Daimler

Daimler Top Management Meeting, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, July 9, 2007

After DaimlerChrysler sold off the Chrysler side of the business, the chairman, board of management, and the top 120 leaders of the new Daimler; met at the site of their largest assembly plant for sport utility vehicles in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The purpose of the meeting was to invent the “new Daimler” by assessing the current situation as a leadership team, crafting the strategy for this organization, and develop passion, trust and bonding among the leaders. In this spirit, the meeting organizers were looking for a program that was energizing and different, but still focused around organizational learning and the objectives of the meeting. Enter Face The Music.

The organizers had planned to do a Face The Music blues interactive, and then maybe a “Rock The House” program (songwriting and performance using rock ‘n roll music), but as the always-changing schedule started to take form, the slot left became too small to execute these programs. We proposed a “musical debrief” of the “plant experience” they were scheduled to have.

The Plant Experience:

It was a sight to see the group of leaders arrive off their buses running through an Alabama thunder storm in their matching green t-shirts and blue jeans, gathering in the entry atrium to get their assignments, safety instructions, and to meet their trainers. Each of the leaders was assigned a position on the assembly line, and then trained in that job by the operator. They then performed that job, with as much assistance as needed, for about an hour or so. The Mercedes-Benz SUV line was in for a challenge! Face The Music personnel came along to observe and gather information for the debrief, and also to write two “just-in-time” songs about the experience.

The team members at the site were very open, welcoming, and helpful to their guests, and took pride in the quality and precision of their jobs, and in training their corporate leaders well. Soon they were hard at work⎯the chairman, Dieter Zetsche, putting in door gaskets, the US president, Bill Taylor, attaching center heat shields, others wrestling with wheel well liners, untangling wiring harnesses, and installing the rugs.

They have a system in the assembly plants that when a worker has an issue with their operation and it might not be completed before the vehicle reaches the next station, they pull a yellow cord as a warning; if that operation isn’t complete by the time it reaches the end of the station, the line is stopped so it can be completed. The yellow cord pulls are announced by a musical series of tones, letting everyone know it has been pulled (my favorite was Peter Gunn from the Blues Brothers). Let’s just say that while the top management team was there, the music was playing long and often as they learned their jobs and went about performing them. The “bingo board”, a large display telling which stations were yellow or red, kept lighting up.

The team members that regularly performed the jobs that the management team took on said that the leaders, despite the active bingo board, did a good job for beginners, but it would take a little overtime to make up the seven or so vehicles that they were behind by the time management left.

The Debrief:

When the plant experience was over, we were all to convene again at the “Institute” for a debrief. The meeting organizers wanted this section to be fun. They hoped to give the leaders a chance to reflect on their experience, offer them an opportunity to learn something that could be useful in leading the new company, and they asked that everyone have a chance to participate. A tall order for a 60-minute segment. Never ones to say no to a challenge, FTM took it on. After a brief introduction of Face The Music by our client, we broke into a rewritten version of Sweet Home Alabama.

Big wheels keep on turning
Down to MBUSI [Mercedes Benz US International]
Top Management from Daimler
Makin’ the new Daimler fly

At the end we gave ‘em one chorus of “Sweet Home Stuttgart” to help make the predominately German crowd feel at home. Although the meeting organizers were concerned that the German engineering culture of the crowd might not respond well to the musical program, the participants jumped in enthusiastically from the beginning of the first song, clapping (albeit on 1 and 3, instead of 2 and 4), singing along, and smiles all around. I think it was a welcomed relief from the serious strategy meetings of the morning, and the physical labor on the line earlier in the afternoon.

After the opening song, the Daimler MC asked a question of Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche to get the discussion going. He spoke in a fun tone, but you could tell he’d been paying attention, giving examples of the performance in the plant of some of his board and top leaders. They also gave Bill Taylor, president of MBUSI an opportunity to give his impressions of the event. I was a bit startled when the MC gave the baton back to me, as they had reserved 10 minutes for this on the agenda, and it took about 3 minutes. Oh well, be prepared…

Our next piece was a “just-in-time” song that we had written that afternoon about the plant experience. It really was just-in-time in theme, execution and title. I had just finished putting the lyrics into the PowerPoint about 5 minutes before the program started. Just-in-time is one of the big themes at Mercedes-Benz. They have the assembly plants set up to make the vehicles as the orders come in, and keep low levels of parts stockpiled, bringing then in “just in time” as they are needed to keep inventory costs down, and to respond to customer needs as quickly as possible. It’s a remarkable feat of coordination, as there are hundreds of possible combinations for a given vehicle on one of the lines. I’m not sure how good the just in time song was lyrically and musically, but I think that the participants were somewhat amazed that it happened that quickly⎯that the experience they just had was being sung, performed by a 5-piece band, with the lyrics up on the screen. Some of the lines did get some laughs…

The just in time song was the intro into the debrief itself. My idea was to mix it up a little bit to get everyone involved and out of their seats. For a framework, I used the Roger Greenaway debriefing method of Facts, Feelings, Findings, and Futures. Facts being the observable stories of what happened, Feelings⎯how it felt, the mood, etc.

