The Winning Team was first proposed in the early 90’s by Keith Whitson after he had observed a customer service initiative presented by British Airways to its employees. Sir Keith, who following the takeover of Midland by HSBC was CEO of Midland Bank, gained HSBC Board sponsorship to develop the programme which would see all 65,000 Midland employees invited to attend a one day customer service event at 33 George Street, London.
The original Winning Team was delivered to 125 delegates a day by a small project team and groups of ten trained facilitators, who were seconded from business areas across the bank to George Street for 10 weeks at a time. The event’s success was recognised and a similar pattern of facilitated coaching was subsequently delivered over a further one and a half year stint for Winning Team Two (the one with the Cyber Café, First Aid and Dice!) and then again for Winning Team Three (promoting Clear-Water) which was sponsored by Bill Dalton.
The Winning Team programme was formally closed at an event held at Bricket Wood in May 2000.
