2024 was year two of our transformation. The year before was when we devised the 5 Ts and discussed them at the most senior level of management. Now it was time to take them to every corner of DEUTZ. These core principles – standing for trust, team, transparency, tenacity, and truth – define how we want to work with each other. The employees of all sites and departments were invited to actively shape the 5 Ts so that they would not just be unthinkingly repeated, but actually put into practice in day-to-day work at DEUTZ, making us better overall.
How realistic is this? How do the 5 Ts translate into specific actions? What are the stumbling blocks? Where can we optimize to ensure that the 5 Ts take effect in our day-to-day work? These questions were explored by more than 2,500 DEUTZ employees last year. “Our workshops are based on the principle of ‘From the people, for the people’. They give employees the chance to actively talk about the 5 Ts and how they can put them into practice,” says Nina Lardinois, Change Management & Transformation manager at DEUTZ.
The first series of workshops, for production employees, took place in February 2024 at the Zafra site in Spain.The last, for assembly workers, was held in December at Porz in Germany. Colleagues also debated the 5 Ts and how we can improve the way we work together at various crossregional and department-specific training courses. After being developed and piloted centrally, the formats were cascaded across all regions and parts of the Company. The desire for a better feedback culture was crystallized during many of the discussions and is one outcome that we are able to translate directly into a new initiative, as we will be introducing a 360° feedback culture in 2025. Part of our transformation mission is to empower our dedicated and highly skilled employees to lead their own workshops and facilitate discourse about the 5 Ts. An initial Train the Trainer session in October qualified more than 20 employees from eleven different countries to deliver the formats with their own teams. Further such sessions will follow.
Alongside the 5 T activities for the workforce, the members of the Board of Management provided strategy updates and information about recent developments at regular town hall meetings, creating a new level of transparency. In addition, formats such as Ask the Board – which all employees are able to sign up for – are now up and running and in high demand. And the new Extended Leadership Calls see up to 300 senior managers dial in every quarter to find out about the latest state of play in DEUTZ’s transformation. Hardly any questions were posed during the first calls, but the discussions are getting increasingly lively as managers become more confident in expressing their views. We will only be able to move forward as a business when everyone at DEUTZ is clear about where we want to get to, how we can get there, and how each one of us can play our part. For me, that is the essence of transformation. People are what brings a transformation to life. We will continue to work on creating transparency and insight – and to empower our employees to actively participate in the trans- formation of DEUTZ. Transformation will only succeed, after all, if it is done together.
The 5 Ts Award
Our 5 Ts Award was a resounding success: 63 DEUTZ teams comprising over 300 employees were nominated for the prize by their colleagues. The idea behind the award is to recognize DEUTZ teams whose day-to-day work exemplifies our 5 Ts – trust, team, transparency, tenacity, and truth – and that are demonstrably more successful as a result. The 5 Ts Award And so the entire workforce was called on to nominate teams, by May 31, 2024, whose work they believed best embodies the 5 Ts. It was particularly encouraging that the nominations were for teams at DEUTZ sites from all regions and covered a very wide range of topics, from finance to IT. An impartial committee selected the winners on a ‘blind’ basis, i.e. solely using information about the relevant projects. We celebrated the five winning teams – one for each T – in a fitting manner at an award ceremony held during the event marking our 160th anniversary in September.