Case Studies
The following are examples of how The Coaching Authority has helped people get the results they needed to go further faster.
AACOA - Division of Bonnell Aluminum
CLIENT: A division of an aluminum manufacturing company employing 200 employees in their northern Indiana facility. AACOA offers aluminum extrusion, fabrication, and anodizing services while striving to provide a customer centric approach. The diverse range of responsibilities necessitates multi-functional positions to capture the ebb and flow of demand.
CHALLENGE: The constant need to meet the urgent demands of the customer with limited resources cultivated a task-oriented, transactional focused environment. As a result, AACOA leaders have historically promoted employees exclusively through performance based analyses. Consequently, critical leadership skills necessary to engage, problem solve, and inspire employees were lost. To transition leaders from primarily transactional leaders to develop- ing potential transformational leaders, AACOA partnered with The Coaching Authority to implement an ongoing series of leadership development courses.
APPROACH:
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work (7 Part Series)
Get in the Game (5 Part Series, 10 Workshops)
Fail Safe Leadership
ADVInsights Talent Profiles
Fail Safe Leadership
RESULTS:
Opened lines of communication by creating opportunities for direct feedback from employees to managers and leveraging Attribute Index factors.
Energized the workforce through tapping into key individual motivators identified through the Advanced Insights tool and group and individual development plans.
Increased productivity by identifying pain points, empowering management to support subordinates and peers, and enabling external thought processes.
Improved customer satisfaction by decreasing lead times, meeting deliverables, and expediting work orders through reallocation of resources.
Refreshed internal culture through changes to recruiting and hiring methodologies for leadership positions.
Increased awareness and empowered upper management to identify critical opportunities to provide coaching, feedback, and redirection.
FOLLOW-UP/SUSTAINABILITY:
Ongoing Leadership Development - Groups, new hires, as needed.
SMART TEMPS (recently acquired by Digi International)
CLIENT: SmartTemps presents a fully-automated, comprehensive temperature monitoring system that relies on proprietary hardware and cloud-based data storage to provide accurate, round-the-clock temperature logging for regulatory compliance and quality control. In its beginning, the systems sole function was to aid in the management and safekeeping of food, equipment, and other temperature-dependent products for the school nutrition industry. However, the SmartTemps system goes beyond the safekeeping of food and beverage. With over 14,000 locations monitored, the system protects inventory such as vaccines, medications, blood, labs, research, and other critical inventory related to the healthcare industry.
CHALLENGE: SmartTemps was created in response to an increasing need for digital temperature recording and reporting within the healthcare (pharmacy) and food service industries. In the beginning, SmartTemps invested a significant amount of money and effort into the development and mass manufacturing of a high-quality system which would meet all of the required standards in the temperature reporting it provided. With such an innovative product which achieved significant demand very early on, SmartTemps was presented with an opportunity to grow significantly due to a new contract with one of Americas largest pharmaceutical providers. The contract required that SmartTemps nearly triple its size (from being in 2,500 sites to over 7,000) in only six months time. Due to such a significant request, SmartTemps recognized the opportunity for growth and its need for some outside help in scaling itself in such a way to be able to not only handle the growth, but to flourish and become the leader in the industry. At this point, SmartTemps decided to solicit the services of The Coaching Authority in order to develop a scalable, manageable, and sustainable strategy for the challenge/opportunity before them.
APPROACH:
- Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
- Establish Keep, Start, Stop activities
- Mastering the Rockefeller Habits - Four decisions workshop
- Strategic thinking and execution planning meeting
- Assess team talent and create accountability in key roles
- Identify core customer and brand promise
- Create 3-5 year strategic plans
- Create measurables, KPIs, and individual priorities
RESULTS: I was introduced to Patrick via a mutual client, a very large healthcare facility in the area. Without the assistance and tools provided by Patrick and the Coaching Authority, we would have struggled to scale as quickly as we needed to and better manage the growth we experienced. They also helped us position ourselves, as well, for the acquisition by Digi International.
John Miller - CEO, SmartTemps
MICHIANA HEALTH INFORMATION NETWORK (MHIN)
CLIENT: Michiana Health Information Network (MHIN) is a not-for-profit health information exchange. What started in 1998 as a safe data repository has now become an integral part of the evolution of healthcare. MHIN provides a complete portfolio of data solutions including: Population health and analytics information, care coordination, health information exchange services, and health IT consulting.
CHALLENGE: The ever-changing demands associated with both healthcare and technology necessitates continuous evaluation, anticipation, and adaptation to external customer needs. Ensuring employees at MHIN are able to effectively manage workflow through conscious decision making and a shared vision is critical. However, new leadership at MHIN acknowledged a a current state of low morale resulting from distrust and lack of direction in recent years. Anticipated growth over the next 1-3 years further substantiated the need to improve team cohesion through implementing foundational practices. As a result, MHIN was looking for a common methodology that would streamline communication, create transparency, improve meeting effectiveness, and ultimately align the organization.
