Case Studies

Within Australia’s fast-moving, competitive dairy industry, consumers have become more and more sophisticated, with ever-increasing  wants and needs. In 2004, the industry was also witnessing dairy production declining, international farm gate milk prices skyrocketing to historic highs, and record global fuel costs.

That same year, Robert Gordon took over as CEO and managing director of Dairy Farmers, an Australia-based milk and value-added dairy company. He knew that his new assignment would not be a cakewalk.

Added to the hostile external atmosphere, the company’s operating expenses were unsustainable. Financially, the company was not performing at capacity. There was unnecessary product proliferation and too much complexity. Organizationally, the company was largely siloed. Each function operated independently and was run by a general manager, sometimes competing with other functions for resources. Bottom line: It was time for radical change.

Gordon knew that beyond charting a new strategic framework for the business, the situation also called for rethinking the way in which his organization operated. His first task was to think through what kind of organization would best enable Dairy Farmers of Australia to meet both its near-term challenges and those further over the horizon. “As I reviewed our situation,” he reflected, “I was convinced that our best bet—indeed, our only bet—was to go horizontal.”

For Gordon and his team, the horizontal vision converted into increased organizational brains and performance muscle from top to bottom. It upped the speed to market, provided greater ownership of results, focused on the business and its customers, and reduced “hang time” for decisions. As Gordon relates, “The silos have been replaced by cross-functional business teams for each of our categories. Each team is accountable for the profitability of its category and operates fairly autonomously. They report back to the executive team periodically; they bring us into the loop when they have significant resource-allocation issues or need additional substantive funding. Otherwise, they are responsible for executing the strategy we set together, and so far, they’re doing a fine job.”

Three years later, Dairy Farmers had seen a dramatic turnaround. It had become significantly leaner: reducing its product portfolio by more than one-third, closing 4 of 15 sites and 17 distribution depots, and divesting non-core businesses. The new lean, horizontal organization had chalked up a number of significant successes:

• It finished the 2007 year having replaced more than 15 percent of its total revenues in commodities with value-added branded sales
• Time to market for new products was reduced significantly, resulting in Dairy Farmers winning the “New Product of the Year” award from the largest retailer in Australia
• The company exited 2007 leading the growth rate in every retail market in which it participates and consequently improving market share in every category
• It is now recognized by the leading financial press as a true Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Business, not just a Dairy Cooperative
• Following the rebuilding phase of the turnaround, staff turnover dropped significantly. In 2007, only one person left Marketing—only to return three months later because her new employer’s culture was a disappointment after that of Dairy Farmers

When Paul Michaels became president of Mars Incorporated in 2004, he knew that the company needed to achieve far greater growth and financial return. But he faced internal organizational challenges every bit as daunting as those he faced in the marketplace. The top team at Mars was siloed and replete with unspoken agendas. Members didn’t see the benefit of working as a team; they were only concerned with the success of their own region. There was some infighting, but mostly people just left one another alone.

Michaels believed that the horizontal model represented the best bet for the future. To drive his horizontal vision though his organization, he first created a burning platform for the change, which centered on business issues; he then shrewdly hooked his vision into Mars’s core values.  “Mars has five guiding principles,” he explains, “one of which is efficiency, and high-performing teams are by far the most efficient way of operating. Without going through the process of creating high-performing teams, you may eventually get the same results, but it will take much longer, and you will make a lot of mistakes along the way. By using this process, teams quickly begin having authentic conversations, in real time: dealing with issues and not dancing around them. You see the impact quickly; people either step up or opt out. It becomes very evident where your issues are, who your players are, and what you need to do to change the shape of the business. This model can speed up progress in these areas by years.”

Past experience had taught Michaels that functional thinking and hidden agendas are classic behaviors exhibited by non-high-performing teams. More than a burning platform was needed to counteract old habits and the natural tendency toward stand-pattism. Michaels’ solution was to take his team through an “alignment”—an essential step in the transformation process to great business teams.

