Example #1: Team Building
At Kennedy Space Center, a consortium of several government contractors had just won the
contract to launch Space Shuttles
for the following 15 years. The challenge was that the contractors' allegiance and loyalty was to their home organization
and not to the joint shuttle operation. Stewart Systems was hired to make them into a single team.
John designed a five-day class for 24 people, consisting of four NASA managers, along with three or four managers from each
of the contractors.
As the course progressed through a series of tailored exercises and mini lectures on leadership, the
participants began working together. Following their 360-degree Personal Performance Assessment results (pointing out their
strengths and weaknesses), they developed united goals. By week's end they no longer saw each other as coming from
Rockwell or Boeing or Lockheed Martin or Thiokol - but that each person was a valued individual and colleague whom others
would now eagerly call or seek out for help long after the class was finished. The course was repeated until all members
of management had completed it.
Results
The result was a unified workforce whose entire allegiance was to the shuttle program,
not just to their individual organizations.
The participants learned how to subordinate their individual ego for the sake of the team. Significant cost savings, superior
level of quality, safety, and a high level of morale and teamwork was achieved. In fact, the "team attitude" was so strong that
NASA eventually awarded the consortium with an unprecedented award score of "100" out of 100, and the NASA Center Director said
the overall shuttle launch cost was reduced by half!
Example #2: Leadership Training
The chairman of a Fortune 500 corporation asked Stewart Systems to design a leadership
course that could be presented to
his executives world-wide to help them prepare for their next level of management. After visiting with many of their
locations, John built a five-day course targeting major weaknesses that he had discovered in his assessment interviews.
Our 360-degree Personal Performance Assessment instrument was used to identify personal strengths and shortcomings.
The participants worked in small teams and gave team feedback to each other at week's end. The size of each session ranged
from 21 to 28 executives. The sessions were "live-in," having no outside distractions. John was the sole instructor for
the entire course. However, each day one of their corporate executives spoke to the group during lunch. The course lasted
ten hours a day with evening work. Three to five courses were presented each year over a ten-year period.
Results
The course evaluations by the participants contained the highest marks on "content," "relevance," "application,"
"career enhancing," and "fun" of any program or course in the corporation's history. Managers continue to report
improvement in their personal management effectiveness because of what they learned in John's course. A positive,
united corporate culture of sound leadership was created.
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