APPROACH:
SWOT Evaluation, Four Decisions (4D) Assessment
Initial Mastering the Rockefeller Habits – Four Decisions (1 Day Workshop - Year 1)
Annual Strategic Thinking Execution Planning Event (1 Day Workshop - Year 2)
Monthly Executive Coaching (Ongoing)
RESULTS:
- Improved cohesion through managing expectations defined by key performance indicators.
- Increased communication and visibility by providing a consistent forum through daily huddles.
- Enhanced productivity by adopting a framework to conduct effective management meetings.
- Improved morale through establishing a unified vision leveraging a 3-5 year strategic plan.
FOLLOW-UP/SUSTAINABILITY:
Monthly One to One Executive Coaching and Annual/Quarterly Reviews
ST. Joseph Regional medical center
CLIENT: Regional Medical Center, Northern Indiana - This center, with over 3,000 employees, has been offering a wide variety of programs and care to serve their commitment to providing the community with quality healthcare.
CHALLENGES: It is inevitable for a rapidly growing organization to be susceptible to issues that wouldn’t matter otherwise. Employee engagement strongly correlates to Patient Satisfaction, Perception of Safety and Physician Satisfaction. Employee engagement issues surfaced among departments and needed immediate action. The results of the annual engagement study stratified departments into three engagement tiers. Tier I departments identified as the most employee engaging, while Tier III was the least employee engaging department.
APPROACH: The Coaching Authority was asked to partner with the Healthcare organization aiming to improve employee engagement scores for Tier III departments. Over the course of 9 months, The Coaching Authority conducted 5 workshops, 35 individual talent profiles and over 50 individual coaching sessions for managers at the Medical Center.
RESULTS: These workshops resulted in a 55% overall increase in the employee engagement scores from 2015 to 2016, while an outstanding 64% increase in the employee engagement scores in the Tier III departments from 2015 to 2016.
Bayer Healthcare - Consumer Logistics Service Center
CLIENT: A healthcare company employing 70-75 full time employees at its operation in northern Indiana. Diverse management team exhibits wide range of experience, personalities, skills, knowledge, attitudes and tenure.
CHALLENGES: The director of the consumer logistics division recognized the need for additional Executive Leadership development (Vision, Values, Collaboration, Communication, Team building). The director also recognized opportunity to blend organization to focus on the differences and similarities that people bring to an organization. There was a multi-generational workforce with a combination of lack of leadership experience and over 50% of the workforce who were nearing retirement in less than 3 years. In addition, leadership recognized an opportunity to cross train managers to better understand responsibilities of the entire organization. Needed direction to have more productive meetings, positive conflict interaction and a better, well balance management team.
APPROACH: The Coaching Authority implemented several solutions including individual executive leadership coaching, group leadership for new hires and interns, management development seminars, quarterly roundtables as well as having employees take several assessments. That was paired with ongoing monthly one-to-one executive coaching with managers, directors, and high-potential employees. Ongoing Leadership development with groups, new hires, and interns. Review of critical goal categories as well as reporting against key performance indicators with the management team.
RESULTS: Steadily increased organizations responsibilities, improved staff efficiency, and enhanced service quality amidst a wave of retirements (30% of employees retired within 18 months). Improved recruiting, hiring and retention of interns, new hires and high potential employees. Developed a competitive advantage, recruiting best-in-class college-level talent from nations top logistics programs. Over 30% of new-hires/interns promoted to positions of greater responsibilities within 2-3 years of initial boarding. Promoted cross functional training throughout the entire organization. Advanced baseline leadership skills, knowledge and confidence. Accelerated career advancement for mid-level managers. Developed overall leadership bench strength, preparing the organization for to take on additional responsibilities thru consolidation of operations, acquired portfolios, expanded products and services and implement new technology.
CROWN AUDIO
CLIENT: A private wholesale electronic equipment and supplies company employing a staff of approximately 300 full/part-time staff at its facility in Northern Indiana.
CHALLENGES: Reduce daily employee stress and increase employee satisfaction for Customer Service representatives. Raise low employee morale and improve overall employee and team attitudes. Develop an understanding how customers define service, how to cultivate empathy with customers, understanding human behavior and how to provide excellence in service. Strong desire to increase knowledge handling complaints, improving communication skills and developing mastery handling difficult situations. Cultivate consensus and unity surrounding values and team goals. Increase employee engagement.
APPROACH: Customer loyalty leadership development implemented. Followed up with daily focus of customer satisfaction metrics resulting in customer loyalty, monthly customer testimonials shared publicly, monthly recognition/encouragement for job well done, daily focus on positive affirmations and employee recognition.
RESULTS: Improved employee morale, team productivity and worker satisfaction resulting in improved customer satisfaction, reduced expense, increased sales, and faster accounts receivable payment. Developed management/leadership skills, increased team leadership bench strength leading to department leader promotion to division of greater organizational responsibility/visibility. Gave the Customer Service team a boost of energy advancing the skill level of a high performing, engaging and accountable work group.