In Michaels’ case, his team spent two intensive days in heated discussions about what they needed to accomplish, who was responsible for what, and who had the authority to make which decisions. They called one another out on unacceptable interpersonal behavior: failure to share information, lack of follow-through, riding roughshod over others, unilateral decision making, backbiting, and subterfuge. Michaels made it clear that he expected to be treated like every other member of the team. He wanted direct feedback and insisted on being held accountable for commitments and results. By the end of the two days, Michaels’ team was on its way to becoming great.

Michaels had relatively little difficulty getting his senior team to buy into his vision of a horizontal organization made up of empowered teams. His direct reports understood the business case for growth and profitability. They also understood—if not before the alignment, then certainly after it—why he felt that going horizontal was the best way forward. Now that Michaels’ team sees the power of working horizontally, they are passing the torch to colleagues. Their goal: a great organization, made up of great teams, on every level.

James P. Knight is the global chief information officer and executive vice president of Chubb Insurance Company, a top-ten global insurance organization that provides a range of services to both personal and commercial accounts.

How has the role of the IT function changed over the years?
It’s evolving. IT is moving from the back to the front office in terms of importance. Historically, the IT function was very transaction based, dealing with transaction-processing issues relating to accounting, payroll, HR, claims, and underwriting. For information companies, such as Chubb, IT is fast becoming much more strategic; we’re now viewed as a pillar of the company’s success. We are the bloodline of the company, tasked not only with improving transactional efficiency and effectiveness but also with making the company more intelligent.

So what issues is the IT function at Chubb now dealing with?
We’re grappling with a range of issues, from how best to do policy writing and claims to how we invest and how we deal with catastrophes. We view ourselves as a tool to process, optimize, and manage information to create customer stickiness, as well as to make Chubb a more intelligent company. It’s another arm of the business offense.

What’s been the impact of the proliferation of computer devices, such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops?

We can now touch the customer as never before. It goes way beyond billing and online payments to sharing our policies with customers and engaging them interactively. The more intimate you become online, the more stickiness you create, and the less likely customers are to change to another provider.

What’s the biggest challenge facing IT functions in today’s global enterprise?

The biggest IT challenge involves grappling with the question: Who will get to the future first by rapidly harnessing the power of technology? It’s all about speed of innovation and delivery. One reason why this is a daunting challenge is that there is a lot of legacies built into IT systems. Examine most organizations and you’ll find monolithic systems that are inflexible, built on obsolete technologies, and difficult to change. You can’t go about rebuilding them without spending millions of dollars just to be in the same place you were before you rebuilt them. The only difference is that you will have more-current technology.

How are you addressing this challenge?

We’re chipping away at it. We’ve begun to build things in components, much like Legos. Each “Lego” is a component of a system that you can then zero in on and replace quickly and cost-effectively, if need be.

You decided to move your IT team to the horizontal, high-performance model. Why?

IT will make or break Chubb. If we do it right, we can use technology to outpace competitors. We’re making tough, important decisions about transforming IT—and we must make them quickly. This requires fresh thinking and leadership alignment around our mission and vision, beginning with the leadership team. We need to be fully accountable for one another’s success and to be able to address issues with candor. If someone is off strategy or underdelivering, we need to get them on track without hesitating.

What’s different about your leadership team now that you have been through the alignment process?

We’ve identified, and are working toward correcting, the underlying disconnects that have kept us from performing to our maximum potential. We now have a common understanding of our key objective: becoming a world-class IT function. If someone offers an idea or suggestion, you’ll often hear a colleague raise the question: Is that really world-class? The level of candor has increased. You hear team members challenging one another—and me—professionally and with greater energy. People will say what’s on their minds without the long preambles. We have a common set of protocols for decision-making, which speeds up the process and taps into the best available insights and information.

What advice would you give other senior executives who want to elevate their team’s performance?

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s may sound like a cliché, but it remains true. The synergy of having a leadership team that understands and believes in the mission and vision and has the fortitude and candor to drive toward achieving them makes the leader’s job far easier. CIOs cannot know everything, which is why open discussion and debate enable leadership teams to capitalize on what they bring to the table. And, if you want to change an organization, start with the leadership team. When the next levels see a noticeable difference in behavior, they too will want to become part of the transformation.

