Case Study
4 min read
After being sold off by its parent company, Shell New Zealand's downstream business was at a crossroads. The company branded Z Energy (known simply as “Z”) had been an afterthought of the multinational that sold it. Assets weren’t in sync; the big-oil culture had to go; leadership alignment was missing. One-third of senior leaders were new to the company, two-thirds were definitely not, and new CEO Mike Bennetts was from the competition.
Bennetts saw it was time for Z Energy to emerge as a force in its own right. But first, there were immediate demands and nagging legacy problems. It felt like a start-up, yet there was the organization’s 99-year heritage. Taking the organization from “good” to extraordinary would require setting a direction, and the capability to lead people there.
Managing the change without help would be high risk. Bennetts had worked with JMW before and brought them in to help. He wanted to understand the new organization to its very core, then help its leaders breathe new life into the enterprise.
Z launched its first JMW leadership development program with 25 of its top leaders in 5 three-day sessions over 10 months. An important part of this work involved participants agreeing to a set of very future-oriented outcomes. “At the time, we didn’t know how to achieve half of those goals,” recounts Bennetts. “But the methodology enabled us to achieve a great deal more than if we had approached it saying, ‘this is what we know today, and we’ll plan from there.’”
In parallel, the leaders developed the “Z Leadership Framework,” where they committed to measurable outcomes, standards for achieving them, and principles for integrity in their actions and commitments to the business. “It really was a promise, an expression of the biggest future each of them wanted to make,” recalls Bennetts. “And that’s the sort of thing that gets you out of bed on a cold, wet day.”
It was leadership development in action, versus in theory. The company cascaded development opportunities throughout the organization with initiatives focused on safety, its mini-tanker fleet, and commercial teams. A “People at the Pumps” pilot for retail franchises featured a ground-breaking training campaign. “Instead of discussing market segments broken down by gender, age, average income … we used photos depicting the prototypical backseat of ‘Juggling Jane,’ or ‘Simon and Sara the Professionals,’” explains Bennetts. “It communicated well, and we had a day of learning with improv actors, instead of being trained through video or people who talked down to them.”
The results delivered by Z included levels of performance higher than anything known to its people and customers in 99 years. The company achieved beyond expectations on all fronts, including financial results, client testimonials, brand strength, corporate and employer profile, and award recognition.
“The Z Why”—their way of saying “The Z Way”—is a foundational document describing what is different about Z, its aspirations, and its values. The core beliefs of this framework include: We believe that if you want to be a world-class Kiwi company, don’t just employ people, divide them into functional departments and tell them what to do. Instead, give them a reason for belonging, the possibility of a bigger purpose, and a hunger for the extraordinary.
“People say to us, how the heck did you get all those close-to-minimum wage employees to really lift their game at customer service? I certainly didn’t think of that pilot … Human Resources didn’t … but after the training we gave people, one of them thought of it, demonstrated leadership, and took the risk of trying it. Without the work with JMW, I don’t think we would have gotten there, throughout the organization and all the way to people at the pumps.”
-Mike Bennetts, CEO
