Naval Shipyard’s Change Agents Deliver 70+ Win-Win-Wins
Strategy Acceleration System Creates Fast Wins, Energetic Employees, and Lasting Results
What Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Achieved
- 70+ initiatives delivered
- 250 change agents developed
- Less than a week from team launch to first results
Shipyard’s Change Agents Deliver World-Leading Accelerated Results
After September 11, 2001, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard struggled to keep up with the U.S. Navy’s increasing demands for aircraft carrier and submarine maintenance. In 2007, the Shipyard Commander launched the Command’s Guiding Coalition to bring together change agents command-wide to accelerate strategy delivery.
Status quo strategy methods had been to isolate the executive team for strategic planning sessions, with the output reported in a large binder of action suggestions and plans.
This year, with new challenges facing the shipyard, the then commanding officer agreed to try an approach based on John Kotter’s 8-step method for leading change.
How it Was Done
The repeat success of the Guiding Coalition from 2007 through 2014 was due to the continuous support from a string of Commanding Officers, who all saw the powerful results they could achieve by selecting, training, and supporting change agents from all levels and parts of the organization.
The investment in change agents and Driving Change approach led to 70+ strategic initiatives delivered between 2007 and 2014 by 250+ change agents per year working across up to 26 simultaneous initiatives, leveraging found time in their days, on top of their day jobs. First based on the 8-step model from John Kotter, then driven and supported by the minimum viable bureaucracy developed by then Guiding Coalition Managing Director, April K. Mills, the Guiding Coalition was so successful that Kotter came to the shipyard in 2010 to see it for himself.
At a 2010 visit, Harvard Business Professor and world change guru, John Kotter, said, “The world needs to see this.” His 2014 book, Accelerate, captures, in part, what he learned in his shipyard visit. He highlighted the innovative nature of this method with the first line of the book, which reads, “This is a book about pioneers, for pioneers.”
Only 15% of all organizations are really trying to understand how to live with and respond to the rate of change. Of the organizations, 15% are trying to move in a direction that they know works, 14% of the 15% are struggling because of the culture or environment that drives them. Only 1% of the organizations in the world are making progress; they are doing what you all are doing.
- John Kotter, March 2010
The Payoff
The Guiding Coalition simultaneously delivered maintenance improvements, diversity goals, continuous improvement results, leadership development, improved employee morale, and strengthened organizational culture and collaboration.
Guiding Coalition alumni went on to higher positions across the shipyard, throughout the government and into private industry, delivering accelerated results everywhere they went.