What was your motivation, Todd, to leave “big business” and head full-steam into entrepreneurial waters?

A career should be an adventure. When it comes time for us to look back at what we’ve accomplished, we all want to feel like we’ve achieved what we wanted to, both personally and professionally. I’m fortunate to have worked at great companies like P&G, Heinz, Del Monte, and Mars; to have worked across different types of brands and categories, and to have lived and worked internationally. But one thing I had not done was start my own company. I wanted to put my skills to the test in starting and growing a company—one with great brands, talent, and culture, and an opportunity to work with people whom I admire—which is what I’m doing now. This was the time in my career to do it!

What’s been the biggest challenge for you in taking the career adventure?

Finding the first deal! But we’ve found that one acquisition begets another since purchasing Michael Angelo’s. Then there’s the resources challenge. Your resources are basically staring back at you when you look in the mirror! We started with two people, then six, and after acquiring Michael Angelo’s and Rao’s, up to 350. And we’ve expanded since then. But the basic challenge remains: Being nimble and doing a lot with a little. It’s very exciting!

What’s the Sovos vision?

We want to grow Sovos to a size and scale that matters, with brands that reach their full potential, at the same time that we operate as a high-performance organization, with talent that is engaged and thrives, and with consumers who are delighted because we have delivered real, delicious food for the way they live.

And the strategic game plan to achieve this vision?

Sovos is Latin for unique or one of a kind. We’re looking to acquire a portfolio of small, one-of-a-kind brands in the food category that together can grow Sovos into a company with $1-$2 billion in revenue. Ninety percent of brands in the food category are losing market share; 70 percent are declining in sales. Smaller, premium-priced, authentic, on-trend brands are growing. “Adventurous eating,” convenience, and “better-for-you” are trending. We want to leverage the experience, marketing, R&D, and financial expertise of Sovos’s leadership team and the financial resources of Advent, one of the largest private-equity firms, to drive success. Sovos has the soul of a start-up, the head and savvy of a talented leadership team, and the support of a significant investment partner.

Lisa, from an HR perspective, what does it take to build a company from the ground up?

The Sovos vision starts with where consumers are today, both in terms of buying behavior and the products that meet their needs. Meeting those needs requires building a strong culture with engaged employees. That’s a challenge! Many companies are locked into a twentieth-century workforce strategy. We aim to balance attracting and developing the right workforce, to put forward-leaning processes and infrastructure in place, and building enduring businesses.

As you build a strong culture, are there typical M&A cultural integration issues?

We’re not trying to integrate companies we’re acquiring into one monolithic culture. Instead, we’re creating an organic process that translates Sovos’s vision and values into the cultures of both organizations and other companies we will acquire. We’re guiding the culture, not imposing one. We don’t want to diminish that special spark that makes each of our brands successful.

Anything to add, Todd, on the integration issue?

Just this: We want to be nimble and judicious in how and when we integrate a business. It’s not about synergy but supporting the magic of every business in which we invest.

Are the fundamentals of high-performance leadership the same in an entrepreneurial situation as they are in a large corporation?

The fundamentals are doubly important in start-ups. Think about it. In the categories where we currently compete—pasta sauces and frozen foods—we’re up against Goliaths. Accountabilities and decision-making protocols must be crystal clear; we need to make sure that we’re meeting conflict head-on and that we’re having authentic conversations in real-time. There’s no time for indecision and triangulation. The cornerstone elements of HPT [High-Performance Teams]—leading horizontally and holding peers accountable—are critically important in keeping us focused and directing our energy to win in the marketplace.

Lisa, what’s HR’s most important contribution to helping to deliver Sovos’s strategic goals?

The real story is about growing our brands, revenue, and capabilities across categories. HR must align our organizational capabilities with our strategic intent. Do we have the right culture to attract the people and capabilities we need? Do we have the roles and opportunities to retain them to drive value? We have to go beyond viewing our human-resource capability from a “now” perspective. We also have to calibrate what our capabilities will look like once we have five-plus acquisitions under our belt.

