CSX TRANSPORTATION
500 Water Street
Jacksonville, FL 32202
(904) 359-1493
(904) 359-3597
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April 4, 2000
Dear Jonathan:
Jonathan Rosen Associates and Foxworthy Consulting were the management consultants who helped the Florida Business Unit of CSX Transportation design and implement a partnership initiative with Tropicana Beverages.
Although the two companies had been doing business together for 30 years, the relationship was characterized by tension, mistrust, misunderstanding, and consequently — poor performance. The on-time delivery rate for getting the juice from Tropicana’s production plant in Bradenton, Florida to their distribution center in New Jersey was an average of about 53%. This was causing Tropicana to have to transport a lot of juice via truck at a much higher cost, and that meant lower revenue for CSX — a lose/lose situation.
After having tried other more traditional consulting approaches without success, we brought in Rosen and Foxworthy with their integrated art and science approach to rapid, measurable success. Their unusual combination of improvisational theater to dramatize actual workplace stories, along with a very innovative use of measurement to track and celebrate success, yielded just the results we were looking for. Within about two months, the on-time delivery rate went up to 100%, and has stayed very close to that ever since, with the exception of hurricane weeks, or other such disruptions. The improv theater had the value of airing the truth about how the two companies had been treating each other, in a way that was honoring, funny, and ultimately very healing. In the very first kickoff meeting, TransFormance Theatre was able to transform an old backlog of mutual bad feeling into a willingness to become partners in each others success.
Although the use of improv theater, group drumming, singing, meditation/visualization exercises and other multi-modal learning techniques was really "out of the box" for traditional companies like ours, they really did accelerate our ability to adopt new behaviors and change our culture in a very short time. And when combined with their rigorous use of measurement to track the bottom line improvements and correlate them with the adoption of the new partnership behaviors — the result was an unprecedented success. By the end of their brief four month engagement, Rosen and Foxworthy helped our two companies produce over $1 million in audited, combined, annualized savings. This in itself was a many fold return on the cost of bringing them in.
Furthermore, the 30 year old history of animosity and distrust between our two companies has been replaced by a solid, ongoing partnership relationship. It has now been over a year since the completion of Rosen and Foxworthy’s involvement, and we are continuing to generate all kinds of financial and productivity gains as our two companies move forward together in a spirit of "your success is my success." The CEO’s of both companies were delighted with the results, as noted in our in-house magazine, CSX Today’s front-page story on the partnership initiative.
It is my pleasure to whole-heartedly recommend Jonathan Rosen and Bob Foxworthy and their integrated art and science approach to accelerated culture change and rapid, measurable success.
PAUL D. SANDLER
Formerly VP & General Manager
Florida Business Unit, CSX Transportation