At Biach Industries, a “command-and-control” culture had developed out of a drive for growth coupled with a lack of management experience. Aftershocks from an extremely autocratic general manager raised the awareness that people need to be treated with dignity and encouraged to express their creative talents. This shift in perspective — along with the arrival of a consultant who had successfully experimented with the principles of the learning organization — attracted us to explore shared vision, personal mastery, and the related learning disciplines.

Our approach involved a shift from pathology to vision. Rather than correcting problems of the past, we are focusing on choosing and manifesting a future. The difficulty, of course, is that the systemic barriers to creating change have roots in both corporate and personal history. These limiting beliefs about what we can create in our lives are influenced by the many systems in which we live and work, including our culture. The current fear of unemployment, for example, affects our perception and tolerance for risk, creating barriers that we, as managers, have only marginal leverage to alter. As a result, our biggest struggles at Biach have been in areas that directly challenge how our culture has taught people to work, think, and perceive.

Blades Culture

Biach Industries is a small (40-person) manufacturing company that was founded by John L. Biach in 1955 to supply custom-designed tooling to the growing petrochemical and nuclear power industries. In the 1970s, with OPEC, Three-Mile Island, and the founder’s death, the company was left with a vacuum in both talent and market — a hole that has taken 15 years to begin to fill.

Our history at Biach has created an organizational culture that challenges our attempts to create a learning organization. For example, one family member who ran the company from 1973 to 1991 lacked confidence and was afraid to make a mistake. Thus the company inherited a structural aversion to risk and a paralyzing decision-making process.

There was also a deep sense of entitlement. With few competitors and a good stream of spare parts orders, the steady flow of business produced a false sense of security. The company always muddled through, regardless of how well any one individual contributed. Thus, poor and mediocre performance was largely tolerated — no one had ever been fired, and employee performance was not adequately assessed for fear of erroneous judgment. With no correlation between performance and corporate survival, people believed good performance had no real impact on the company and therefore was of no real value.

Planting the Seeds of Transformation

To attempt to transform the company culture, our corporate rebirth needed to focus on two areas: structural changes, such as policies, procedures, and values; and transformational changes, which attend to individuals’ personal awakening and transformation.

Structural changes require raising awareness of the structures in which we live and work and their influence on our behavior. For example, suppose a part is manufactured incorrectly due to a confusing dimension in a drawing. Does the fault lie with the machinist, the draftsman, sales (for creating unnecessary time pressure), or a corporate belief that good drafting is easy and not worth paying attention to?

The company’s structure is also being redrawn to facilitate implementation of employee choices. Supervision, for example, is becoming a coaching and support activity rather than a controlling one. The employees now get a monthly bonus based on profits, and the books are open to everyone. This openness and sharing has fostered a deeper trust in management and has eased fears that people are being manipulated by the widespread changes that are occurring.

We have found, however, that people depend on structures for security and therefore tend to sabotage efforts to change them. In order to create lasting improvements, we need to develop a self-sustaining support environment independent of our changing structure. We are therefore focusing on personal transformation, personal mastery, and employee workshops that foster a sense of shared visions.

Transformational changes are more difficult to facilitate than structural ones because they are tied to the sociocultural system and are related to our values in religion, government, law enforcement, education, parenting, family, and business. Essentially, for Biach, transformational changes involve neutralizing the influence of our culture that keeps people from believing they can choose their own future.

Developing Shared Visions

Our work in transformational change has led us to develop “creative tension workshops.” These intense learning experiences involve exercises exploring the discipline of personal mastery. We have conducted two of these workshops, enabling each employee in the company to participate. In preparation for these sessions, individuals answered some interesting questions—such as “Who is your personal hero?” — that prompted them to begin thinking about their vision.

In the workshops, we spent a great deal of time helping the groups understand what visions are about and helping individuals realize that they — and the company — arc entitled to have their own vision. By compiling the results of the questionnaire and presenting it to the group, we tried to demonstrate that many of their core needs and aspirations were shared by their peers. Collectively they discovered that there was a strong organization-wide orientation toward spiritual and humanitarian achievement in the company.

Creative Tension

A gap between vision and current reality creates both emotional tension and creative tension. Lowering as vision (B1) will ease the emotional tension, while taking steps to achieve our vision will reduce the creative tension (B2).

After we spent some time in the workshops exploring our personal and organizational visions, we took a look at our current situation in order to build some creative tension. This natural tension occurs when we simultaneously hold in our minds a picture or vision of where we want to be and face the truth about current reality. In order to create a picture of our current reality in the company, we broke into groups to share and gain consensus on the character of various segments of the company.

In the first workshop, we took this one step further and attempted to resolve the creative tension by developing a scenario that would bring our current reality in line with our vision. Given the scope of the workshop, however, we found this was too aggressive a goal. In the second workshop, we revised this section of the program and prepared a possible scenario for the group to consider. This was not successful, either. While our intent was to position the scenario as one of many possibilities, it was received as “the” business plan for the company. We learned that vision is a complex and often elusive concept. On a more subtle level, we discovered that for many people imagining future desires is frightening; the image of getting what you want seems contrary to our prevailing cultural belief system.

