I was asked, what are the best moment / s I have experienced during the competition?  My answer will be when we, Team Infinity performed in front of the audience.  That will be the moment that I will cherished forever. It keeps me smiling for no reason until today (people must be thinking that this woman is crazy…..) The feeling, is so indescribable. 

How do I feel about us coming in as joint 2nd winner?  Fantastic, happy and sad at the same time.  Why?  Happy and feeling good that the team projection and hard work is achieved. Happy that we gave our all for the presentation and deserve to be one of the winner.  Sad…..hmmm….. that we did not win and Customer Cup is not with us yet. Sad for the fact that I felt we can be a just a small points behind the winner ( at which I can be wrong….) You know…the things with 1st born in the family.  I want to rule, I want to win blah…blah….and blah……… However, I agreed it was a fair win for all and my greatest respect goes to Team Ears of RAC.  Well done guys!!!!!

What have I learned?  A lot…. 

a. Conquer your fear and you are sure to conquer the situation, the people and most importantly yourself.

b. Respect! Respect ! & Respect! – its never easy to work together as a team knowing that everyone is different. They, members of Team Infinity form part of me now.

c. Relationship & team management – from different perspective.  Its ok to be sad, angry, happy and playful.  The team will understand why……

d. We are not alone.  What ever issues that us CIMB Aviva are facing, believed me that somewhere over the mountains, across the seas, in other part of the world, our colleagues from another business unit is also facing it.  The question will only be how they manage it, how they deal with it.  Thats why we have Customer Cup you know…… Its all about sharing.  So, want to take a chance in the next round of Customer Cup?

e. They don’t eat you.  I mean the senior management team of Aviva.  Felt great knowing that they are there to steer the organisation to right direction.  Your voice is heard and yes we do exist for them.  Remember….. I am recognise for who I am, and for what I contributed.  That is not just a tag line ok….

f. Lastly but of course the most vital of all is PASSION in what ever you do.  Small or big, it has to be with passion.  It steered the team clearly to the objective. 

Before I pen off for Team Infinity, the team & myself would like to express our greatest gratitude to the Exco Team of CIMB Aviva – Kevin, Fikri, Caroline, Penny, Chris, Pak Ya and of course Andy, our sponsor.

The whole continents of CIMB Aviva ( its going to be a long list for me to write down here).  Thank you for your support, best wishes and many more.

Our business partner – CIMB Bank.

An last but not least, to our family members, thank you for the support, for putting up with us, for tolerating us during this period, all the moods swing, well you know…..and of course for saying ok for Portugal……. : )

Thank you all for the great experience……………

Sigining off:

Theee Yati, Captain for Team Infinity.

The Aviva Customer Cup recognised three heroes at the Grand Final. These individuals were awarded the ultimate prize of Captain, Coach and Sponsor of the year by Andrew Moss, CEO.

Captain of the Year

The role of captain has been to support and lead the project team throughout the tournament. There were some really strong contenders for this award and the final three nominations were recognised as demonstrating their commitment to leading people to achieve fantastic results and taking their teams to the Grand Final.

Nominees
Lisa Kent (Magnificent Marketing Marvels)
Lynsey Keeling (Systems Thinking)
Yati Mohammed (Infinity)

The winner was Yati Mohammed as she was clearly a driving force that led her team to achieve a huge amount of success and reward.  During her presentation Yati showed she was knowledgeable and had everyone in her team tuned into the project.  On numerous occasions she went above and beyond the call of duty and as one of the team put it “they deserve the award for tolerating the craziness within the team”.

Coach of the year

The award of coach of the year took into account the skills and knowledge this person needs to really support and challenge a team to deliver improvements that build great customer loyalty. 
There were 3 nominations who were short-listed for this award as they showed that they had all helped their teams aspire to deliver excellent results.
 

