Five Steps to a “Winning Theme for Your Team”

When City Bin Co, an Ireland based waste management company, knew the time was right to seize additional market share they created the “Saving Private Ryan” theme to align and engage their employees. The theme borrowed the military theme of the movie, “Saving Private Ryan” and the 90-day campaign focused on attracting 10,000 individual new customers, home-makers now identified as “Mrs. Ryan” (based on the company’s core “Who”).

“Competitors’ contracts were coming up for renewal, and we wanted to bring onboard 10,000 new Mrs. Ryans,” says Founder and CEO Gene Browne. “We wanted to save these Mrs. Ryans from the ‘Soviet era’ service of a rival firm, so we sent a door-to-door ‘assault’ team to rescue them.”

Several quarters later, when it was apparent that inefficiency was a constraint at City Bin Co, the “Bin it” theme was created. The themed program asked employees to submit index cards listing wasteful practices and unnecessary tasks they wanted to stop doing — anything that was depleting time, money, energy, or space without a valuable result.

To inspire employees to clear the decks of projects like this and focus on what really matters, the “Bin it” campaign awarded prizes — ranging from tickets to the cinema to a weekend break — to those who submitted items that were approved to be “binned.”

As with its other quarterly themes, The City Bin Co. introduced this one with a launch party and they celebrated with a barbecue upon meeting its goals. And lest employees forget about the theme, floor-to-ceiling red posters at the company’s offices reminded them to “Bin it.” “We binned more than 150 activities over that quarter, many of which affected several individuals, so the total impact was huge,” says Browne. “It also brought a new phrase and philosophy to the company culture.”

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

~ Stephen Covey

Below are five steps you can follow to implement a winning theme at your company.

Creating a Winning Theme

The Main Thing Identified – a theme starts with identifying a company-wide mission for the quarter, or one or more priorities that need to be driven. These are often found in problems that need to be fixed, opportunities to be seized, or key metrics that must be improved.

Every quarter Gene Brown and his executive team from City Bin Co ask themselves: “What is the single most important thing going on in the business in the next 90 days that we want everyone aligned on?”

Whatever you choose, describe a measurable outcome and identify which metrics will demonstrate success?

Brainstorm – Brainstorm three or more candidate theme names, based on the “Main Thing” for the quarter — be creative, odd, and “out of the box.” Use Google to brainstorm. Consider the following:

popular songs and movies
sporting events
a favorite character, animal, or symbol
popular phrases and words in your culture
motivating images, videos, phrases, songs, movies, and movie scenes
core value names and stories

Consider breaking your leadership team into groups of two to four and having them work together to come up with two or three potential Winning Themes each.

Evaluate – Evaluate the candidate themes based on the following criteria and make a decision on the theme. Use the criteria as guides, not absolute “must haves”:

Is the theme name clearly connected to the top priority or “Main Thing”?
Does the theme name have context in all employees’ minds?
Is the theme name memorable, fun and/or inspiring?
Does the theme have an emotional connection?
Will the theme and its actions achieve the desired outcome?
Is the theme in good taste and honorable to all who will see it?

Consider scoring each proposed theme on a 5 point scale against each criteria.

Create Cross-Departmental Themes – Use the final theme chosen and create a cross-departmental “Theme Team” of three to five members. Empower them to develop:

Theme name and measurable outcome(s).
An icon, visual image, song, movie or character to illustrate the theme.
3-5 ways to communicate the theme to all employees.
The theme reward and celebration.
An all-company “theme launch plan.”

This step is important. There are people that are made for this type of work. Find out who that is in your organization and let them have fun energizing the company around the theme, the measurable outcome, and the celebration.

Choose an executive team leader – This person will be accountable to lead the Theme Team, with all the theme details, team members, and accountabilities. Providing executive support and accountability is important to successfully executing your theme.

Dig deeper with this webinar replay: Using Winning Themes to Engage Your Team.

Imagine having your team as engaged in your measurable outcome as they are in March Madness, Super Bowl squares, or Candy Crush. And, if done right, your team is competing against a challenge or opportunity, not against themselves.

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