case study: chivas brothers – developing principles and behaviours to represent ‘chivas life’

By 2003 Chivas Brothers (Chivas), a member of the Pernod Ricard Group, had undergone a number of years of transition and consolidation, including the merger with Campbell Distillers.

The organisation was clear about its future vision:

“To become the world’s leading premium Scotch Whisky company”

However, Chivas recognised that to achieve this vision they needed a clear culture to underpin it; a framework for everyday actions that would provide all employees within Chivas with a clear understanding of how their role ultimately contributed to achievement of the vision.

Training Focus was commissioned to help the Chivas Communications Team design and manage a process for establishing a set of Principles and Behaviours to support the company’s vision. It was clearly vital to engage the employees of Chivas at the earliest stages in the process to ensure their buy-in; hence a ‘bottom-up’ approach was adopted.

Ultimately the Principles and Behaviours were designed and integrated into the company via a five-step process, developed and designed by the Chivas Communications Team in partnership with Training Focus:

Step 1 Company-wide roadshows
Employees were asked for their comments on what they like about working for Chivas and what they felt the important behaviours within Chivas are.

Step 2 Initial workshops
All employees were invited to be involved in a 1-day workshop run by Training Focus to establish first ideas on Principles and Behaviours using outputs from the roadshows and their own ideas. Approximately 60 volunteers from different sites, departments and levels within the business were involved.

Step 3 Tray Talk
Analysis from the roadshows and initial workshops were refined into a questionnaire which appeared on canteen trays across the organisation. In this way all employees within Chivas had the opportunity to comment on the initial ideas for new Principles and Behaviours.

Step 4 Refinement workshops
A cross section of 20 volunteer employees attended a second workshop run by Training Focus, where Principles and Behaviours were refined to include the feedback from Tray Talk. The recommendations from this group were presented to the Executive Team.

Step 5 Manager workshops
By the beginning of 2004, the new Principles and Behaviours had received approval from the Executive Team, and Training Focus developed and ran workshops for the Chivas management team. In these workshops the managers were tasked with developing activities and action plans that would ensure the new Principles and Behaviours were embedded in the everyday life of each department within the organisation.

developing activities and action plans
that would ensure the new
Principles and Behaviours were
embedded in the everday life

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