Line managers and senior executives reviewed ideas those teams generated. We could have centralized all of our operations into a few sites, but we wanted a better way to get the tools we need, manage costs, serve our customers better and minimize any negative effect on our team members and communities. Operations 2000 made our reconfiguration harder to explain and probably harder to execute, but that was a small price to pay for keeping as many of our talented team members as possible. But, if you trust your company to do the right thing, we think it leads to better performance and better customer service. Norwest is a service company.
Service is our product.
If our people care more than people we compete against, then we'll transmit that energy to our customers and earn more business. Our customers and stockholders benefit from this diversity and talent. After all, Norwest is a top-performing financial institution. We believe the best time for a company to improve its efficiency is when it's growing. That way, when jobs are eliminated, team members can transfer to other Norwest businesses that are growing.