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In the fall of 2001, Integrated HomeSolutions had been restructured. I was the only director left in the team almost of 20, charged with keeping Whirlpool in the business of Networked Homes. Go Get It Tiger!
Objective:
Keep Connected Home activities alive | | Context:
Freshly restructured; tight budget; organizational pushback; de-motivated team without vision and tangible purpose | Key Strategies:
Build up team morale; reach-out program; open innovation; quick and very visible wins; focus on short- to mid-term goals | | Things were bad. Support and interest from the business side was very low, as we had just spent close to $28M dollars on something that had been promised to the trade and then restructured. The technology groups had been pressured to comply, resulting in a huge backlash. And my team was utterly distraught and without any confidence. I had some money for the rest of the year, but the next budget would be lean. We needed immediate actions and a strategy. The strategy was pretty simple: come up with enough good news and provide solutions to the business and the tech groups for them to respect us again. For that, I needed a functioning team.  The first step was to get the team rallied. I provided them with some basic “stuff does not happen to you, you make it happen” literature like “The Oz Principle” and “Journey to the Emerald City”. I spent a lot of time with them. This sparked very good discussions and brought the team as a unit together.
Next, I came up with a new way of working. We had been pushing for three years in a launch mode, that was gone. My team needed a new heartbeat, and I developed CDEX. This 100 Day Experiment process was geared towards the corporate investment cycle and offered something precious: predictability. We had not had that in years. Now, life was somewhat on a plan. CDEX gave us the engine to check out assumptions the business was or might be interested in. My old connections to the brand and service organizations paid off. We held Open Insight Days where were shared the results of our experiments with business representatives. We got back at the table because we had something essential: belief in ourselves.  The final step was to engage with the outside world. We did not have the means to do anything really impactful for a $18B company, but with the help of some friends, we could make a dent. The first output of that move was MEALTIME. After that industry pilot, we were back in business for good.
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