In my last blog, I explained the origin of Grandpa’s instruction, “Do something, even if it’s wrong!”  He detested inaction and encouraged me to learn from doing, as much as he valued learning by thinking.  I naturally thought of him as I reflected on our new Senior Team structure we implemented in the fall of 2016, which we undertook to improve our focus and efficiency.

The third of three new senior teams we created was the Implementation Team.  The members of this team completed some important work last year.  They assisted us acquiring a new training facility, they helped launch the Joint Michigan Apprentice Program, and they helped us land the new EJ Foundry load with Great Lakes Energy.

Ironically, here is where the “even if it’s wrong!” part played out—they didn’t need to be on a team to deliver this important work!  The team members were bright, dedicated, hard-working senior employees with wide-ranging talents.  The bottom line was that they got the work done because of who they are, not because they were on a team.  In fact, the team may have actually slowed them down!

What happened?  First, I failed to develop a clear purpose for the Implementation Team.  Without a compelling direction, the team couldn’t mobilize around their mission.  Second, the purpose we set them on—to complete key strategic initiatives—copied what Wolverine employees already do very well.  We learned long ago how to work together in informal teams to solve complicated problems.  Engineering, operations, generation, land management, legal, environmental, accounting, already know how to team up to solve complex problems.  You’ve built power plants, procured land, designed and built substations and 500 miles of new transmission line.  You raised the capital to complete this remarkable body of work—all while improving our members’ competitiveness and reliability!

Third, the toil of the Implementation Team helped us better understand a particular gap in our organizational efficiency and process improvement that you overwhelmingly identified in our Culture Survey!  You grow weary of silos of information and clumsy process.  You want better and more organized data management tools to eliminate wasted time.  Project managers want better business information without having to key data in to different databases.

Even though my idea of the Implementation Team didn’t work, the experiment led us to the right answer.  Wolverine needs to refocus a team around a singular objective—improving our day-to-day work efficiency.  We need a team with the proper expertise, determination, focus, and access to resources to get it done.  So, we disbanded the Implementation Team and formed a new team called the Operational Performance Team.  You can read more about the 2018 Leadership Teams here.

I am glad we dared to shake up the senior teams last year, and I’m proud of their effort, their willingness to admit what wasn’t working, and their ability to chart a new course for 2018.  Grandpa gets smarter every year I get older.  He was the master of learning by doing, “something, even if it’s wrong!”