Nominees
Shaun Fordyce (Group Risk Filing Circus)
Sharon Rosser (Ears of RAC)
Tymoteusz Paleczny (The Producers)

The winner was Shaun Fordyce who really made an impression on his team by making them feel important and valued.  He praised any achievement regardless of how small and gave 110% support to the team.  The team have particularly appreciated the advice and support offered by Shaun over the last few days and as the team said themselves “they couldn’t have asked for a better coach” and one team member said “I certainly wouldn’t have got through without their support as they gave my hand a squeeze just before going on stage!”

Sponsor of the year

As team sponsor the people identified by their teams for this award helped enable others make a real impact, removed barriers whilst helping the team to do something bold and brave.

Nominees
Wayne Ross (The De-Riddlers)
Rachel Whitaker (Systems Thinking)
Marek Przybylski (The Producers)

The winner was Rachel Whitaker who showed a clear passion for both their project and the team behind it.  The motivation, moral, support and enthusiasm exhibited by Rachel was truly inspirational.  She makes a point of recognising the  talent and value of each individual on the team.  As the team put it themselves, Rachel’s enthusiasm for the team “was truly indescribable”.

Now that the trip is over for me I have had a bit of time to reflect on the experience and these are some of my thoughts that come to mind in no particular order.

Adversity. As I described in an earlier blog our dress rehearsal with the production team did not go very well at all.  Actually the teams initial reaction was not  positive and a sense of irritation & frustration was clear when we had a de-brief session with Oliver and Sarah (management team in charge of customer cup).  I think in hindsight the team can now see that this was also a rehearsal for the production crew and since we were first up we were the team that felt the impact.  This didn’t last long though – once the debrief was over it was back to Yati’s room to sort it out.  Actually – they took all of the issues ie too much space, Yati’s clicker etc  and turned it to their advantage.  Yati Z. use the space to her advantage and added some comedy that wasn’t previously there and Intan ran the slides perfectly (if you remember she drove the slides during the dialogue session so she knew the flow better than anyone).  So more than just adaptability they took the adversity head on and actually benefitted from it!

The dress / production rehearsal

A slightly tense post dress rehearsal de-brief with Oliver and Sarah

Back to the room to make some adjustments.

Aviva. The team now have a great feel for Aviva and the Aviva family attitude it believes in.  The team have made a huge number of friends – collected many email addresses.  We need to find a way now of keeping this network alive.  The accessibility we have been given to Aviva’s senior executive is a real privilege and we owe it to them to continue to push our project forward, document it and share it with other interested parties.

Support, support, support.  Who would have thought that Simon’s catch phrase from ACT teambuilding would be so embedded one year later.  I don’t mean just the words – the real sense of support the team felt last week via the blog was fabulous. Just some stats (am I turning into Intan?) the blog was viewed over 3200 times and on one day (last Thursday) was viewed 768 times (and we have less than 400 members of staff!).  The individual comments you left became quite powerful as they added a some additional pressure & focus to the team – so for those of you who commented I think you can consider that you directly influenced the performance last week – thanks from the entire team!

Customer Cup 2010/2011.  The planning is underway for the next customer cup which will kick off in May 2010.  So any ideas that you have now for projects improving customer experience could be turned into a customer cup project.  The finals will again be held in Europe – final country is yet to be confirmed.  So first step is to identify some good project ideas – the RAC project was a big project and incredibly successful – so you need to think big.  Where we are lucky is that team infinity are now experienced and they know what is required to win this competition which will be a big advantage.  Hopefully we can spread some of this experience across a few different teams.  Also – it is very clear to me that this entire competition is linked to Six sigma and continuous improvement.  Most of the other teams and facilitators have Six Sigma experience.  The good news here is that the HR team are building a Six Sigma training programme so for any of you who are interested in Six Simga training & accreditation please let your line manager / HR know so that this can be planned.

