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Chaparral Steel Tackles Tough Teamwork Issues
It wasn't easy, but workers and management discovered how to bridge the gap
by Advantage Associate Steve Shapiro
Chaparral Steel is a giant in its industry, manufacturing thirty percent of America's structured steel. Fourteen foremen manage work teams of five to sixteen people in three huge mills. It's a gritty, no-nonsense environment where teamwork is a key ingredient to success.
Operations General Manager Bill Nicholson is a highly respected, results-oriented boss who sensed a communication gap growing between workers and management. When he heard about the new Pumping the Colors teamwork simulation, he asked Advantage to bring it to Chaparrral Steel.
Pumping the Colors, from Simulation Training Systems, is a captivating way for team members to develop their creativity, cooperation, planning, and risk-taking skills. During the workshop, teams design and build a fluid delivery system that transports colored fluid from source containers to any one of 12 targets. Teams are challenged to bond together to make decisions, take risks, negotiate, plan, evaluate, and build under the stress of completing the project. After the colors finally flow, teams celebrate, just as they do when they achieve real-world goals.
For the steel workers, issues began to surface even as the program was piloted with foremen. The foremen described their reluctance to be candid with senior management. Nicholson and his foremen brought concerns out in the open, discussed them, and began to close the communication chasm. Buoyed by this success, the foremen took Pumping the Colors back to their teams. In fact, a senior foreman was recruited to help lead the workshop.
After the simulation, several foremen said it helped them discover talents and ideas in co-workers that the foremen had never recognized in a fifteen-year association. Pumping the Colors lowered resistance to communication, helped reveal issues, and began to bridge the gap between workers and management.
In a letter to Advantage, Bill Nicholson wrote, "It is fair to say that as we began our education efforts early this year, our organization suffered many ills: lack of trust, incomplete communication, lack of clear vision, and a general malaise. Using Pumping the Colors and our other one-day seminars as a vehicle, you were able to help us in ways I would not have believed possible."
"You were able to look much deeper into the organization to identify the reasons for our problem...to partner with us in healing the hurts that we generate by our Îunconscious incompetence.' I look forward to growing with you for many years to come. I would encourage you to have any of your prospective clients call me so I could share in more detail our very positive experience here at Chaparral Steel."
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 Pumping the Colors is a captivating way for team members to develop their creativity, cooperation, planning, and risk-taking skills. |
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