CASE STUDY #1
•Melvyn is a CEO of a $10M business that supplies products to customers in a unique and quick manner. This ability to offer products quickly is coupled with a mission to carry out this service with a extraordinarily high level of customer service. He has been in business just over 5 years and is seriously contemplating opening another location. His organization, Nyvlem Enterprises is comprised of functional areas that are led by directors that range in age, education, and level of experience. Melvyn is concerned that the communication flow between his directors is dysfunctional and the flow between him and them could be better. His goal was to grow the team into a high performing team and position his business from an operational perspective to grow into a new location.
•We began the engagement by having a kickoff meeting with all the directors (which was the first meeting without the CEO that they ever held) to discuss their roles, strategic plans and get to know each other a bit better. The initial meeting revealed some personal barriers between directors that had to come down for the team to reach its potential. It also revealed some operational effectiveness issues that effecting performance. Each director performed their duties in a vacuum and reactionary style, which created a crisis management mentality within the organization.
•We prescribed and facilitated a series of team building events that promoted cohesion and the collective success of the group. Not discounting autonomy but encouraging “we are all on the same team” . We followed up with each director and held them accountable to behaviors that they suggested would make the team better. We also provided evidenced based approaches to solve the crisis management challenge, including priority matrices, delegation models, and routine institutionalization techniques that transformed the constant putting out of fires into a predictable set of periodic scenarios that are managed with monitoring & controlling systems.
•The directors are approximately 60% more productive equating to an estimated 12% increase in gross revenue. The team is communicating more effectively with each other and according to one of the directors, “the morale is 180 degrees compared to three months ago”. Melvyn expectation’s were exceeded in not only the transformation of his directors but the operational excellence that he has seen flow down to staff members. His communication with the directors is no longer meet with attitudes and disinterest but with eagerness and confidence supplemented with a strong sense of ownership.