EasyLife Takaful.  We are now all focusing on the implementation of EL Takaful for the end of Nov.  This is a huge deliverable I know but if we can continue to perform as a team we all know it is achievable – this is going to be another huge CA achievement and very important to our Q4 and 2010 performance.  It is also a unique product offering within Aviva which means we may have something here for a customer market segment in Aviva that wasn’t available before – therefore it also seems to me that it could be some sort of platform for the next customer cup….

Pride.  What I have strongly felt over the past week is a new sense of pride.  Yati ended the presentation with her pride, pride, pride line – describing the sense achieved by delivering the project & benefits.  The team chose to wear their CIMB Aviva shirts rather than costumes as they were proud to be on an Aviva platform. The other Aviva teams were open, friendly, welcoming and supportive of the CA team (as well as the other teams) and it did make me feel proud to be part of Aviva.  As a team we felt proud to be the most actively supported team by our colleagues back in KL (the Cust Cup team were surprised by our blog and linked it to the Aviva World site) and the management support we were receiving. For me a crowning moment was when Graham Boffey said it make him feel proud to work for Aviva when Infinity performed (he wouldn’t have known anything about CIMB Aviva before). This is the sort of environment I love working in!

Great fun off road with people form across Aviva group – despite the weather!

Most westerly point of Europe – and very very windy

Oliver asking if they could link to our blog from Aviva World (shown)

So, that’s it from me.  I have really enjoyed this past week, enjoyed this blog and all of the fun that has gone with it and of course your input.  Perhaps we should do another one sometime….. I will now hand over to the rest of the infinity team to be your eyes, ears and voice as they continue their adventures across Europe.

Andy

Bravo Team Infinity on the joint 2nd position and Salute to Yati for the Best Team Captain!!!

From The Claims Dept

I still can’t quite believe that we have come second in this major competition – Zubir was just replaying a conversation he had about the budget for the Aviva Customer Cup – and I am glad I didn’t know before!  We do have a job to do now – we must document what has been done so that it can be shared and we must identify ways of taking it forward and delivering more.  We need to do this to convince next years judges that we can deliver before a Malaysian team is selected again.  But this is for later…..now is the time to share with you some of the fun and antics of the Awards dinner – and there was plenty going on!

Pooooof – I am now sat in MAS lounge in London – this is like time travel! (Just checked my bag again and I still haven’t broken the trophy!) Funnily enough I am sat down writing this and Zubir is – guess what? – shopping again.  Anyway I have an hour or so to get this done and post some photos for you as I’d like you to have this tomorrow (Friday).

So – evening was brilliant – started off with cocktails on the terrace area with everyone looking dressed up to the tees – especially us.  We were definitely the most colourful and sophisticated of the attendees…..i reckon even Simon wished he was dressed up properly like us.  unfortunately he couldn’t be as he was the event MC for the evening.  My sampin did not fall off so a big thank you to Zubir and Intan – I have learnt something new.

He was sat at our table and as soon as we discovered that he was MC Elsie was probing and testing him – she quickly squirreled out of him the face that he had the envelope in his breast pocked.  I’m pretty sure she even went as far as trying to pickpocket him – either that of he was swatting a fly off his jacket – good try Elsie but Simon gave absolutely nothing away.

The meal flew by and soon we were listening to Amanda introducing Simon who in turn introduced Andrew.  Andrew bought us all up to date on the corporate news ie New York SE listing, Delta Lloyd, Australia sale and the management reshuffle all leading into the share price.  He managed this in less than 5 mins as he knew the attention was elsewhere.  He then said that he wanted to get on with the main event quickly while the energy was high – as in 10 mins 90% of the people present would know that they were losers – (groans from the HR people).  He then went on to say that he didn’t really believe in all this “everyone is a winner rubbish”  -there was only one winner tonight (HR people writhing in agony on the floor).  Of course this was very light hearted as all the teams assembled are already the winners – but for me the message did hit home – there was a genuine winner – the best team – and they would get all the glory.  It has to be this way as we all want a piece of that next year.