Todd, how difficult was it for the Sovos leadership team to embrace the HPT approach?

Our situation was unique. Rather than face the typical buy-in issues when trying to move an existing team to a high-performance, horizontal way of working, I selected my leadership team from scratch and made sure that everyone knew what they were signing up for. True, going through the high-performance, the team alignment process is no cakewalk. It’s a challenging learning experience. But our team has readily embraced the process and has been operating like a board of directors, having authentic conversations with one another, dealing head-on with conflict, and being accountable for the team’s and organization’s success.

Lisa, how has Todd “walked the talk” of high performance?

Todd is a strong leader and advocate of high-performance behavior. He has demonstrated this with every new leader whom we’ve brought on board, explaining to him or her the HPT vision and setting performance expectations. As a result, there is no one who has joined us who does not have a clear picture of what it means to operate on a high-performance team, along with a strong desire and commitment to it. Horizontal, high-performance leadership is our starting point.

And a follow-up, Lisa: How would I know that the Sovos leadership team is a high-performance one?

It is evident in our cross-functional, enterprise-wide mentality. I don’t see any leaders sitting around with functional hats on, thinking, “I’ll be a superstar by just focusing on my function.” You’d see a great sense of accountability and depersonalization not only in handling conflict but in how we assess progress in meeting business goals and in succeeding together as a team.

Todd, what interview questions do you ask to assess whether or not a candidate measures up to high-performance expectations?

I always spend time probing the area of conflict and assertive behavior: Tell me about a difficulty you’ve had with your boss and how you handled it. What about a peer? Listen for cues that indicate whether the individual is timid or nonassertive or if he or she addresses an issue up front and candidly. Does the answer reveal whether or not an individual will “go there” with his or her boss or peers when others are present? I also ask a candidate to tell me about “Jane” at work and at home: How would your boss describe you? What about your peers—and those reporting to you? How would members of your family describe you—and what would they say are your biggest assets and vulnerabilities? I like to ask candidates to critique the interview: Overall, how would you evaluate this interview? What went well? What could you have done better? What about my performance? The answers here are worth a careful listen. And a related question: Knowing what you know about Sovos, what can we do to improve?

And Lisa, what are your favorite interview questions?

“What about your current role do you like—and dislike?”—I’m looking here for awareness levels. “Describe your best and worst day, and how would people describe you on the latter?” “What do you like to do—and what tasks do you avoid?” This question helps reveal a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, without the usual fluff that you often get when you ask more directly, “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?” What people tell you they like tends to be what they are good at.

What steps have you taken to date, Todd, to build Sovos into a high-performance organization?

Even though we’ve only been operating for less than a year, we’ve participated in two alignment sessions with the senior leadership team. We’ve also conducted a two-day leadership-skill development session with 20 Sovos leaders and plan to expand it to another group of 20 leaders. We’ve also conducted two-hour briefing sessions on high-performing teams with executives in Rao’s and Michael Angelo’s. For me personally, my aim is to get away from the top-down model and convey that “We’re all in this together,” and anyone at every level can and should disagree with me or anyone else provided it’s done respectfully.

Lisa, what about building high-performance behaviors into the performance routine?

Beyond the formal steps we’ve taken to build our performance muscle, the real action is our practicing and holding ourselves accountable for bringing high performance to life every day. It’s integrated into how we operate, whether in team meetings or one on one. For example, leaders have frequent and authentic conversations with their direct reports and don’t hesitate to reveal their vulnerability. Our aim is to encourage others to follow suit. The message is, “This isn’t just another initiative or activity; it’s who we are and how we run the business.”

What have you learned, Todd, about the relationship between accelerated growth in an entrepreneurial company and the horizontal, high-performance model?

High-performance, horizontal teams are a key competitive advantage. By operating as a horizontal leadership team with clear roles and accountabilities; having protocols in place for speeding up decision-making; embracing conflict management and avoiding triangulation; and having authentic conversations about the issues that matter, we will outperform sluggish competitors that are bigger but less agile. Not only can we move faster, but we can move together focused on the same direction, which is essential for an entrepreneurial company with limited resources.