Outcomes

As a result of these workshops, we are beginning to establish corporate and personal visions, and understand how the two relate. Some people have also begun to identify larger visions in their work that extend beyond the traditional pay-for-work employment contract.

For example, one managing director’s vision consisted of establishing residence in a less-stressful part of the world. He had always had a fascination for Ireland, and for the company, Ireland offered a convenient, low-cost business presence in Europe. This dual corporate/personal vision is currently being enacted, and is expected to become a reality in early 1994.

Changes in our employee assessment program are another outcome of our visioning work. Rather than focusing on employee deficiencies, the program seeks ways to gain better alignment between individual and corporate achievement. We solicit the personal expectations of the individual and then explore what the company might do to facilitate, in a strategic and tactical way, the realization of those goals. This has given everyone at Biach a glimpse into the many possibilities for personal and organizational transformation that can exist when there is a creative and honest relationship between the individual and the company.

The most important learning we have experienced is the importance of trust among employees, executives, and owners. Trust enables people to transcend their limiting beliefs and take risks. And it develops slowly, regardless of your actions or the amount of good will you possess.

We have found that we also need to be patient in working toward our visions. To resolve creative tension, people either lower their vision to meet their current reality or they take steps to change their current reality to match their vision (see “Creative Tension”). We have found that typically people lower their vision so they do not have to experience the emotional stress that often occurs when living with a gap between vision and current reality. As leaders, we need to help people stay focused on their visions. Our own commitment to our personal visions offers the best proof that the future can become a product of our dreams and not merely a reaffirmation of the status quo.

William L. Biach and Mike Nash are two of three managing directors of Biach Industries. Bill’s background includes research in mathematics and physics, mechanical design, performing arts, futures research, and computer science. Mike stoned in chemical engineering, received em MBA at Harvard, and held senior management and consulting positions in several public and private firms. This story was told in greater detail at the 1993 Systems Thinking in Action Conference and is available on audiotape from Pegasus Communications. Editorial support for this article was provided by Colleen Lannon-Kim.

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In To the Desert and Back: The Story of One of the Most Dramatic Business Transformations on Record (JosseyBass, 2003), authors Philip Mirvis, Karen Ayas, and George Roth tell the story of how a visionary leader and his unconventional management team engaged the hearts and minds of a workforce to dramatically turn around the fortunes of a business unit in distress. By carefully staging a series of memorable events, including the trip to the desert referenced in the title, this innovative leadership group challenged, inspired, and united the organization to achieve outcomes that had previously been unimaginable.

Through its success, the company ultimately influenced the management practices of its parent company, a $66 billion global conglomerate, and serves as a model to all of us seeking to revitalize our organizations and achieve sustainable growth.

A Dramatic Turnaround

In the spring of 1995, Unilever Vlees Group Nederland (UVGN), a Dutch division of global food, home, and personal care products giant Unilever, was in dire straits. For the previous four years, the company had experienced declining volumes, shrinking margins, and higher costs. The competition was making inroads into the firm’s longstanding markets. To maintain profitability, UVGN had repeatedly raised prices on its food products, even as quality problems rose. Unless the unit quickly orchestrated a major turnaround, the parent company planned to put it up for sale.

Enter the new chairman, Louis “Tex” Gunning, a Unilever veteran. From the beginning, Gunning perceived the need to engage every worker’s intellect and emotions in revitalizing UVGN. Early in his tenure, he decided that they needed to experience for themselves the results of their current way of doing business. One morning, the entire company—1,400 workers in all—boarded buses and traveled to a secret destination, which turned out to be a warehouse packed full of defective products. Amid the stench of rotting food, people calculated the lost money and wasted effort that the pallets of spoiled sausage and leaky soup cans represented.

Most workers were shocked by the extent of the company’s quality shortfalls. Because the business continued to be profitable, at least on paper, they hadn’t realized the depth of its problems. The field trip dramatized how far the organization needed to go in order to remain competitive, setting the stage for a major shift in corporate culture and a stunningly rapid turnaround.

Individual and Collective Learning

The warehouse visit was just the first in a series of landmark events that punctuated the company’s journey from corporate dog to corporate racehorse. After stabilizing the business, UVGN’s managers realized that, for the company to be successful over the longer term, employees would need to develop new skills and a renewed sense of confidence. As a first step, trainers introduced some personal development tools, including the concepts from Stephen Covey’s best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (Simon & Schuster, 1989).