So Simon took us through the Sponsor and Coach of the year which I won’t detail as you won’t know them.  The short list of Captain of the year was projected and our Yati was there.  10 seconds later Yati was the Captain of the year – everyone was on their feet and Yati approach the stage.  10 more second later Yati was lapping it up / taking her bows and everyone cheering.  What a moment!  I think I have some of that on my camcorder which I will try and edit so anyone interested can see.

What does it mean?  Well Sponsor and Coach are important of course.  The captain though has to drive the project forward over some months.  This she has done and will no doubt remind me during our Q3 performance review.  The other important part though is the event itself – keeping the team aligned, together and switched on and – most importantly – making sure the 10 min performance is the best that it can be.  In sporting terms this award is similar to the MVP – most valuable player – person of the tournament.  This is what she won – and to the acclaim of the other participants.  That says it all!

The the team awards.  I confess I was nervous.  I am naturally optimistic – and I had told Yati and Elsie (and perhaps the others) that I was 100% confident that they had got themselves into the top 3.  So I was very worried that if the expectations set and we didn’t achieve that then it would be a real downer.  Simon explained that 2 second placed teams were inseparable so a joint second would be awarded – at which point I think I stopped breathing.  So it was sort of a relief when I heard Infinity mentioned first – relief that we had done it – and some disappointment that we hadn’t crowned all the hard work with a victory.  But the cheering soon got me up on my feet and I think I was grinning for the next 2-3 hours.  The Polish team also joined us – also outsiders and the RAC team were announced to thunderous cheering. 

Just a little bit of context for some of you on how well we have done.  There were originally 400 teams across Aviva which entered.  One hundred teams made the semi finals.  These 100 teams went through a rigorous scoring and Infinity scored 84%.  This was the lowest score to make the final (shared by one other team). Once we had this information the project was already complete – there was no more content we could add.  So our game plan was simply to deliver a HUGE 10 minute performance will as much PASSION as we could muster.  When Phil came to coach us he agreed this to be the best tactic. Our approach was to get into the presentation (ie make it 3d not just a 2d ppt) and to get the audience participating.  This is what we did and we gained 8 places on our performance.  If this isn’t incredible enough you have to remember all the teams were trying to do the same!

HUGE effort, HUGE achievement, HUGE team

We’re getting ready to go now so I’ll quickly add some photos.  This is my penultimate blog posting and I will post one more on Saturday will my final reflections and then leave it to the team.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Evening gets under way

Real new friends everywhere

Lots of fun

Zubir beginning to seriously lose his sense of humour about the size of the portions over the week (this not a joke – this was his meal!  My venison and mash potatoes was lovely though

H1N1 rumour..

Gritting of teeth and waiting

Except for Mike who is impervious to tension….

Yati – apparently calm and serene before the big moment (at least on the exterior)

Here we go – get on with it guys!

First one – team building activity

Tension building

Cometh the moment, cometh the Yati

The whole team on stage, dressed in traditional attire, with Andrew Moss (left) and Simon Machell (right).

Mike now really on a roll… (and on a slope again ed.)

Yati, another hero and trophy

The awards

Final thought – this blog will soon be closing down.  What I will arrange is for a hard copy to be created – if you have any comments, thoughts, messages, reflections, observations, jokes etc – now is the time to leave them so that they can be immortalised as part of Team Infinity Aviva Customer Cup 2009 adventure.

It was a fantastic event last night with lots of fun and energy. The fact that all the team are working towards one goal which is the customer, make us all the winner.  Ears of RAC was great and from the first point of seeing their presentation I knew that they will be the greatest competitor for Team Infinity, which I believed thats what they are thinking too when they saw our presentation.

An then of course we won the The Team Captain Award of the Year. It reminds me that behind every great leader, there are always great team members.  Thanks to Zubir the Great, Intan- Miss Data, Yati our Money Bag, Fara Miss O and Mike- the ears & voice of our customer.  Off course not forgetting Elsie the Coach and Andy our sponsor and everyone back at CIMB Aviva.

