A mutiny with factions threatens a revenue-critical department. 

This organization is one of America’s premier industrial, mechanical construction facilities and service companies with over $400m in annualized revenue. This mid-sized company is changing the face of their industry through sustainable, state-of-the-art innovations that are the result of putting their customers first. They are employee-owned and refer to their employees as “Partners.” You will find them listed annually in Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list. They’ve been a part of major construction projects like; Dallas Cowboys Stadium, Phoenix Stadium (home of the Arizona Cardinals), Texas Rangers Ballpark, American Airlines Center (home to the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars), The State of Texas Governor’s Mansion, and DFW International Airport and much, much more.

THE CHALLENGE

This growing construction company has always maintained a strong commitment to the customers it serves. With that commitment comes the ongoing challenge to maintain service excellence, a competitive portfolio of products and the best customer service initiatives in the marketplace. They target several industries with their complex mechanical construction needs. Part of the complexity involves the on-time delivery of precise job estimates for multi-million dollar construction projects. This task falls on the shoulders of the company’s Estimating Department, or ED team. The accuracy and timeliness of the ED team’s estimates greatly influences the organizations overall workload and production levels year after year. The ED department is vital to the company’s success.

So, what happens when this vital department is missing its numbers and is in discord; warring factions within the department are pitting partners against their managing leader? The results are poor production, high error rates, low morale, and eventually a mutiny within a life-critical department of the organization.

Another strong element of the company’s culture is that they are as committed to their Partners (employees) as they are to their customers. Consequently, the senior executives acted quickly to salvage all of the partners and turnaround this vital team.

As a result, this mid-sized organization sought a consulting/training partner that could help them navigate through these business management/leadership issues while systematically addressing their internal team/departmental issues.

THE SOLUTION

To address this business challenge, the senior executive team embarked on a Team Turnaround and Development program as they engaged TLS as their consulting/training partner. To assist them in this effort, TLS implemented a rigorous and proven approach to team and leadership development and turnarounds. Working side-by-side with the company’s executives, TLS reviewed and prioritized all initiatives based on a predefined set of criteria that aligned with the organization’s corporate vision. This new criteria included both strategic and tactical projects and, once approved, was communicated and implemented throughout the Estimating Department team.

To accomplish the job, TLS used a proven, seven-step approach:

1. Conducted focused team meetings and individual Partner meetings to identify ways to change overall attitudes and performance of the department’s leadership and each of its people.
2. Established systems and processes that allowed the team to better handle workload stress and dramatically improve interdepartmental communication. These initiatives were designed to affect morale, commitment and productivity
3. Together, the company and TLS developed a strategy that empowered the ED partners to resolve interdepartmental issues and problems quickly within the team, before major problems occurred and before said problems spilled over into other departments within the organization.
4. This same strategy called for the ED team to create a 24-7 “Look-out” for ways to constantly improve both individual and team performance.
5. Established an ongoing, rigorous framework for the ED Partners to regularly attend leadership forums and cross-training initiatives.
6. Trained ED Partners in all levels of departmental recruitment and hiring of future Partners in order to further grow the department with customer-driven, results-focused members like themselves.
7. Constructed baselines for the team to measure themselves by for future reference

THE VALUE

Immediately after their TLS engagement, the company’s Estimating Department was able to realize a 71% increase in the number of jobs it estimated with NO additional costs in labor. In other words, 12 months after their TLS Team Turnaround and Development training, these same Partners were producing 71% more work volume on an annualized basis. How did this effect revenue? During this same 12-month period, the company realized a 24% increase in total dollar volume directly through its ED team. The prioritized system of tools remains in place to this day and are now used as a baseline to evaluate all other initiatives. This new, disciplined management/leadership process has provided TD’s Estimating Department with an increased level of confidence to meet its short-term responsibilities, long-term goals, and ensure that it is well positioned for the future.