global marketplace. That strategy
has run its course. Recently, key performance indicators on productivity,
quality and safety have been below Rockfords usual high
standards. New ideas on improving processes and ways of working
are needed.
Retirement Wave: The average age of Rockford Adams workers
is over 50 and nearly half will be eligible to retire in the next
few years. The retirement wave means a rapid loss of institutional
knowledge in the operation of sophisticated, high-speed equipment
with no current way to transfer that experience to the next generation.
Changing Market: The rate of change in the market is accelerating
as competitors bring more new products to market faster. To win
in the marketplace, Rockford must be able to help the Adams division
respond rapidly with new products, new packaging and quicker changeover
from making one product to another.
Infrastructure Needs: Automation and attrition have kept
production up while reducing the workforce from 1200 to 600 since
the late 1980s. After more than a decade of hiring people one
or two at a time, the Rockford human resource team will soon need
to recruit, screen, hire, train and place dozens of workers at
a time on a regular basis. New hiring, orientation and training
processes are urgently needed.
Possible Sale: Pfizer Corporation purchased the Adams Division
as part of the acquisition of Warner-Lambert in 2000. Speculation
has been confirmed that Pfizer will keep the pharmaceutical group
and put the $2 billion Adams Division up for sale. Who will
own us? is a question that adds to uncertainty about the
future.
Creating a Roadmap for a Cycle of Change
Where others might see uncertainty in all of this, Steve and his
leadership team saw opportunity in early 2001. They asked Dannemiller
Tyson Associates to work with them to create a new strategy that
focused on involving people in both designing and implementing
the change. Together, Rockford leaders and DTA consultants created
a roadmap for change. That roadmap has guided the
process while being continuously revised based on new learning
at each step. (To see a generic strategy
development and deployment roadmap, click here.)
In every Whole-Scale® change effort, a series
of small-group and large-group meetings are held in a diverge-converge
fashion involving a number of teams throughout the change effort.
Each of these meetings was designed by a microcosm of the people
who would be in that meeting. Here is a summary of the major steps
in developing and deploying the new Rockford Adams strategy.
Leadership Alignment and Draft Strategy Development
Getting leaders aligned around strategy is a combination of team-building
and strategic thinking. Several retreats were held in the fall
of 2001 for concentrated work. The circle of leaders was expanded
from the Senior Leadership Team (site manager and his direct reports)
to and Extended Leadership Team (everyone who had anyone reporting
to them in the plant). This larger group developed a draft Plan
On A Page, a first draft of Mission, Vision, Values and
Strategic Goals for the coming five years.
(To see the DTA Strategic Planning Model, click here.)
Between meetings, these leaders continued to work
on gathering information and establishing subgroups that would
be needed to support the changes that were coming. This process
took approximately four months and there were several times when
the groups ran into difficulties and roadblocks internally and
externally. One problem was that the demands of day-to-day management
left little time for planning. Another challenge was to assemble
the business case for change and turn it into a compelling
presentation.
Involving Team Leaders and Creating Change
Infrastructure
The draft strategy was tested in an offsite meeting that involved
team leaders as well as the Extended Leadership group. After hearing
the business case for change, the team leaders gave their input
on the strategy and the entire group revised the draft once again
to reflect what everyone was thinking. Two new roles were created
in the meeting to support the change effort: a Project Manager
who would work full-time on the change and a Core Strategy Team
that would guide and coordinate the process. It was decided that
a large-group, two-day meeting was the best way to get everyone
involved in planning for the future.
Pre-Work for Engaging the Whole System
A number of teams were created to get ready for the large event.
One group handled facilities and promotion. Road construction
was chosen as the theme for the entire change effort. The metaphor
describes how the old road of business operations
had been patched for years with practical but unconnected, short-term
actions. The time has come to lay the foundation for a new road.
Road signs began to appear in the plant with the slogan Success
Ahead.
Some teams went on information gathering expeditions,
benchmarking other firms for best practices in areas where new
ideas were needed. For instance, work began on designing an entirely
new hiring, orientation and selection process incorporating ideas
gained from visits to other facilities doing outstanding work.
The actual design of the meeting was created by
a 23-person Event Planning Team made up of people from every level,
every shift and every function in the plant. They worked with
DTA consultants Jim McNeil and Al Blixt to develop a purpose statement
and an agenda that they believed would give the participants the
information they needed and the opportunity to have real impact
on the plan for the future.
Meanwhile, people who had been involved in the
process began to see the big picture and visualize the kind of
future that was possible. The excitement led to actions that were
nearly spontaneous. For instance, a group of workers near retirement
decided to form a veterans knowledge transfer team.
The team managed itself deciding how to capture what the old-timers
knew through interviews and video recording. They took pride in
taking charge of the project and making it happen.
Building Our Road to the Future
The purpose statement for the big event was To
unite the Rockford workforce in shaping our future success by:
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Understanding the challenges we face
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Agreeing on a winning strategy
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Committing to a plan for moving forward
Over the course of two days, nearly 550 people
came together to learn, vision and plan actions that they believe
will help them create their own definition of success in the future.
They heard from Adams top management, including CEO John Craig,
who shared both the worldwide market perspective and the role
that the Rockford plant needed to play to help. Participants heard
the draft strategy and gave their feedback on what they would
add, change or delete.
The next day the leaders presented a new draft
that represented the thinking of everyone. Day two was spend creating
a vivid description of the preferred future that people
wanted and identifying action priorities for the next six months.
Functional groups heard what others wanted them to do differently
to support the new strategy and made commitments on the things
they were willing to do.
At the end of the two days, everything had changed
and nothing had changed. There was excitement for many and lingering
skepticism for some. Would the leaders really be committed? The
proof of the success of the event would only come if the new information
and the new ideas turned into action.
The Rockford Adams Story - Part II
The rest of the story for the Rockford Adams plant is still being
written. In the weeks that have followed, teams have formed to
work on specific projects. Reports and updates documenting the
changes are posted everywhere in the plant. Workers reported many
positives including a greater sense of teamwork and cooperation.
Leaders have made it a point to be on the plant floor on a regular
basis to exchange information. A follow-up meeting has already
been schedule for the 120 workers who had to miss the two-day
meeting because of production demands. An all-plant check
point meeting will be held in six months to reconvene everyone
to gather lessons learned, celebrate success and plan how to sustain
the momentum for the cycle of change.
Photos courtesy of Rockford Adams Human Resources
Department
 DTA
consultant Jim McNeil facilitates an open forum of questions to
senior Adams Division executives.
 Thousands
of ideas were generated in the preferred futuring activity where
each person could decide what they wanted to see happening two
years from now.
 DTA
consultants Al Blixt and Jim McNeil

Participants listen to report outs on action planning voting that
will set priorities on strategic goals for the next six months
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