One great  thing that the team have learned from this is that for a project to be successful, you need to have full & passionate engagement from everyone.  For a project to be sustainable, it is never possible by just pushing things down without getting the buy in, trust and respect. Probably Andy will agree with me if I am to say, that Customer Cup has changed some perspectives for us on how project should be managed or executed.

Mike will be updating the photos soon for all of you to enjoy ( right Mike?).  I will keep on blogging and sharing what Intan & myself is doing (to be exact enjoying ) here in London & Paris until we’re back to Malaysia.

The 2nd place cup is with Andy, and all of you will have the first look at it next week.  It will always remind CIMB Avivians that we have gone very far and there will be more to come.  As the pioneer team, Team Infinity has set the benchmark right for the next coming team/s.  In the spirit of ‘Malaysia Boleh’, we have surely ‘rocked’ Portugal down.

Many, many congratulations and support, support, support from all of your colleagues throughout CIMB Aviva.

This is an outstanding achievement which we are all very proud of and we hope you are too. You should be.

The Top team in the Asia Pacific Region……The Second placed team in the big, wide World…..and The Captain of the Year.

I’m sure Yati will be the first to say that to be a great Captain you need to have a great team. And what a Team!!!

You really embody the spirit that we are building in CIMB Aviva. I know you have put a lot of hard work, energy and passion into this and as a result you have put CIMB Aviva on the map for the very best reasons. Thank you.

We are all very appreciative and we look forward to welcoming you back home and recognising your efforts.

Have a safe journey and a huge well done again.

Kevin – CEO, CIMB Aviva

Many congratulations on the result.  A great achievement for you all.

Fikri – CEO, CIMB Aviva Takaful

Dear Team Infinity (aka WINNERS),

Congratulations & very well done in winning the joint 2nd position in the Aviva Customer Cup 2009.

Want you to know that we are very proud of you. You have definitely left an impressive footprint in Aviva Worldwide & Portugal.

Enjoy thethe rest of your stay. You deserve it. Cheers.

p/s: WINNING is important for the team. You are WINNERS!

Caroline – Director, Sales & Distribution

Well done guys.  You put in a huge effort and this is a fantastic result.  You should feel very proud of yourselves, we all are.  Support, support, support.

Janine – HR

Dear Team Infinity,

You are THE HERO not only in CIMB AVIVA but also in Malaysia……..

You are the winner…..

Penny – Chief Financial Officer

So what about us I know you want to know….

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WE CAME SECOND EQUAL.  Out of the entire Aviva company we and Poland – the surprise package  – were inseperable.  What a result this is – the other teams are in awe of this and I have been talking non stop with them since the announcement and their praise is universal.  This is even to the extent that for the next cust cup other teams are already thinging of linking with us .

I am very proud of this group – several other sponsors have mentioned to Andrew Moss what a performance we put on.  Simon Machell commented on the performance and said he was bowled over – the questions is   – where do we take this from here.  It is important that we think about this as we do need to be inthis next year.

I’ll drop in some photos and stuff later – suffice it to say that Zubit and Co were first on to the dance floor and showed the rest how to rock!!

The night was wonderful – realy flambouyant with Andrew Moss and Simon M doing the presentations – it meant a lot for them to give us the trophy.

Oh – something else – there was a vote on the Aviva Captain, Coach and Sponsor of the year … and guess what?

…

…

…

We are the proud owner of Aviva’s (remember 54000 employees!!) captain of the year.  What an achievement!  I am not sure that Yati could quite believe it but when she arrived to that stage to rapurous applause she was receiving a STANDING OVATION – what a star we have!!  It is a fitting tribute for a team captiain that has given her all to the project – and her entertainment to the other team syesterday.

So second place and Aviva’s Captain of  the year all in a a weeks work!!  You guys need to think who is going to take up the next challenge as Malaysia are already a core part of Aviva;s Customer Cup.