But to face the challenges ahead, people also needed to fundamentally change how they worked together. To facilitate that process, leaders designed a “learning conference,” in which all UVGN employees gathered to hear about the current state of the business and plans for the future, to explore their roles in achieving challenging objectives, and to learn how to learn together. As with the warehouse visit, planners designed the event to have a strong sensory and emotional impact, with a mixture of entertainment, group discussions, experiential learning activities, and a culminating party. Top executives and line workers talked together about their personal aspirations, expectations, and concerns. The learning conference became an annual event and played an important role in bringing the company together, establishing the link between individual and organizational growth, giving workers the confidence to achieve stretch goals, and underscoring the company’s commitment to a new way of doing work.

In 1997, UVGN merged with the larger and more prominent Van den Bergh Nederland (VdBN). To the surprise of business observers, Gunning was made chairman of the merged organization. Over time, building on many of the techniques piloted in UVGN, members of the merged organization learned how to work together to broaden their understanding of current reality, plan for the future, and move into action.

Powerful Shared Experiences

The practice of orchestrating powerful shared experiences to help unify and inspire people reached its pinnacle during the years after the merger. For instance, shortly after the transition, a management conference was held in a churchlike building. On a screen above a dimly lit stage was the image of God’s hand reaching out to give life to Adam, adapted from Michelangelo’s mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. According to the authors, “The symbolism was spellbinding. People are not alone; they are connected to the divine and to one another.” The event helped managers from the two companies to emotionally connect with one another and finally gel as a team.

Other retreats occurred in equally dramatic settings: the ruins of a medieval monastery, the Scottish highlands, a clipper ship, the Sinai desert. In each gathering, organizers paid intricate attention to the journey, presentation, lighting, imagery, sequence of activities, and so on, drawing on principles of design, folklore, performing arts, and spiritual traditions to script an unforgettable, life-altering experience for the participants. For example, at a time when the company needed to develop a collective leadership agenda, the 180 team leaders traveled to Scotland, where they began the three-day event as members of four separate “clans”: the McSoups, McMeats, McSauces, and McSpreads. The retreat culminated with a challenging two-hour climb to the top of the famed Corrain on the Isle of Skye, where the group finally came together, to raucous cheers, as the united McVan den Bergh community.

On a smaller scale, some teams simply picked apples together in the local countryside, using the experience to reflect on how they worked together in the factory. At the other extreme, the company created transformative events for its customers, inviting up to 60,000 retailers and their dates to what they called the “Big Night,” which featured entertainers, video presentations, discussions, songs, and refreshments. The collective effect of all of these activities was to connect people to each other and to the company in exciting new ways.

To the Next Level

Throughout its transformation, VdBN employed an eclectic range of tools and practices to help workers build skills for jointly addressing business issues. Many of the events included Outward Bound-type experiences, in which people challenged themselves physically and learned to rely on others. In “fishbowl meetings,” teams sat in a circle and debriefed their interpersonal dynamics, while an outer circle of people observed and learned from the process. Employees from the top of the organization to the bottom wrote and shared their “emotional lifelines,” practicing listening skills and forging a base of trust and respect in the process. And an exercise called “believers vs. cynics” explored debate, problem solving, conflict resolution, dialogue, and community as different ways to resolve conflict.

For some, these activities and the new corporate culture felt cultish and alienating. But most people wholeheartedly embraced the change and thrived in their expanded roles. They assumed all sorts of new tasks and responsibilities. They worked together more productively than before. They developed creative approaches to ongoing challenges. As one factory worker put it, “I am motivated to work faster and better. I can act on my own initiative and get quick feedback. We produce more with fewer people. . . . I get satisfaction from what I do.”

The business results of this process are incontrovertible. From 1998 to the present, VdBN experienced a renaissance: a plethora of new products, the revitalization of old ones, heightened brand awareness, a focus on new distribution channels and markets, a commitment to experimentation, and a fine-tuning of strategy. Business units achieved double-digit growth, and factories dramatically improved efficiencies. The organization had truly created a lasting legacy of growth.

Tex Gunning left VdBN in 2000 in a dramatic passing-of-the-torch ceremony that took place in Petra, Jordan, during a leadership retreat in that region. Under the new chairman, some of the leading-edge practices were eliminated. But the core of the corporate culture remained intact. As Gunning is quoted as saying, “Once people have felt the freedom and they begin to lead, you can never take that feeling away.” Certain activities have filtered up to Unilever as a whole, including team-building exercises, stretch goals that require new knowledge to accomplish, learning gatherings and Big Night events, and leadership retreats to exotic locales such as Costa Rica, Iceland, and Croatia.

To the Desert and Back does not purport to offer a set recipe for success. What is does do is show how the work of change must start in the heart and soul, mind and body of every member of the organization. This approach is not gratuitous, touchy-feely, or “soft”—rather, it is an integral part of any management toolbox, merger process, or corporate restructuring or overhaul. For unless people believe they are part of creating a new future, they will remain hopelessly mired in the practices of the past.

Janice Molloy is managing editor of THE SYSTEMS THINKER.

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