Case Story SAS
THE TAKE OFF
The result planes gave SAS air under their wings.
For the year of 2006 SAS Sweden made a profit of 507 million SEK before tax. In only one year the company has improved the result with 904 million SEK. The boom is of course one factor but there is also a less known explanation why SAS Sweden has left the take off strip and reached the higher layers of air.
The changed behaviour of the management and employees is a significant part of the success. The changes took place during the two years that the management and the employees have worked closely with Qeep Sweden AB.
- The internal behavioural changes haven't been so obvious since we did the service training during the Janne Carlzon era. During the years we have worked with different types of consultants, but we have never before experienced results like this. When you work with Qeep you can feel it in your entire body, says Anders Ehrling, the Managing Director of SAS Sweden. When SAS Sweden started to collaborate with Qeep the company had gone through some organizational changes. The same year the group had been incorporated on national level.
- We had replaced many players, changed the rules of the game and we needed another type of training to win the game. He has personally promoted the collaboration with Qeep that started in the spring of 2005; one year after Anders Ehrling took the position as Managing Director.
Continuity is a challenge
-If the management is dedicated you get faster results. I have looked at it like it´s my responsibility to be a good example, says Anders Ehrling.
-The biggest challenge is continuity and endurance, to do the same thing over and over again. It can be tempting to fall back on a more comfortable way of working. But you have to deliver every day and realize that you are never better than what you delivered today.
Qeep has introduced a completely new result based way of thinking in the company. The goals have been clarified and the will to reach the goal affect everything they do. This means that the demands on every employee to deliver are higher, but at the same time the clarity and the employee´s knowledge of where the company is going has increased.
-We talk about result, we are happy about results and celebrate them but always keep focus on the overall goal, Anders Ehrling says.
Starting with the good news
Susanne Dahlberg gives example of the radical changes of the management group meetings.
-The presentation of the result report is now brief and concise, three minutes per person. We always start with the good news, because there is always some good news. Everyone present their report standing up, which felt strange in the beginning but lead to that everyone focus on the person doing the report. Everyone get to speak without interruptions and afterwards short questions are asked, in a coaching way.
This new way of doing the result reports has gotten rid of unfocused discussions.
-It easily became a part where everyone could have opinions about everything. Now I own my questions, I can ask the group for help or ask for an individual meeting with one of my colleagues, but I have to take the responsibility for my questions, says Susanne Dahlberg.
Feeling pressure at first
At the same time the new meeting approach meant that, as Susanne Dahlberg says, you have to be prepared when you come to the meeting. At first many felt pressured. For the strong individuals in the company management it was difficult to submit to what was experienced as role play.
-But when we saw that it worked we have introduced the working method down through the organization. At my department we report in the same way and work according to the same principals. I think that it has strengthened every individual employee and we can therefore get maximal working result from everyone. And remarkably we have not gotten a single opinion from the union, and we have very active unions within SAS, says Susanne Dahlberg.
The most important question for everyone has been: What have I done to improve SAS results? What can we do that we don't do today to improve the results? What do we do today that doesn't contribute to improve the results?
-What we have learned from Qeep is basic. But the simplest things can often be the most difficult, says Susanne Dahlberg.
Peter Viinapuu, vice Managing Director, was one of the first that met Mathias Bönnemark from Qeep and he was curious of the method.
-We live in an extremely competitive world. We aim to be Europe's leading, not the biggest but leading, and most copied Airline Company. To reach this we have to have a clear goal. We must have a strong discipline, be able to do priorities and here Qeep´s method of working with result planes, to see the possibilities in the next step, has been very efficient.
»It works for me«
To clarify the gap between the present and the goal, to break down the goal into actions and part goals and to every day live with result demands that help to keep focus. Coaching has been a supporting way to move forward.
-The method works very well for me even if it means that I as a leader are exposed, says Peter Viinapuu.
An example of the new working method is the change in the customer relations department. 28 people used to work with customer complaints. It took an average of 21 days before the customer received an answer from SAS.
-Today we have reorganized the department. Today 17 people work there and every customer that contact the company receives an answer within three days, say Peter Viinapuu.
»A hard journey«
-We have a tough journey ahead of us where we as a company must create long-term relationships with our customers. The focus of our customers has gone from comfort demands in the 80´s, time and efficiency in the 90´s, to price awareness and a completely transformed competition today. But we have new tools, says Peter Viinapuu.
One tool is to be able to test changes in small scales.
-Before the changes were introduced in the entire company right away. Now it is allowed to do small scale tests first. This means that we dare to try more.
Refine and clarify
Now the company works on implementing the result focus in the entire organization. Today every employee in the whole company has their own result plan that has been set together with the employee.
Together you look at the goals of the department, in what way you can work to reach these goals and the individual responsibility. Now they continue to work on how to refine and clarify them.
-This is a way to create commitment and clarity. Every person should be able to see and understand how their work contributes to the company´s result. First when this way of thinking is implemented in the entire organization and has become a way of living the organization can be »a self-playing piano«, says Peter Viinapuu.