The TIGERS 6 Principles Team Story

The year was 1987. The recession caused by the Arab Oil Cartel had cut thousands of people from the U.S. workforce.

You see, inflation hit an all time high with long term interest rates reaching 18 percent and even higher for some industries. Companies couldn’t grow. As a result, many downsized employees were let go without warning. This harmed the employees, their families and communities.

Other businesses failed because they couldn’t change fast enough to save the company without jobs. Times were hard.

The TIGERS 6 Principles were born.

Our founder, Dianne Crampton, took this time to answer the question, “What is necessary to build an ethical, quality-focused, productive, cooperative and successful workforce?” She qualified success to mean that not only were goals achieved, the people doing the work were also engaged and satisfied.  She studied all the research she could find in business, psychology and education group dynamics.  Out of this study, six principles emerged. They are trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk resolution and success (TIGERS®).

The next step was to determine if each of these six TIGERS principles could be isolated and identified in group behavior. Four years later and after two independent evaluations of her group dynamic survey by Gonzaga University and the Washington State Education Association, the results were conclusive. Not only could each principle be identified in group behavior, they also prescribed what was required to transform an adequate group into an exceptional one.

The TIGERS 6 Principles emerged. 

Dianne was then invited to present the results of her study at conferences. At the National Institute of Applied Business Ethics Conference, she was approached by the head Ethicist from Northrop Grumman.

You see, Dianne had designed an activity to teach the TIGERS six principles within one hour. It emotionally engaged participants and demonstrated effective group process. And, Northrop Grumman needed to downsize thousands of employees in response to Russia deescalating  the arms race. As a result, Northrop asked to borrow this activity to engineer their downsize. On a handshake, Dianne coached Northrop’s executive trainer to facilitate her tool for C-suite executives.

One of the first U.S. outplacement systems was engineered by Northrop as one of many outcomes. Northrop then presented the demonstration of how TIGERS launched their process at a national conference. The result —  twenty-five companies requested the TIGERS facilitation tool to build their companies. Many were Silicon Valley start ups.  TIGERS® Success Series was launched.

TIGERS 6 Principles comprehensive approach.

Over the following years, TIGERS served  committed leaders in post merger workforce stabilization and work community development. The simplicity that resulted in the TIGERS six principles being embraced by these leaders and their employees was supported by common sense behaviors that make company roles, goals and relationships successful. She also delivered a measurable, multi-pronged process that:

• Engaged employees to desire change;
• Got everyone speaking the same language with the same understanding;
• Got everyone headed in the same direction toward the same goal.
• Gave leaders the measurable data needed for assessing return on their workforce improvement investment.
• Removed the guesswork form work culture and work team development.

In July 2010, Dianne began to replicate the TIGERS multi-pronged approach so that any committed and trained leader could repeat her personal success.  As a leader with a creator and facilitator value structure, Dianne knew that in order to improve the world of work for millions of employees and their families, certain things needed to happen.

TIGERS vision and mission

• One day, how employees experience their work will be through cooperation to successfully compete in the marketplace.
• Workforce behavior is intentional – not random and arbitrary. Constructive behavior supports roles, goals and relationships and is measurable.
• High impact organizations are powered by engaged employees. These employees are facilitated by managers and supervisors who are skilled in building commitment, accountability and success so that employees are just as invested in the success of the organization as the leaders are.
• TIGERS® is the work community and employee engagement leader.

By empowering committed leaders and independent consultants with the TIGERS comprehensive system, we can improve the world of work for millions of employees and their families.