MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT TRAINING CASE STUDY :
 
BEFORE TXU ENERGY UK WAS BOUGHT BY POWERGEN, IT WAS PART OF A
VERY LARGE INDEPENDENT ENERGY TRADING ORGANISATION BASED IN
TEXAS WITH A STRONG ENERGY DERIVATIVES TRADING ARM BASED IN
GENEVA & FINANCE OFFICES LOCATED ALL OVER EUROPE.
 
RESPONDING TO A PERCEIVED NEED TO IMPROVE TEAMWORK BETWEEN
AND WITHIN THE TEAMS REPORTING TO THE FINANCE DIRECTOR AND THE
CEO OF TXU-ENERGY TRADING (GENEVA) WE RAN VERY SUCCESSFUL,
FUN-FILLED EVENTS FOR THEIR TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM IN HATHERSAGE
GENEVA & IPSWICH WITH PEAK ACTIVITIES TRAINERS...
 
 
 
 
Ipswich's Premier Finance Team evaluates their
winning goals under the spotlights at Portman Road !
Photograph : Iain Jennings 

Pictured above are some of the TXU-Europe Energy Trading Finance Team 
who attended an unusual post-training course programme "follow up & 
evaluation day" facilitated by Peak Activities Ltd's tutors Iain & Peter. 
at Premier League Ipswich Town FC's Portman Road football ground.  

Many of this fine team of people and lots of their colleagues were up 
in Hathersage in September for a three-day multinational workshop 
designed to boost teamwork, inter-functional cooperation and help the 
team focus on key perforance improvements.


Mikko (above) came to Hathersage all the way from Helsinki in Finland, 
Ian dropped in from Germany and several members of the team flew in 
from their European HQ in Switzerland.  They are typical of many of the 
multi-national, multi-locational teams using Peak Activities facilities to 
assist in developing good communications and clarity of focus amongst 
staff from geographically dispersed sites.  

The group photo call shown above was during a break part on the follow up 
gathering designed to maintain the successful momentum of this training 
investment.  Just like the Ipwich Town football team, which is so great a 
source of local pride in Ipswich, TXU's Finance Team works very hard and 
has a passionate commitment to developing the skills of their team and teamwork
to look after the best interests of their stakeholders...and TXU's training and 
development investments with us are generating success on and off the field for 
both this team of skilled professional accountants !   
 
TXU in Ipswich was formerly known as Eastern Power Energy Trading 
and they trade in electricity and gas and derivatives. The organisation 
is a major player in the world energy market and they are major employers 
in the currently booming Suffolk town of Ipswich. As you'll see from the 
player's shirts, TXU Energi is Ipswich Town FC's main sponsor.  TXU is 
currently constructing a massive office block right across the road from 
the Ipswich ground - this will be one of the largest office blocks in the
UK outside of London.
We'd like to record here our thanks to Glenda Goddard ( picture above far right )
for all her help setting up this most enjoyable and worthwhile post-event
get-together run by our Training Directors Pete & Iain. It made a very pleasant
change to run a benchmarking and follow up day in a football stadium's spacious
conference room ! A Premier League Event Glenda !
 
Iain also wishes to record his sincere thanks to Manuela Grout in Geneva
who worked hard to help set us up and run Bill's team's residential's training
between June and September.
 
 
Peak Activities Ltd senior trainer Peter Daughtrey MCIPD leads a discussion on practical
ways and means of striving for and achieving excellence and developing staff potential at
Portman Road's Sir Alf Ramsey Suite.
"We strongly believe that serious outdoor and indoor training
is not much use to the customers or their participants unless it
is relevant and targeted and unless learning points are
assimilated and transferred across in practical ways back
at the workplace.
 
Ideally the success of transfer and its application needs to
be gauged and monitored against clear benchmarking criteria
so that successful training can be seen as a targeted investment
rather than some sort of other form of teambuilding jolly.
 
The successs of the work we've undertaken over the years with
the Financial Controllers of big savvy organisations like TXU
and CDC and others have confirmed the wisdom of this carefully
planned approach to training. It's always a great personal pleasure
to see well planned and carefully researched projects running as
well as and the customers hoped for, but it's even more satisfying
when senior VP's and execs start to realise that their managers
have achieved great success with relatively small training investments." 
Post-post training course work with Peak Activities often includes 
benchmarking against pre-agreed key performance indicators 
and help with the implementation of our models of excellence are 
critical to the success of many of our serious 3-day training projects 
which involve changes in attitudes and behaviour patterns of teams.  
We're especially proud to be associated with some of the excellent 
results reported TXU's hard working team since we first started 
working alongside them in Geneva, Ipswich and Hathersage on 
various continuous improvement and management development
initiatives. 


" It's a team development benchmarking event Jim, but not as we know it ! "

Honorary " Tractor Boys"  Peter Daughtrey, Karen Sharpe and Bill Roberts. 


Bill's team are now aiming to confirm their status as "Best in Class"  and we're
tipping them to win a top award for excellent performance in their field.  To ring 
the changes and get out of the office, this gathering was arranged at Ipswich Town 
FC's famous ground at Portland Road. Having flown in for the meeting from 
Germany and Geneva it seemed a shame not to take the opportunity during a 
break in proceedings to photograph this fine group of representatives sporting 
the team's first eleven strip !  



The England team have Sven ...and the TXU-Europe Energy Trading Finance Team 
were inspired by their dynamic, enthusiastic coach Financial Controller Bill Roberts 
based in Geneva.  

Bill's Senior Finance Team ( just like Ipswich Town FC ) were on a quest for 
European Excellence !  Bill's one of our many clients at the leading edge of their 
businesses who use our tailored training programmes and consultants to help 
maintain their competitive edge.


Everyone at Peak Activities likes working with fun-loving successful companies 
and we consider it a very great privilege and it'sbeen great fun to be involved 
with Bill and his good natured team over the years. Using Continuous Improvement 
models developed jointly with Peak Activities Ltd. and TXU's HR expert Michelle 
Sormani,  Bill was keen to look after his Pan-European and US stakeholders and 
develop his innovative multi-cultural, multi-location team in the very best possible ways.   
Success undoubtedly breeds success on and off the fottball pitch and setting the 
highest standards and having fun and enjoying work is part of Bill's recipe for winning 
and delighting his stakeholders !

In recent times Peak Activities has also run events for senior managers from other
power and energy trading organisations - including Powergen and Transco.