BETTER RESULTS WITH HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS

The situation called for top tier talent and motivated

employees. During the 2000 merger between

GlaxoWellcome and SmithKlineBeecham, I was

asked to lead the integration of a distribution and

logistics function supporting over $20 billion in

revenues in the U.S. market. My challenge was to

build a high performing team that was capable of

delivering world-class performance and able to

exceed expectations in reducing costs.

THE FINANCIAL BENEFITS OF ENGAGED EMPLOYEES AND HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS ARE WELL DOCUMENTED. A BRIEF ON THE SITUATION, ACTIONS AND RESULTS AT GSK FOLLOWS...

Every business is in business to earn a reasonable return on investment while providing its products and services. Creating high performance teams of engaged employees is an excellent way to ensure high productivity, strong financial results, and satisfied customers, all key ingredients to strong return on investment. Start by accepting that your people are your business. More than your strategy, your marketing plan or your IT system, people are the key to your success. To transform your business, transform your people. Getting your people to work together in a powerful way, taking personal responsibility for their own performance, as well as that of the overall business, will generate measurable improvement every time. The secret lies in making sure that everyone in your business – including you – has the right attitude and is taking the right actions to produce results, time after time. Here are a few key disciplines to make this happen in your business. 1. Include everyone in an annual planning session. Including people makes all the difference to their performance. They have a chance to let you know how things look from their perspective, giving them the experience of

being valued and giving you the benefit of their experience and insight. I’ve learned time and again the truth of the adage that people will not destroy that which they have helped to create. Inclusion creates buy-in and ownership from the team. 2. Review what happened in the past and learn from it. Start with a thorough review of the past year – what did we achieve together and where did we fail? Give all people on the team time to make their own list before gathering responses. Make sure that you first focus on achievements – just the good news. One of the factors thatmakes working together so difficult is our habit of focusing on issues and problems to the exclusion of achievements and successes. In such an environment people feel undervalued and unmotivated and a feeling of Why bother? shapes the culture. 3. Examine limiting attitudes and assumptions and shift them. Too often the source of this frustration is found in the underlying attitudes that shape the culture of your business. Change their beliefs and you will change the outcomes. 4. Align the team on the top priorities. Have each manager present the goals to the entire team and

Developing a high performing team and key talent requires serious commitment and time. However, the climb is worth the view. Some of your team will not complete the journey, other’s will come on board because a new skill set is needed immediately to implement your strategy. Be prepared to stay the course despite challenges and disappointments.

To teach and develop my team, I needed a wizard in the field of people development, I chose Zemo Trevathan, now president of Zemo Trevathan Associates. Zemo lead my team through a number of training and development sessions with our ultimate goal of creating a high performing team and increasing key talent. Together we built a high performing team through team building / workability, personal i ty recognit ion, coaching and leadership seminars, team fired up, strategic planning, and effective team meetings. This inspired team not only beat the original cost targets by 17x, 75% of the team moved into the key talent group and GSK’s supply chain was ranked in the top 15 by AMR. Visible competencies such as knowledge and skills are easier to assess, whereas hidden competencies such as self-concept, traits and motives are behavioral competencies that drive an individual’s performance in the job. In my opinion this is the area where the true genius of building high performing teams exist.

Jim Dixon

ATTRIBUTES OF HPT

- PARTICIPATIVE LEADERSHIP- SHARED RESPONSIBILITY- ALIGNED ON PURPOSE- HIGH COMMUNICATION- FUTURE FOCUSED- FOCUSED ON RESULTS- CREATIVE TALENTS- RAPID RESPONSE

A VIVID SHARED VISIONA meaningful common purpose that the team has helped shape is a necessary step to engage and ultimately gain buy-in to

your leadership and direction. Most teams are responding to an initial mandate from senior management. But to be

successful, the team must “own” this purpose, develop its own spin on it, and they must create this vision together as a team.

Leaders not only inspire those around them, they bring people together around a shared purpose and a common set of

values and motivate them to create value for everyone involved. The vision for this team was: To be the world class leader

in the delivery of pharmaceutical goods and services to our customers.

explain the rationale. Once all the goals have been presented, together select the priority goals for the year. Although all goals will be pursued, your team will benefit from a focus on the critical few that most ensure overall success. Accountability is key to your success so make sure that each goal has one team member who has the overall responsibility for its achievement. 5. Establish monthly review sessions to monitor progress. Review all team plans to ensure that they are aligned in pursuit of your plan for the year. If these plans are achieved, will our strategy for the year achieve the outcomes we hope? The most important discipline is to ensure – no matter what – that each team has a monthly review session to assess progress against their annual plan.

Within one month the team was fully behind our strategic plan, agreed on the goals and objectives, and rapidly moved forward with energy and vigor. Achieving $20 million in cost savings once seemed impossible. With a change of mindset, confidence in leadership a new day had come. Three years later, this team delivered over $350 million in cost savings.

TEAMWORK IS MANDATORY NOT OPTIONAL

CONSPIRE FOR EACH OTHER’S SUCCESS

EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS ENFORCED

DEMAND EXCELLENCE AND REFUSE TO TOLERATE MEDIOCRITY

FOCUS ON DELIVERING QUALITY WORK AS ONE TEAM

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH IS NONNEGOTIABLE

COMPETENCY + DIVERSITY

A MIXTURE OF PERSONALITIES, DIVERSITY OF BACKGROUNDS, R A N G E O F E X P E R I E N C E S A N D S K I L L S A R E A L L COMPLEMENTARY ATTRIBUTES THAT CREATE A HIGH PERFORMING TEAM. DIVERSITY MEMBERS OF YOUR TEAM AND GAIN NEW PERSPECTIVES AND INSIGHTS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS.

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LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY

TEAM AGREEMENTS