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“
Like every company, MTU is influenced
internally by its macroeconomic
context. The tremendous boom of
the 1960s and tough competitive
environment of the 1990s were felt
keenly by our employees. However,
professional and personal respect
always provided the basis for cooperation.
In a personal crisis, I discovered
that the company stood solidly
behind me and was ready to support
me in overcoming that difficult time.
H. Kux (MTU 1962-94)
”
MTU Dialogue with the
Board of Directors
In January 2009, the board of directors initiated
direct discussions outside the constraints
of specialty and management hierarchies in
order to promote cross-level communication.
The MTU Dialogue represents a new
form of personal exchange between the
board of directors and employees of all levels.
The objective of the MTU Dialogue is to
support mutual understanding outside of
everyday working teams and routines. Discussions
between centers and levels give
those involved a more complete picture of
daily life at MTU – at the workbench, in sales
or in administration. Individual perspectives
come together to form a new perception of
our company. Through this process there
arises a new, common understanding of
problems and opportunities, of solutions and
necessities.
An open invitation to the MTU Dialogue is
extended to all employees through channels
of internal communication. Over 300 employees
responded within a year of the first
invitation. The new series of talks began in
January in mixed groups of 15 to 20. Employees
without management functions were
initially given preference in order to establish
communication between levels as
quickly as possible. Depending on the composition
of the Dialogue group, either there
arose a lively exchange on specialty topics
or an intensive presentation was held on central
questions of business operations and
the future. MTU Dialogues were conducted
not only at our German locations but also at
our international locations such as the one
in China.
The first feedback from participants and the
board of directors has borne out the practice
of direct exchange and put life into what
began as a mere concept. The MTU Dialogue
encourages all employees, from trainees
to executives, to allow questions and to
pose them. It brings together people who are
generally far away from each other during
the course of the working day and rarely
have the opportunity to collaborate on a
project. It broadens perspectives, revealing
unsuspected possibilities for action and providing
orientation with regard to puzzling
constraints. In sum, the MTU Dialogue represents
a significant opportunity to bolster
responsibility and readiness at all levels of
our company.
MTU Mission Statement
The MTU mission statement is a vitally important
mid- and long-term mechanism for
effectively addressing the results of our
employee survey. The mission statement,
developed in 1998 with extensive care, was
in need of renewal after ten eventful years.
During that time, the company had left the
Daimler Corporation, been taken over by the
investor KKR, and finally gone public in
2005. These shifts, together with the usual,
inescapable changes produced by technological
and societal developments, made the
evolution of the mission statement unavoidable.
Of course, MTU had not become an entirely
new company in the course of ten years. The
evolution could therefore go forward on the
basis of the existing mission statement.
Today’s revised mission statement focuses
on five key areas: products, technology and
growth, cooperation and conduct, employees
and management, partners and customers
and finally, environment and society.
Both general and specific guidelines were
formulated for each area. Thus, the mission
statement contains clear and succinct assertions
of MTU’s mature self-understanding,
its direction as a company, its intended
course of development and its company targets.
Now, having been updated, it provides
the framework necessary for MTU employees
at all levels to find their orientation within
the company.
Together into the Future
The company-wide transition process “Together
into the Future” was initiated to facilitate
the introduction of the new mission
statement. Targets were directly aligned with
the results of the employee survey. Employees
were to be given the chance to take a
close look at the most important vehicles of
strategic orientation in our company: our
mission statement, our company strategy
and the broader corporate context, as well
as the actions of our board of directors and
management. Only after this basic understanding
is established can an employee
judge the role his or her team plays within
the company and come to appreciate the
value of his or her own professional duties.
Such understanding is a prerequisite for the
responsible behavior of every employee in
his or her working environment.
Workshops of the Future
The basic tenets of a company’s mission
statement quickly fade into meaninglessness
if they are merely asserted without
being brought to bear directly on employees’
day-to-day working lives. This could not be
allowed to happen, especially considering
the need for information that our employees
had clearly demonstrated. Thus, workshops
of the future were designed to give all employees
a chance to deal with customer
needs, competitive pressures, business
partner profiles, market demands and much
more, and in so doing get to know MTU’s
strategic orientation. Workshops of the
future allowed executives at every level to
guide their own employees through MTU’s
central business fields and working contexts,
progressing by means of a top-down
cascade process from the board of directors,
through the three management levels,
to the rest of the company. As facilitators of
the workshops, executives were responsible
for presenting MTU’s orientation in a clear
fashion and connecting their employees’ preexisting
knowledge and remaining questions
with a total picture of MTU.
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