And Lisa, what have you learned about high performance and behavior?

Having the horizontal, high-performance model as the benchmark creates a set of clear behavioral values and standards, which then allows us to reinforce behaviors that drive business success and identify deviations from those values and their related causes.

Glen Raven was founded in 1880 as a cotton mill. It doesn’t exactly evoke high-tech razzle-dazzle. Yet, the company has been remarkably successful in a tough, competitive segment.

What’s the key to success?

We moved from being a traditional textile company to where we are today because of our ability to adapt and adjust. For example, in the 1940s we made parachute fabrics; in the 1950s we entered the panty-hose-yarn business. The company originally began serving the awning business in the 1880s and changed that market significantly with the creation of our iconic Sunbrella brand. In the 1970s, we expanded into the marine market. In the early 1980s, we engineered our fabrics to penetrate the outdoor-furniture market, and in the 2000s we entered the indoor upholstery and window markets with Sunbrella. Later in the ‘80s and into the ‘90s, Glen Raven shifted away from the production of commodity yarn and fabrics and began focusing on consumer brands. The key question we always ask ourselves is: How do we continuously transform ourselves and remain relevant, in the long term and generationally?

What are the strategic objectives for Custom Fabrics three years out?

The challenge is how to become more and more relevant to the markets that we currently serve and to new markets where we can add value. We want to strengthen our consumer brands, extend our business into new segments with innovative products and services, and improve our overall results by becoming a high-performance organization. For example, we asked ourselves what, besides outdoor furniture, we could sell to homeowners. This led us to create textiles for the indoor-furniture market and for window treatments. For boats, we created a unique top-grade, engineered vinyl, Sunbrella Horizon, which can be used for tops on the outside and upholstery on the inside. Strategically, we want to focus on markets and customers where we have a significant presence and then look for “adjacencies,” or product extensions, to increase our impact. In addition, we will continue to make significant investments in our sales and marketing teams to drive our brands, and we will continue to invest in our people throughout the organization to drive quicker decision-making and accountability.

What about your business keeps you up at night?

Buyer behavior is changing, especially given the pandemic, with e-commerce becoming a much bigger factor. We typically offer high-end products to affluent consumers. Traditionally, we have sold through more high-touch distribution channels, where we build trust and collaborative relationships and explain our value proposition to customers in person. So, learning to engage in the e-commerce space is critical. There is also a good deal of industry consolidation taking place in the trade and retail spaces. We are a consumer brand, but we remain an ingredient product that relies on our trade partners and retailers to make sure that the brand message, along with how we are displayed and presented, is correct. In addition, remaining relevant will require us to innovate faster and to better utilize research and data to understand the needs of our customers.

What was the “spark” that led you to take action to move toward a horizontal, high-performance culture and organization?

Our business grew rapidly over the past 20 years. During that time, we brought on significant new, younger talent and engaged them in an effort to improve how we do business. They pointed out many of our shortcomings: Decisions were difficult to make; roles and responsibilities were unclear; there was siloed thinking. We had become slow-moving and lumbering, and, as a result, frustration had mounted.

What did you do with the feedback?

At first, I did a good deal of self-reflection: What had we, as the leadership team, done to hinder the group of younger talent two or three tiers below the top team? And why hadn’t the leaders of those tiers been more proactive about initiating the needed changes? Clearly, things had to be done differently, beginning with me and the senior leadership team.

What were the two or three biggest needs you saw on your leadership team?

Hierarchical decision-making, top-down ways of working, and siloed thinking were at the top of the list. Craig Yokeley, our team’s executive vice president, approached me about a year-and-a-half ago, saying that we couldn’t make the needed changes without external assistance. Craig researched consulting firms, leading us to GDS. I recall looking at the GDS website and reading about a small company in which a few executives had always made critical decisions over lunch. Given their rapid growth, they could no longer do so. That was us!

What were your key business objectives?

We wanted to be nimbler, improve decision-making speed, break down silos, have those closest to the information be more decisive, and improve accountability – the way it had
been at the beginning.

