Inspired by rowing classes to revolutionise team work

Last year Abby Whittaker, co-director of award-winning salon group  Sarah Hodge Hairdressers, decided to set herself a challenge and joined a rowing club.  Little did she know at the time that setting herself this challenge would spark an idea that would revolutionise how her team works.  Here Abby recounts her experience: “I did the training, the research and even learned the nautical lingo. After several lessons I was ready to join the crew to row at a competitive level. Understanding the full commitment of being part of a team and for the first time being a crew member rather than a skipper I was keen to play my part so before hitting the water on the first competition day I asked the skipper What he wanted me to do. The Skipper replied ‘The same as the rest of your crew’. For us succeed against an opponent with the same size team, and the same tools, up against the same waves with equal knowledge and skills we had to synchronize our efforts , all eight of us working together as one to produce the  fastest, smoothest and most effective performance. If even one of us got out of rhythm, then we would slow the whole boat down and lose the race. I loved how powerful that concept felt.  Then it dawned on me that if it works like that on the water, then surely the same principle is true in business.  If you have one person out of step with the others, it slows everyone down and reduces the effectiveness of your efforts and allows your competitors to get ahead.  We have nine salons that if we are not careful could start heading off in different directions, not intentionally, but just by very small amounts each week could lead to a salon way off course over a period of a year. We needed a way to make the teams in each salon  work as one entity and for all nine salons to work together as one business  - all heading in the same direction, at the same speed, in the same rhythm and totally in tune with the rest. Confident that my teams have the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed and a good understanding of our business, I started to consider ways in which I could implement a new system that would enable the whole team to become one crew steering one boat.  I realised that what they needed was to all have the same information, all have NO DOUBT of our business strategy and a format of activity that each team member would be responsible for and could take ownership of and that would meet our business goals. So at the beginning of this year I came up with a new initiative called the Sarah Hodge Company DrivA a calendar tool that plots out the direction for the business over the next 60 days covering the four key performance indicators – Clients, Team, Brand and Culture Each day there will be activity that forms part of those KPI’s that the teams need to action.  So every salon performs the same activity/task on the same day.  This means that our very large boat , or our nine salons actually move in the same direction all at the same time. Each month, the management team comes together to discuss what we need to do for each of our KPI categories within that month and then we break it down to daily/weekly activities.  It is all agreed upon, put into the calendar and colour-coded.  Once set the managers take it back to their salons and within their team meetings they go through the Company DrivA – so that every team member, whether a top stylist or a first year junior knows what the company is trying to achieve in the next 60 days and how the salon has done for the previous 30 days.  There are reviews and updates built in – so that no salon can fall behind and all the results can be collated and reviewed within the next meeting. So what has this initiative done for our business? In four months we have seen; •             An 18% growth in client retention and an increase of 14% of new clients with an increase of £2.11 on the average client bill. •             Morale and energy within the team is up 200%. With zero resignations, and 42 new job applicants. •             Our Facebook page ‘likes’ have grown by 241%, we have 100% satisfaction from customer service client call backs and 58% increase in the Town Awareness Survey So not only has this tool had a measurable effect on our business bottom line, it has also increased the energy and moral of our team who tell us that they love the fact that they are all involved with what is happening, they can see where we want to go and how we are going to get there and they are motivated by that knowledge.