My Greatest Team Experience

After working at Frito-Lay for 30 years, people sometimes ask me what was my most memorable team experience at the company. Without hesitation, I tell them it was the three years I spent in San Francisco, helping to start our western division office. 

In 1989, Frito-Lay established four offices across the U.S. to manage our snack business, and be physically closer to our consumers and retail customers.  It was a successful strategy, in large part because Frito-Lay leaders at headquarters in Dallas gave those of us in the field the authority and resources to act quickly to meet regional business needs. 

There was also an intangible benefit that no one anticipated: The people in each of the four division offices became extremely high-performance teams and achieved our business goals while having a lot of fun along the way.  Looking back, I learned three key lessons during my three years in San Francisco:

1.  Trust your team.  Trust was the glue that held us together as a western division team.  We built trust with each other by sharing experiences -- feeling the anxiety and excitement of starting something new, moving our families from Dallas to San Francisco, and more.  

For example, on Oct. 17, 1989, after living in San Francisco for just three months, the magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit.  Many of us were on business in Denver, but we were comforted knowing our spouses were together in the East Bay helping each other until we could get home.  These experiences made us realize that we each "had each other’s back” -- at the office or at home.

2.  Leverage teamwork.  Our general manager was as concerned with achieving short-term business results as he was about building a long-term high-performance team.  Thus, we spent a lot of time doing team-building activities, as a business team and with our spouses. 

It paid off. When we encountered the inevitable challenge of a particular business issue, our first reaction was to work together to solve the problem.  In short, we became a problem-solving, extended family. My wife, Janis, and I still reminisce about the people we worked with in California.  

3.  Share business goals but allow each person to "play to position.”   We learned that a good business team is a lot like a football team.  You share a common goal -- to win the game. In our case, the goal was to meet our sales and profit objectives.  But to win, each person needs to “play to their position” -- in my case, Marketing Director.

Having my team count on me to do a great job leading in my area of expertise, Marketing, helped boost my confidence, and at the same time, increased my focus and energy to ensure I excelled and never let down the team.  I became less interested in personal gain and more interested in team performance.

Usually I am a bit leery when people talk about "the good old days" at Frito-Lay, although I'm sure I'm guilty of doing it myself.  Thankfully, the values I experienced 20 years ago as part of the western division team continue to be in place today at Frito-Lay, as new teams generate their own positive business results and build wonderful memories together.  Thanks for letting me get a bit nostalgic today on Snack Chat. 

Tell me about your greatest team experience.

Comments

[Dave Crider]

Hands down it was the start up of the Casa Grande Az. site. We (60 people) started with 60 days of Team Building Training, we were to be a High Performing System (HPS). While we started our Technical training a second group of people (75 people)started their HPS training. Once we were placed into our positions, we found that each person was out of their normal type of job. A Electrician was a Fryer Op. a person with no maintenance training was assigned to maintenance. We were going to rotate positions every so often, this way we all knew each task. We could talk and meet things forever but couldn't make chips well.
What really brought us together was a new plant mgr. Steve Sterling. He and Loren Lee our HR mgr. met with each group to discuss what was wrong and could this be fixed. Loren and Steve put together our thoughts and we changed the mind set at Casa from we could to we did. We called our selves the Desert Dogs, we scraped for any pounds that were available. We could start up and shut depending on Sales needs and still maintain quality and cost. Jerry Mathews was our third Plant Mrg.. Jerry was focused on results and letting us make production decisions while keeping our Resource in the loop. If we made a mistake which did happen we first reviewed what decisions making process was and then what we could have looked at to make a better decision next time. This group or Team was the 1989 Manufacturing Plant of the year. Their are still many original members at the Site, using all the Team Building Training we received. Along the way their were People who came to the Site and added their knowledge of the chip making process and in all areas. One of the biggest parts was that Frito Lay never gave up on us. Things needed for Teams are Proper training and coaching, understanding of why this or that, proper tools and accountability for all. I would also like to thank you for the oppurnity to share this part of my 24 years at Frito Lay.

[Chief Blogger]

Re: Dave Crider. Thanks for sharing your story. I remember the Casa Grande plant well from my time in the West -- the excellent product quality and outstanding service to sales.