Case story

How Plant Director Mogens Auchenberg created a "Best-in-class" plant

Schneider Electric is a global company producing elements to promote digital transformation by integrating the world’s leading process and energy technologies. In Denmark probably best known as the former Lauritz Knudsen, with production of switches, sockets, etc.

Background

When Mogens Auchenberg, Plant Director at Schneider Electric, returns to Schneider Electric in 2016 now responsible for the plant in Ringsted, he sees an organization under pressure.

It is a team of skilled employees and competent people in the top management team. But Mogens wanted more interaction and dynamism in the top management team.

At the same time, the culture was under pressure because it was difficult to get things to cooperate. There were high expectations for the plant’s performance, but lack of interaction across the entire organization gave problems in living up to the expectations.

Considerations

For several reasons, Mogens was fully aware that he could not manage the task alone. Firstly, it was a large management team of 13 persons that had to be brought together. Moreover, Mogens was unsure of how to get there and how they would come out the other side. And finally, Mogens wished for a person to stand on the sideline, who could objectively give his input and assessment of the situation as well as bring in solutions and initiatives.

Choosing Intenz

With this acknowledgment, Mogens chose to reach out to Intenz and Mads W. Olsen.

I knew Mads and Intenz from before and through my network, so it was obvious for me to contact Mads. I know that Mads understands the dynamics of getting people to play together as a team, and I had a good feeling that Intenz and Mads were the right people for the job.”

Mogens Auchenberg, Plant Director, Schneider Electric

Solution

The process started out with getting a good knowledge of the starting point. A team survey showed how strong the relations, trust and cooperation in the team were.

We gained a common understanding of our starting point. What kind of factory do we have, who are our team members and what are the challenges?”

Mogens Auchenberg, Plant Director, Schneider Electric

Besides being a good starting point for kick-starting development, the survey also gave a high level of recognition within the team that something needed to be done. It was no longer Mogens’ project, but a common project.

And the further dialogues could be based on facts, instead of guessing where actions were needed.

“We created a common vision for where we are going – together! And what we must build together,” says Mogens.

Throughout the process, an appreciative approach was chosen, which meant that the team regularly shared small and large success stories in relation to their cooperation. This accelerated the positive spiral that led to even better interaction between the team members.

Structure and training

The management team had already created a good structure for meetings and dialogues. With regular management meetings, Mogens saw an obvious opportunity to train the things they learned from the journey with Intenz. “With a common goal and a common language, it was much easier to put into words when someone had the experience that we were going in the wrong direction.”

In the short run, it was about creating a sense of being in control. To get there, they used the short daily team dialogues to discuss and prioritize which specific challenges and tasks they would cooperate on solving. Furthermore, tools and language from the training were brought into the dialogues, which strengthened self-awareness as well as the team’s ability to reflect on their teamwork.

In addition, Mogens chose to focus on the long-term perspective by involving the team in creating a “Strategy House”, consisting of a vision and 5 drivers that were crucial for future success. The purpose was to strengthen the management team’s pride and belief in the future and create a story that made sense in relation to the changes and improvements the management team should continuously create together with the rest of the organization.

Involving the entire organization at the factory

With a united approach in the management team, it was time to involve the rest of the organization to ensure a sense of community and effective cooperation. It was about creating a common language, a common understanding of the messages and common tools, so that everybody was trained in the same tools as the management team was working with.

Now the team leaders were invited on board, and through training and workshops they got the same tools and training as the management team. This enabled them to contribute to the journey, relay the messages to the organization and develop their own teams.

”The team leaders played an important role for us in involving the entire organization. And the same goes for our support function.” says Mogens.

But the journey does not end there. The initiatives continue and in February 2021, the support function with 32 people will also be involved and go through the same training.

”Fortunately, we have done a good pre-work, so that our strategy house is in place and can always be brought into play in the training.” says Mogens.

Payoff

Today, Mogens experiences a cohesive team showing a high level of trust, a high level of pride in what they have created and pride in a well-run factory.

The roof of our strategy house is our customers – and we can see that we have become much better at understanding the customers and meeting their expectations in terms of quality and delivery. And we have established a much closer contact with our customers.”

Mogens Auchenberg, Plant Director, Schneider Electric

This means that the pressure on the plant has now been lifted, so that Schneider Electric today has a plant recognized as one that can be trusted, with a super strong management team that takes joint action and therefore has been able to deliver as expected.

We were selected as one of the few factories to become ”Smart Factory” and which we were very proud of.

In addition to the roof in the strategy house – the customers – there is also good results in the other areas. For instance in the column ”Well-Being”, where there’s a constant focus on what it’s like to be an employee at the factory; surveys show that there are constant improvements here as well.

The strategy pillar ”Finance” is also doing very well. It shows that the plant is going in the right direction, delivering the expected financial results. The underlying foundation of the strategy house ”Schneider Performance System (SPS)” has become the model for how to run production in Schneider Electric worldwide. ”Among the plants we compare ourselves with, we are a clear No. 1,” says Mogens, with no hidden pride.

When asked what the interaction with Intenz means, Mogens says that it has been of great value to him to have a good connection with a trusted advisor who could always give a perspective from the outside, and with objectivity give sparring on the right composition of teams and most important areas of action.

At the same time, Mogens has greatly appreciated being challenged and having someone to spare with, who could also give perspectives on the reactions that came from people during the process.

”I have experienced a lot of personal development both through the process but also the feedback and sparring I have received along the way,” says Mogens.