These two together we called the “what.” Findings is about digging a little deeper; what did you learn, what are the implications, how does that inform how you are acting systemically? Findings are the “so what?”. Futures are about what actions or changes can happen going forward to build on what you learned and take it back to improve the workplace or processes. Futures are the “now what?”. We divided the group into four large groups by giving the debrief questions and format on four colors of paper under their chairs. Each group was given time to discuss the four debrief areas, but was responsible for focusing on only one to report back to the full group. They were instructed to form small groups of 4-9 people to discuss.

It wasn’t as messy as I thought it would be! They quickly got in their small groups all around the room, and in the adjoining break room, engaging in lively discussions about the afternoon’s plant experience. The framework was simple enough to be comprehendible, but provided enough detail and structure to guide the discussions. One of the participants shared with me during the discussion that the set up with the music and the just in time songs and all, set a different tone for their conversations. Our just in time song was designed to model the four F’s of the debrief, and to demonstrate looking at specifics in the process, analyzing for insights, and drawing conclusions. When the time was up we gathered everyone back together and got into it. The first few comments were pretty puffball, and also focused more on the leaders’ impressions of the plant workers, rather than on the whole experience. I attempted to direct the comments by asking specific questions to the Facts reporters. This seemed to help the reports get more specific as we moved ahead.

The specifics of the debrief are confidential to the session, but I felt that there were some important insights and learnings as a result. One gentleman had a very distinct “ah-ha” about the differences in standards that are held in the plant (more rigorous/more specific) compared to that in the leadership organization (less defined/less specific). An action was proposed to define quality standards in the leadership groups similar to the quality standards and processes on the line. My contact for the event was very in the spirit of the just in time theme, so she challenged me to do a real-time ad lib after the report outs were completed to summarize their findings. OK. Screamin’ Sweet Pea, our singer, had been flip charting the high points of the report outs, so I asked her to put the pages in front of me on the floor, and I had the band kick into “I’m Ready”. I ran through the 4 stages as best I could⎯again, I got a good response, but I’m not sure if it was merely appreciation that I had the nerve to try that, of if they actually got something out of it.

We wrapped up that part of the debrief, and went on to our “custom song”, “New Daimler Chapter”, about the storied history of Daimler, Maybach, and Benz, and though the management is creating a new organization, it is built on the achievements and traditions of the past.

Chapter one⎯Daimler, Maybach and Benz
Invented our industry, innovations end to end
From the beginning⎯reliable and quality
Built a brand that everyone can see

The next chapter in the Daimler story
Building on our strengths, new days of glory
High performance culture with a new outlook
In for the long run, everyday we write the book

I added pictures of old vehicles through the years as a visual touch to the historical spin.

Well, it was time to wrap up⎯a few words of summary from our MC, and it was time for our final song: a rewrite of Janice Joplin’s “Mercedes-Benz” (can’t go without breaking that one out). Dieter’s speechwriter got into the flow while we were preparing for the event, and contributed a few verses to the final version. A sample:

Oh lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes-Benz ?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes-Benz ?

Oh lord, wont you buy me a Freightliner truck ?
Got truckin to do, I’m pushin’ my luck.
Mack’s and VW’s will just run amuck,
Oh lord, wont you buy me a Western Star truck?

Oh lord, wont you get me a Services loan?
To get my wheels rollin’, I’m here on the phone.
Need finance and leasing, insurance full-blown,
Oh lord, wont you get me a Services loan?

It was a hit. We wrapped up on a big note with everyone singing along, smiling and clapping (1-3-1-3…). Dr. Zetsche commented to me afterward that he liked the combination of the music-business-creative flavor of the session. We were almost done. Just before dinner, they held an awards ceremony for the highest rated team of leaders, based on how they performed their jobs in the plant, and their trainer evaluations. We opened up with yet another song that we had written about the plant experience, Assembly Line Heros, by Sweet Pea and White Trash. (“Cause we’re ready! We’re Daimler and man, we’re good, We’re assembly line heroes, Revvin’ underneath your hood.”) We added some walkup music for the winners (Allstar, by Smashmouth), played “We’re a Winner” (for everybody), and wrapped it up with our old favorite closer “Let the Good Times Roll”. What I took away from the experience is that intensity can be put into a relatively small bit of time by the intention of the planners and designers; and having a good combination of structure and in–the-moment response keeps it fresh and keeps it from getting that canned flavor.

Hey y’all tell everybody
Face The Music’s in town
We got a dollar and a quarter and we’re rarin’ to clown
Don’t let nobody play me cheap
I got 50 cents more that I’m a gonna keep
So let the good times roll…