Case Study: Corporate Conference
Powerhouse Productions have worked with TNT International Business Unit for many years.
We were engaged in 2008 to emphasise to managers from 46 different countries the importance
of consistently-high quality service throughout the delivery chain. Also, just a couple of days
before the Conference, a re-organisation was announced, where countries would report into
different Regional structures.
The coherence of our message now became even more critical.
The overall conference theme was ‘Sure We Can’, mirroring TNT’s newly-launched global strapline.
This positive statement was entirely in keeping with the philosophy of being able to improve
performance.
We expounded that a customer’s perception of how good the service was would be governed by how
bad the worst bit was, rather than how good the remainder may have been. We likened this to
an orchestra- for example: great woodwind, percussion, and brass sections can be let down if
the strings are not up to par and the whole orchestra’s performance will sound terrible.
The morning session was designed as a series of play-lets, utilising actors portraying scenarios
where a fictitious delivery company was allowing standards to slip and letting the customer down.
Each scenario was followed by explanation from a behavioural expert of what could be done to
improve performance and ‘book-ended’ by video clips of a section of an orchestra playing a piece
badly, and then playing properly.
The seating plan was unusual with audience members grouped in crescents of 8-10 seats, and delegates
sat in functional, rather than country, groups, designated by signs on music stands.
After lunch, the 240 delegates re-entered the room to find musical instruments on their chairs,
arranged in sections like the orchestra which they were about to become. Delegates picked up
trombones, violas, clarinets, cellos etc for the first time. Within 2 hours, they played a 4
minute orchestral piece, concluding in a terrific climax of sound and cheering!