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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 isn’t immediately apparent why there should be urgency for change. The plant produces some America’s 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 won’t 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 Rockford’s 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 “veteran’s 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:

• Understanding the challenges we face
  

• Agreeing on a winning strategy
  

• 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