VOLVO TRUCKS INTERNATIONAL

THE SITUATION

Volvo Trucks International Division (ID) is a very profitable part of Volvo Trucks Corporation. In spite of this profitability, the management team was suffering from significant internal tension. The president initiated a leadership development program for the management team, including individual coaching. The program started after a self-assessment on high performing teams but was also due to low employee satisfaction index in the group.

The leadership development program lasted one year. Shortly after the completion of the program, a new self-assessment showed marginal improvement. An attitude survey was also performed, which resulted in an even lower employee satisfaction index than in previous years, despite all efforts made in the management team during the year.

THE PROCESS

To help with the situation at hand, the president contacted Tor Eneroth, who agreed to support the transformation journey already started. Also, a consultant from Fortos (Management Consulting in Volvo), Johan Bäckman, was contracted for support. In addition, two people from the ID management team became Barrett Certified.

The ID management team participated in a Culture Assessment as a structured way to go deeper into the root cause of the problems. The results from the assessment showed the Cultural Entropy® score of 33% and five potentially limiting values in the Current Culture. The group also participated in an exercise to estimate the monetary value of this Cultural Entropy score. The findings of this created a sense of urgency in the team, despite a strong financial performance. It became clear that the financial outcome could be considerably strengthened through active culture work.

After the results were presented and processed in a meeting with the management team, a number of smaller group meetings were held. The smaller groups were facilitated by the two Barrett Certified members of the management team. The purpose of these smaller groups was to choose the most important values to work with to bring the team towards their desired state. These meetings were held as phone meetings to address the multiple locations of participants. At the meetings, there was dialogue around the definition of the values, how they were expressed in the daily work, and finally what actions to focus on.

Then the full team met at a live management meeting. At this meeting, Tor and Johan facilitated the group towards the creation of their common Culture Values Plan. It was decided which values to focus on based on the work carried out in the smaller groups during the spring. Further, the plan consisted of concrete actions, responsibilities, due dates, and status. The plan was from then on to be followed up on a quarterly basis, i.e. when the team met for live meetings.

In parallel with the work on the group values, each team member participated in his or her own Leadership Values Assessment (LVA). When the group met in person, each member shared leanings with the whole group and other members were invited to share their reflections with the person in focus.

The team also began working on their strategy. This work revisited the vision and mission and formulated a strategy. The guiding principle of this work was to promote involvement and inclusion based on an “outside-in” approach. A cross-functional team was formed and many co-workers were invited in the creation of the strategy. The strategy was concluded by the management team and then launched.

It is important to point out that the management team is on an ongoing journey, and the process was not defined or structured in advance, but rather the decisions about the next steps were taken along the way.

OUTCOMES

All of the energy put into the culture journey paid off.  When management conducted their second Culture Assessment, the results were astounding:

• The Cultural Entropy score dropped from 33% to 6%.
• All of the top values in the Current Culture were positive.
• There were three matching values between Personal Values and Current Culture.
• There were six matching values between Current and Desired Culture.
• Three of the espoused values were represented in the Current Culture.

 The outcomes of these dramatic shifts have been demonstrated in numerous ways. To highlight a few, the operating income was the best ever. The team has a common language to also address “invisible” questions. The interest from the rest of the organization is growing.

VOLVO TRUCKS ID ESPOUSED VALUES

Business & Customer Focus:

• Pro-activity
• Customer driven – “Outside-in principle”
• Clear result-oriented objectives

Best Business Partner Respect:

• Active listening
• Honest feedback
• Inclusiveness

Courage & Integrity:

• Accepting challenges
• Walk the talk
• Admitting mistakes

Partnership:

• Trust
• Win-win
• Holistic view
• Teamwork

Passion:

• Feeling proud
• Energy and Inspiration
• Fun