Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG & E)
After emerging from bankruptcy following California energy crisis in late 2000, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) had to face an uphill task to deal with rising industry standards and meeting customer expectations. There was little open, two-way communication between all hierarchies. Messages across departments and levels of management were not consistent. There were many attempts to inculcate the philosophies of open communication between all the channels but internal research showed that every such effort was viewed as temporary fixes. In addition, many employees were suspicious of company¡¦s transformational program and perceived it as synonymous with downsizing. PG&E¡¦s desire to overcome this pitfall leads to massive communication and cultural transformation within PG&E (Stephan, 2006).
The newly formed internal communications department introduced a concept of ¡§Extended Leadership Team (ELT)¡¨ (Stephan, 2006) that would include the entire senior as well as the supervisory staff across the organization. Elaborate training program was developed and implemented to educate the members of ELT. Necessary tools were provided to the members of ELT to fulfill their new responsibilities as leaders in the transformation. A new set of customer-focused and ethical values that would encourage integrity, accountability and culture of excellence along with supporting behaviors to promote these values were adopted.
In order to achieve the desired objectives, PG&E then set goals for itself and for the ELT. A separate program was established to monitor and measure the progress towards the desired result. Based on the feedback received through various channels that would include all levels of employee structure, the ELT ...