How did you go about meeting those objectives?

One of the things that I liked about GDS was that it was very direct—there was little “B.S.” Howard [Guttman] cautioned that the top team had to first exemplify horizontal, high-performance behaviors before we could change the rest of the organization. Our top leadership team met with GDS in the summer of 2019 and went through its first alignment in October. Back then, we met in person! Since then, we’ve done extensive leadership coaching and leadership-skill building, along with quarterly alignment sessions that allow us to assess progress and ensure that everyone is adapting.

And what have you done to engage those below the top tier?

We’re about to take the change much broader within the organization. For our extended leadership team of about 50 people, we’ve had an alignment session and skills training in
the areas of conflict management and influencing, in order to introduce the core concepts and begin developing the skills needed for this new way of working. Our senior leadership team is communicating about our journey and experiences; we’re seeking to role-model and highlight the new behaviors in action, and we’re coaching the next levels to adopt the same behaviors. To reinforce accountability and other desired behaviors, we’re working with GDS to align our performance system with the high-performance way of working, tying in performance reviews and compensation. It’s an integrated approach.

What are the biggest challenges that you face on your horizontal, high-performance journey?

The first is to have everyone understand the benefits of a high-performance team and organization. It’s a different way of working. We must let go of the hierarchical mentality and move to a more distributive approach. This entails being more direct and decisive, having clear objectives, holding one another accountable, and resolving issues rapidly. Ultimately, each person must become CEO of his or her area of responsibility. They must own it—and we need to provide them with the tools to make this happen.

What difference has the high-performance transformation made to you as a leader?

I’ve become clearer and more concise in communicating the vision and strategy of the organization, along with my goals, expectations, and tactics needed to get there. I’m much more focused and results-oriented. I reflect more on how I can improve myself and my team to hasten this HPT journey.

And what about your team?

The team has also become much more focused. We’re pushing ourselves. We’re asking questions such as: What are the goals of our meetings? Are we being productive? Are we putting off decisions? If we need to adjust, what do we need to do, now?

What’s the ROI from your investment in high performance?

We’ve made quicker, better decisions about which products to introduce, which products or businesses to exit or de-emphasize, and how best to manage inventory. We’re asking more incisive questions to identify and then address issues related to the bottom line. We’ve been able to set clear priorities, allowing us to introduce several new products in record time, even during the pandemic. We are breaking down the silo mentality, are more focused, and communicate better across functions.

What have you learned about leading in a virtual environment?

Virtual meetings are more agenda-driven, which is positive, and are in several other ways more challenging than in-person meetings. It’s more difficult to read body language, and you might not grasp voice tone quite as readily. That said, overall I’m very pleased with the outcome. Howard and his team have done an incredible job with our HPT virtual meetings. We’ve learned to make virtual meetings more agenda driven and specific, allowing us to capture several “gems” from the discussions. However, going “off the rails” and ofF the agenda can lead to creative thinking, which happens more easily in face-to-face meetings. Virtual brainstorming needs to be built into virtual team meetings!

Have you changed your leadership behavior in a virtual setting?

I’ve become more communicative with my team during both virtual group sessions and individual, one-hour virtual meetings. And my direct reports are meeting virtually with their entire team once or twice a week, using the high-performance skills that we’ve acquired. I’m also holding regular virtual town halls with the worldwide organization.

What’s been your biggest “aha!” during your high-performance journey?

I wish I had taken the journey much earlier in my career. Learning how to develop a team to deal with tough issues and even breakdowns, without getting personal or sweeping them under the rug, and resolving issues and learning from them, especially in a team setting, are essential leadership skills, now more than ever, given the volatile times in which we live.

We once coached the executive vice president of a personal care company who happened to be a person of color. After the turnover in her division began to rise, we were asked to work with her to improve her interpersonal skills. She was viewed as a model of efficiency who was disconnected emotionally. When her Guttman coach suggested that she try to show a more people-friendly side, she countered with her “story”: “People are always uncomfortable around someone who is different from them. They feel disconnected from me because I am a woman and an African American. This is always going to put me at a disadvantage in the relationship game, no matter what I do.”

