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Creating a compelling vision for British Gas Business

The Problem

  • British Gas Business wanted to work on their vision. Their board were concerned that it was not motivating, didn’t capture the essence of what they do, was not customer focussed and didn’t reflect the real spirit of the organization
  • They asked ?What If! to help them re-define their vision and core purpose and support them in developing ways of communicating it to embed it thoroughly within the DNA of the business

The Process
The team went through ?What If!s three stage process for vision work. This process is built around three core principles:

  1. It must tap the perspective of ‘the people’, not be constructed behind closed doors by committee
  2. It must be lead by the whole board in order to create alignment
  3. It is a creative act, so must be stimulating and full of stretch thinking and ideas

The process took approximately eight weeks from start to finish.

The Solution
In detail, the process went through three stages with the following outputs:

Stage 1: Storytelling

The team ran focus groups and interviewed a large cross section of staff. Using questions, picture searches and projective techniques, the team gathered their perspectives on what the people saw as the future of the company, its values, its key sources of competitive advantage and the unique contribution of its people. This was all pulled together as stimulus for the next stage. By doing this, the ownership of the work extended beyond the board, and gave it an energy.

Stage 2: Creation

Next up was a two day building session with the board, synthesizing the input and adding a great deal of examples and stimulus from other organizations (gathered from ?What If!s TopDog study tours).

This was used to create a vision for British Gas Business comprising:

  • A powerful statement of why the company exists
  • Specifics on what the company does and does NOT do
  • Clarity on how the company creates value
  • It’s values and how they drive the business

?What If!s role in this part of the process was to provoke creativity using powerful stimulus, help synthesize and draw links between perspectives and facilitate ‘hard’ alignment dialogue without fudged answers.

Stage 3: Embedding

Finally, embedding workshops were run with the board and the communications group to look at creative ways to embed the vision. Again, the team used stimulus from other companies, and ideas were developed around practical projects in themes such as environment, recruitment, reward, communication, team working practices, customer interaction and personal development.

The Results

  • British Gas Business now has a new, engaging and aligning vision. They have run communication cascades with their staff at all levels, and have created a number of communication and environment tools to reinforce the messages.
  • They also have literally hundreds of ideas that the board and working groups are taking forward and implementing to make the vision a key part of the fabric of their business.

“The ?What If! team helped us to clearly define a vision which works well for our people, it provides simplicity and clarity.

The process was engaging and fun for everyone in the business and has delivered a powerful sense of direction to the business.”
Jill Shedden HR director, British Gas Business

“It was important to get the right group at the right level in the company for this work. The British Gas Business Board really came with us, stretched their thinking creatively and were up for the hard alignment discussions that are an integral part of the process. They really valued our input, and were not afraid to learn from other businesses, which was great.”
Matt White ?What If!