The goal for Transportstyrelsen is to be the best in Sweden – or more precisely, to offer the best customer service among Swedish authorities. The path to this goal? An ambitious training program where all agency managers learn to lead a customer-driven approach – 118 have already been trained.
Client: Transportstyrelsen
We worked with: Organizational development, Training, Customer-Driven approach
How does one create conditions for all 2000 employees to adopt a customer-driven approach – while managing roads, railways, maritime and air transport at the same time? With both a vision and strategy for a customer-driven approach in place, Transportstyrelsen saw that engaging the managers was key. The approach was not to be a grassroots movement kept alive by individual enthusiasts but to be integrated as a natural part of operational plans and the work carried out on a daily basis.
Antrop has created a leadership training program for Transportstyrelsen in leading a customer-driven approach, balancing user needs, operational conditions, and technology, where all services developed are based on genuine customer needs. The training, which is based on Antrop’s six focus areas for a customer-driven approach, includes how to create conditions for gathering customer insights and acting on them.
It also covers how to work cross-functionally across organizational boundaries and how to embed the approach into processes and structures to ensure systematic implementation.
And last but not least – equally important is fostering a culture of trust and psychological safety, one that encourages the adoption of new methods, seeking assistance, and bravely embracing risks and innovation.
So far, about 118 managers from all parts of the organization have been trained, including members of the management team. The training has been conducted in both digital and physical forms.
Based on the ADKAR model for change, which helps us create behavioral changes, we focused not just on what needs to be done differently, but also why. The training is built on two cornerstones: knowledge enhancement – with practical advice and real-world examples for inspiration – and reflection. Thanks to small training groups, participants had time for both personal reflection and intensive discussions with fellow managers about challenges and opportunities – something that often gets neglected in a busy managerial routine.
Everyone who has attended a training session knows that you leave full of enthusiasm and new plans, but then comes Monday, an overflowing inbox, and a thousand fires to put out. Once again, that strategy to modify the work approach was postponed to another week, again. We have therefore included two steps that help translate newly acquired knowledge into practice. As part of the training, all managers create their own action plan to strengthen the customer-driven approach in their section or unit. This is followed up with individual coaching of the managers to review the action plan and provide support based on questions that have arisen post-training – this proved to be highly appreciated!
“We have now trained a large part of our managers. What a difference! The training sessions really contribute to raising our awareness of the customer-driven approach and give us tools to structure how we take action in the agency. We can see that the training contributes to more people daring to think in new ways and that it becomes natural to start from the customer perspective in different forums.”
Maja Söderlund, Strategic Business Developer, Transportstyrelsen
A key success factor has been the close collaboration with Transportstyrelsen. Their business developers, responsible for the customer-driven approach, have participated in all training and coaching sessions. By listening to all discussions, understanding the questions that arise, and knowing where the challenges lie in the daily routine, they have maintained a thorough understanding of where the biggest challenges are and have been able to better support all managers moving forward.