As the coach probed, he realized that his executive’s early environment was the source of her story. She had often overheard her parents talking around the kitchen table about how whites were uncomfortable around blacks and treated them differently. Her story had been many years in the making. The coach’s response to her was, “Your story about your colleagues is that race plays a role in your relationship with them, and that’s a story you need to let go of.”

When her coach pointed out to her that there were several other African Americans in the division and that they too viewed her as aloof and unapproachable, she began to understand that she had been overgeneralizing based on an invalid story. It took a while, but eventually, she realized that she had no empirical evidence to support her claims of racism, and she began working on the real problem: her own behavior when interacting with colleagues.

We were once asked to coach a leader who saw conflict within his team as a bad thing. To his mind, if there was any discord on the team, it meant that something wasn’t working right. So, any time people started to challenge one another, he stepped in and shut down the conversation.

This executive had a “story” about the disagreement of any kind or magnitude: “It’s a bad thing; the organization will suffer negative consequences if it is permitted.” When he first began working with a Guttman coach, he wasn’t even aware that he had a story: a preconceived notion he was holding onto that affected the way he viewed reality. The coach pointed out that he was there to help him develop a high-performing leadership team, and that one of the attributes of a high-performing team is the ability to bring conflict out into the open and handle it honestly, candidly, and in a depersonalized way. Squelching honest differences of opinion was the last thing he should be doing if he wanted better results from his team.

As he talked with his coach, it became clear that he was extremely fearful of what would happen if open discord were allowed. He really believed that the senior team would begin to unravel, to actually turn into battling Hatfields and McCoys. He was especially afraid that he would lose control of the team completely. As he became conscious of his story, he began to realize where it emanated from. He had been brought up in a family that was very repressed. Issues between family members were always handled behind closed doors. When he first joined this company, it was very hierarchical, and the “closed-door approach” was exactly the way management preferred to handle the discord. The behavior pattern he had followed all his life worked perfectly in that environment. Then our firm was brought in to create a different organizational model, one that worked horizontally and transparently. He was struggling mightily with the new way of interacting because it was counter to everything he had been raised to believe.

Eventually, through coaching and the acquisition of conflict management skills, he was able to overcome his fear. He was able to reframe his story to say, “Conflict does not have to be destructive. If it is managed properly, it can be a positive force. By learning how to manage conflict, my team and I will benefit.”

A global pharmaceutical company

A global pharmaceutical company’s U.S. business had been growing organically for a number of years. Dealing with rapid growth hadn’t left senior management much time to consider how results were being achieved. Now, as the company faced increasing pressure to maintain its profitability, attract the best talent, and keep the drug pipeline full, the top team realized that it was time to step back and take a longer view: identify the most efficient, effective way of working together, which everyone could follow, and institutionalize it across the company.

Beginning with the premise that, “What got us here won’t get us where we need to go,” the Management Committee engaged Guttman to help employees shed old, ineffective behaviors and institutionalize new, more productive ways of working together. The culture had been one where everyone was very nice; no one said no or pushed back. Conflict was avoided. Many people had been promoted to leadership positions because of their technical or functional expertise, but they were lacking the leadership skills they needed to shift the culture.

We began by offering capability development programs in seven areas, then homed in on the four that seemed to be most critical:

• Influencing skills, including active listening and assertion: How do you get others to do what you are convinced needs to happen? How do you build commitment vs. compliance? How do you assert your point of view without either ignoring others’ ideas or allowing them to bully you into agreement.
• Conflict management skills: How do you work through issues in a way that accelerates relationships and results in stronger outputs. What stories are you holding onto keeping you mired in unproductive conflict? How can you transform that conflict into a positive force for you, your colleagues, and the company?
• Developing High-Performance Leaders: Because teams are instrumental in accomplishing the company’s goals, participants in the program needed to learn how to develop the individuals on their teams. How could they assess each person’s strengths and needs? How could they vary their leadership behavior to best fit each player’s needs?
• How to Lead Your Team: Creating a high-performing team involves more than interacting effectively with individuals, so this program focused on working with the team as a whole. How do you improve your capabilities as a leader of a team? How do you structure the team for high performance from Day One? What vehicles can you create to keep your team moving forward?