Well done al lthe year – what – time for some rest now.

Thanks you everyone for your support – I am convinced that is what spurred the team on to their performance  that brough the house downj.  My proudest moment is actually 6 Oct when they performed – I promise I’ll get the video back to you asap.

Some photos will follow.

Andy

We have put all our hearts and minds in this competition and the presentation, and I´m sure the team will agree that we feel like a champion deep down inside. As we congratulate The Ears of RAC for being the victor of this competition, we know that Team Infinity has been the champion for CIMB Aviva and Aviva Asia Pacific even before we came to this beautiful town of Cascais (pronounced as khash-ka-eesh). We are proud of our achievement and we will continue to do our best! Bravo!!!!!!!!!  

Our Captain, The….Yati, our commander in chief, obtained the Team Captain of the Year award, congratulations to you Yati!!! You really deserve the award, the other 2 nominated captain were nowhere near you. Thats how we really feel! Right guys??? Yessssss….

Well, we came a long way and we´re kinda glad the end is near. Many of the team members are missing their families, loved ones (ehemm…), friends, food (hey, i´m, fine, it´s Zubir who is missing the mighty RICE!) and colleagues. So, some of us will be returning home soon and some of us will be extending their stay in Europe, although they really want to go home to see their loved ones too.

Anyway, here are the results:

1st place: The Ears of RAC (Bristol, UK)

Joint 2nd place: Team INFINITY (KL, Malaysia)

Joint 2nd place: The Producers (Warsaw, Poland)

So long for now people, I will try to upload some photos soon, but please remember that I will have limited internet access for the next few days….. see ya soon….

Right before getting into the truck for the team activity....

Andy's reminiscing his cadet days and jumped right in the All Terrain Vehicle and refused to come out for a proper photo....

Zubs and I got the ride of our lives.... it was really bumpy climbing Mount Sintra....

Team 7 (L-R) Michael, Zubs, Kevin, Lisa (both from Aviva GI Norwich) and Keith from Aviva Canada...

Our picnic lunch, due to the thick fog, we had our lunch in the ATV...

A Blair Witch picnic lunch aye?

Our driver Miguel telling us where we should go next.....

Hey......... thats our flag....

Task 1: Get a container filled with water, place it on the head, push the unlucky guy sitting on a plank with pipes underneath as wheels.

I am not short, it's the slope. (L-R) Mike, Keith, Kevin, Zubs, Lisa & Miguel...

Task 2: I'm so not fit to be a plumber.... we had to get water from bucket A to bucket B, by building a pipeline...

Task 3: Catapulting.... not bad, we got 1 out of 6 right on target...

Team 7 at Mount Sintra...

Dinner at Restorante Porto Santa Maria near Guincho..., it was nice...

 Wednesday, 7th October 2009: Judgement Day

The Glamour Girls....

Group photo in the morning.... very stable right? Actually, we were trembling inside..., positively that is...

It sounds like they're talking about something funny, hmmm.... hey guys, sharing is caring.... come on... come on....

The hall is filled with our Aviva colleagues contending for the Customer Cup. All the teams had their own cheeky tactics to win the judges over, including toy beavers, bells and even toy monkeys... talking about bribes.... hehe..

Group photo again.... hehe...

These were the production team helping us with the lights and sound... they were really good....

Time for a joke.... i really thought this was really funny....maaf Intan, but i really have to post this pic...

Introducing the judges....

After round 1, we had to strategise...... *whisper whisper whisper*.......

Give me 5, no.... you better make that 40...., this was right before our turn to present.... brrrrr.... *shivers*...

After the presentation, we were so relieved, we felt like we could fly..... okay... "come back to Earth now....", but hey..... it was really really great to have done our best and we're feeling on top of the world about it...

That’s all for now folks, till next week, same time, same….. hey…. pbbbbttt…. sorry guys, that was my meds doing the talking…. ok, I’ll do some updates of the pictures soon…..