GVEC is a cooperative that has provided electricity to rural areas of south-central Texas for over 80 years. They service 13 different counties in an area that spans 3,500 square miles. In addition to ensuring a reliable flow of electricity, GVEC also provides high-speed internet, HVAC, and solar services to thousands of families and businesses across Texas. As a cooperative, GVEC is committed to not only provide high quality and dependable services, but to do so in a way that beneficially contributes to the communities where they operate. Clients are more than sources of income; they are member-owners who can participate in electing the GVEC board of directors, attend annual meetings, and even receive capital credits if annual revenue exceeds expenses.
Even though GVEC enjoyed a great reputation within the community, it faced internal challenges, including siloing, a major lack of employee accountability, and unproductive conflicts between and within different teams. These problems contributed to a culture of mutual blame and diminished personal accountability. Zach Land, a GVEC line superintendent, said, “It was like there were three mini co-ops.” Some employees were more focused on individual concerns than the organization’s overall goals. Another line superintendent, Keith Boening, described the common mentality preventing greater collaboration: “You just wanted to get what you wanted done, and that was it. Nobody ever worked together. It was always ‘how do I get the job done?'” One employee summarized the atmosphere by saying, “We were working with these people because we had to.” Without finding a way to improve cooperation and cultivate individual accountability on a broader scale, GVEC’s efficiency would be significantly inhibited. After seeing employee accountability examples from other corporations in the field, leaders knew change was possible and needed. Stephen Brockman, manager of home operations, put it plainly, “We needed some direction, and we needed it quick.”
When General Manager and CEO Darren Schauer read Leadership and Self-Deception, he believed he had found what GVEC was missing- an employee accountability plan. He shared the book with the GVEC’s strategic planning team and found unanimous agreement: Arbinger principles could help. The company engaged Arbinger in 2014 to provide a two-day mindset development and implementation workshop for the company’s leadership team. The workshop powerfully impacted the leadership team, and they decided the training needed to be offered to all 370 GVEC employees.
GVEC was committed to lasting improvement and change. They decided to train two internal facilitators in Arbinger methodologies and make Arbinger workshops part of the new hire onboarding experience so that new employees would catch the vision through training and observing employee accountability examples. GVEC also decided to offer follow-up implementation sessions for employees to ensure that employee accountability was as developed as possible. GVEC has now partnered with Arbinger in the ongoing development of their company culture for over 9 years, with tremendous success. However, making the transition towards an outward mindset has required overcoming doubt and resistance. 50% of GVEC employees are outside laborers, many performing dangerous and arduous tasks to build and maintain electrical lines. The majority were outspoken skeptics regarding what they initially viewed as the development of “soft” skills that were unrelated to their daily work. However, it was not long before even the most dismissive employees changed their minds about Arbinger’s principles and the new employee accountability plans.
By incorporating Arbinger principles into their culture and adopting Arbinger tools and processes into their leadership practices, GVEC has experienced greater collaboration and employee accountability than ever. Employees have come to know and trust each other in profound ways. Crew foreman Josh Tucker described the accountability shift that comes from seeing the humanity of others. “It really hits home when you get to know these guys. I want them to come home safe every day.” This mutual concern extends between different teams as well. Kayla Anglin, an internet service scheduler, began to ask herself how her efforts impacted technicians and their families. She described a feeling of empowerment from “doing everything you feel is right for the company and your coworkers.” In fact, the changes Kayla experienced led her to declare how Arbinger “has made me feel more attached to this company. I would never feel like I needed to go anywhere else to be fulfilled.”
Through a shift in mindset and by utilizing Arbinger’s accountability framework and performance management tools, GVEC saw an increase in self-accountability company-wide, making it a great place to find prime employee collaboration examples. Their previous approach to performance reviews involved a 3-page, single-spaced scoring document that was discouraging for employees and exhausting for supervisors. According to recruiting and development manager Carolyn Morrow, Arbinger’s tools “transformed the conversations between employees and their managers. It was amazing. Now, people actually look forward to having performance reviews.” Morrow continued by expressing how the transition to an outward mindset requires sustained commitment: “It takes practice. It takes perseverance. You have to carve a new path in your brain.” For the employees of GVEC, the investment has proven to be immensely worthwhile. As home operations manager Steven Brockman concluded, “It’s a very fulfilling and rewarding way of working.”
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