Success Makeover

The Situation
Coach Dave was called to help deal with a small, western U.S. company in the midst of a sudden and deepening crisis. For years, the organization had enjoyed quite a bit of success, turning out sizable revenues and profits for a business with fewer than 20 employees. Even better, they had enjoyed the spirit of teamwork, with everyone – from the president on down – thinking of the organization like a family business, despite the fact that the employees weren’t actually related.

Things changed quickly, however, after a few unsuccessful new hires and some divisive decisions made by the leaders of the sales and operations departments, respectively. With the owner spending more time away from the day-to-day management and the riffs deepening, smaller problems turned into bigger ones. In a matter of months, turnover was up, trust was down, and the bottom line was taking the biggest hit of all.

The Goranson Plan
As with most coaching and consulting environments, there wasn’t a quick and easy fix.  As a starting point, Coach Dave helped the team to implement some strict guidelines and processes for all hiring decisions. This would help to add some clarity to these selections, as well as avoid one of the costliest mistakes any business can make – investing a lot of time and money into employees that don’t work out.

This shift was followed up with the creation of a comprehensive recruiting strategy, the drafting of the new employee handbook, scheduling of regular company meetings, and most importantly of all, a new forum for one-on-one conversations between employees and leaders in different departments.

Within each of these changes were two goals: to reopen communication within and between departments, and to establish some common, bottom-line performance goals among the entire team. In other words, the real objective was to get everyone working toward the same targets, not pursuing different agendas.

The Outcome
Once regular standards and communication came into play, most of the key disagreements and sticking points were resolved within weeks. It was mutually agreed that the business needed to part ways with two employees, which brought an immediate change to the culture, not to mention removing a lot of tension from the situation.
In a matter of weeks, morale improved, sales picked up, and profits resumed their previous upward trend. Goranson also worked with the group to identify the next generation of leaders for the company – from both inside and outside their walls.

Throughout this process and beyond, Coach Dave stayed in regular contact with the owner, discussing challenges, new projects, and additions to personnel. Coach Dave is pleased to report that as a result of the coaching and interactions with leadership, after more than 25 years in the business, the future of this company looks stronger than ever.

Those are the kinds of results we are constantly looking for, and what we bring to your organization. Why not contact us today to see what Goranson Consulting can do for you?