Business Challenge

The owners of Baker Brothers Plumbing & Air Conditioning in Dallas, TX wanted to double their sales. The owners felt that the home office leadership team included Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, Information Technology, Purchasing, and Distribution was a major impediment between them and reaching their goal.

TrainSmart Solution

TrainSmart developed a leadership program that included these elements:

1. Initial team meeting with the owners who laid out their vision.
2. Follow-up meetings with the team to create visions for their areas that supported the newly articulated company vision.
3. A leadership assessment that determined individual strengths and weaknesses.
4. Leadership training that focused on:
   1. Differentiating the roles of leaders from the role of manager
   2. Workplace Communication Training
   3. Team-building training for employees
   4. Performance assessment and goal/objective setting
5. Three months after completing the leadership training, a 360 assessment was distributed to each leader’s team.
6. A four-hour general debrief on the 360 was held with the leaders.
7. For the next two months, each leader was coached according to his or her 360 results.

Results

Since the owners did not participate, the leaders did not feel trusted or empowered as the owners continued to be highly argumentative, directive, and highly resistant to change. Each leader gained a lot of personal insights, skills, and knowledge. The Sales, Marketing, Purchasing, and Distribution leaders moved on to substantially better-paying positions, and the company is doing better with sales.