Case Studies


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KAY CHEMICAL COMPANY (Division of Ecolab)
Organizational merger and senior leadership transfer

The organizational challenge for this client was to help create a high performance, more innovative and learning-biased culture, while integrating Kay Chemical into the larger entity of the new parent company, Ecolab. The organization was also transferring the reins of authority from the son of the founder to a new managing director. Two years into the process, the organization also decided to go with J. D. Edwards for a company-wide rollout. The change process work we were facilitated, which included training, coaching and mentoring, was so effective that Dusty Staub was asked to help the enterprise-wide application team launch and then assist them as they worked through challenges and conflicts during the first twelve months of the process.

Overview:

This organizational change and development process took three years, with the bulk of the work being done in the first two years. The organizational challenge for this client was to help create a high performance, more innovative and learning-biased culture, while integrating Kay Chemical into the larger entity of the new parent company, Ecolab. The organization was also transferring the reins of authority from the son of the founder to a new managing director. Two years into the process, the organization also decided to go with J. D. Edwards for a company-wide rollout. The change process work we were facilitated, which included training, coaching and mentoring, was so effective that Dusty Staub was asked to help the enterprise-wide application team launch and then assist them as they worked through challenges and conflicts during the first twelve months of the process.

Deliverables:

The process involved five major phases:

  1. Strategic Organizational Leadership Assessment (SOLA) and Climate Study Executive Retreat to identify and agree upon core issues and outline the required changes
  2. Development of a Strategic Human Systems Plan that would address the issues and drive the cultural and leadership changes in a prioritized and strategically integrated way
  3. Executive Coaching with the senior team and the Head of HR – all members attended the High Impact Leadership Seminar (HILS) for an intensive leadership development experience and to help develop a shared set of skills and understanding, and to increase insight and ability to position individuals, teams and the organization as a leader. This coaching process was more intensive for some, but all executives went through at least a year of one-on-one coaching, as well as observation and coaching while working with their respective teams.
  4. Concurrent with number three above, we held Facilitated Training Experiences that had been customized to meet the specific leadership and team effectiveness needs of the organization, coming out of the SOLA and Executive Retreat in number one above. This training experience had all managers, supervisors, and key employees, in cross functional groups of twenty (20), go through a two-day training process that included four one-day follow-up sessions, spread out over twelve months. This created rapid change and surfaced opportunities for marked improvements in operational performance at all levels of the organization
  5. Train the Trainers Process to develop internal resources for the on-going development and evolution of the organization. We had the Head of HR and Operational Heads identify a pool of 15 people who were respected, had good people skills, and were mentally flexible and adaptive toward being trained as internal facilitators and coaches. At the end of the first year of this process, we had nine who had made the cut and who ended up being certified. They were trained in our Team Based Innovation Methodology:
    -> We used quarterly update and evaluations of the key improvement measurements to assess against the pre-assessment to check for progress and make process improvements as we progressed.
    -> We provided extensive Strategic HR consulting to the Head of HR as well as executive coaching for the senior executive team members
    -> We met twice a month with the Executive Team of operational updates, progress against strategic objectives for the business, updates on the Strategic Human Systems Plan and to also offer on-going coaching and mini-training sessions with the executives. At the end of every session we debriefed with the President and then with the Head of HR to offer feedback, add-on coaching, executive insight and help to either confirm or re-position the next steps and stages for the senior executives, operational units and employees.

Outcomes:

  1. Organization grew two and a half times in size (one hundred million to two hundred and fifty (250) million in sales) during our work with them. They did this with increased efficiency, faster implementation, growing profits, higher employee and customer satisfaction scores.
  2. Our work with operations helped identify key challenges and pinch points in production and led to an increase in efficiency and output of 30% during the first 14 months, while decreasing excess inventory and addressing a two million dollar liability, with a savings in excess of $750,000.
  3. Major Cultural Change within the first 18 months, deepening and expanding across the full 36 months of the process: moving from a culture of entitlement and seniority, characterized by command and control mindsets and fractures between Sales and Manufacturing to a Leadership Driven culture of Accountability, High Level Collaboration, Faster Learning, true employee empowerment, Innovation, more rational and effective organizational structure, high performance teams and Bottom Line Execution.
  4. Significant Behavior Change around leadership skills (see above). Most particularly with regards to competencies around conflict, confrontation, personal insight, communication skill improvement, and a better understanding of the value of vision, purpose, integrity, compassion, trust – emotional intelligence insight and knowledge.