Guttman has been conducting this suite of capability development programs at the company for several years. As a result, there is now a consistent way of operating throughout the organization. Employees now hold not only themselves but also their peers and their leaders, accountable for results. There is much more transparency and receptivity to others’ points of view. Conflict is handled above board and swiftly. These changes have been woven into the culture, resulting in a more effective, more efficient workplace and a degree of conscious competence that did not exist previously.

A 7,000+-student institution of higher learning that uniquely specializes in the health sciences grounded in liberal arts education.

How would you describe the team you lead?

My team consists of 14 chairpersons and two associate deans. They are very important and serve as my link to the faculty and the student body. Interestingly, the chairs of various departments on my team were rarely, if ever, asked to think of themselves as a team. Academics tend not to think in these terms.

What caused you to reframe your thinking about what a team is and should be?

I attended a retreat for which Howard Guttman’s Great Business Teams was recommended reading. It had a big effect on my understanding of teams and the importance of alignment. As a new dean, I wanted to build during my first year the right tone for my relationship with the critical group of department chairs.

What specifically did you want to change?

I wanted this team to be much more than a body for information exchange, which is the typical role of chairs groups in an academic setting. I wanted the team to become a strategic-decision-making body. Fortunately, the team that I inherited was solid. That said, they did fall prey to the typical challenges of a group work environment: They often talked about each other rather than to each other; they said one thing in a group meeting and a different thing to me behind closed doors; and so on. But, as a group, they’re amazingly nondefensive and able to talk about these things honestly.

How did you raise the bar?

I want, say, the chair of the English Department to own the success of, say,  the Chemistry Department—and vice versa. I want everyone to be accountable for the success of other members of the team—and for my success as well. It’s a matter of striking the right balance between team members advocating and informing on behalf of their departments and feeling deeply responsible for the team’s success. Raising the bar is also about transparency. We need to resolve issues not behind closed doors but openly, in team meetings and in one-on-one conversations.

What’s the biggest impediment to moving to a high-performance team in an academic environment?

If there is any organization that is set up for silos and focuses on “my unit’s success,”it’s an academic institution, where a zero-sum game tends to get played, especially when it comes to the allocation of scarce resources. Department chairs often feel that success is measured by their ability to get the most they can: faculty, space, research money, etc. This is less an indictment of individuals than it is of the structure of academic institutions. I realize that I’m asking the department chairs to think and behave in different ways from their traditional roles. I have to say, though, they all responded with generosity and openness.

As your team went through an alignment this past January, I assume there was some skepticism, correct?

There definitely were skeptics who insisted that, “This doesn’t apply to a not-for-profit.  We’re not a business. It doesn’t work here.”

How did you deal with them?

I bit my tongue a lot! I was tempted to say, “This is obvious. It’s about setting goals and working together.” I also talked privately with a few of the people whose support we needed and who were initially resistant. That helped. Fortunately, we had a terrific facilitator who was able to help the team make the transition. I was patient and trusted the process and those team members who were ready for change. Every single member came through in a big way.

What was your biggest “aha!” as a result of going through an alignment?

The idea that we all carry “stories” about ourselves and others that can make it very difficult to work in teams. We must identify the stories that create core limiting beliefs about fellow team members and the administration. Also, it doesn’t matter if your story is true. The key question is, “How can you change that story in order to get past your grudges and work productively with those around you?”

What’s your advice to other academic leaders intent on moving to higher performance levels?

If you want to play at a high-performance level, you have to create a context in which there is transparency and honesty. I’d recommend having academic teams go through the alignment process just for that one accomplishment. I’ve instituted a series of 20-minute conversations with team members, where we have candid discussions of issues. It’s been very powerful. As one colleague noted, you can get a lot done in a 20-minute candid conversation.

A highly experienced SVP of marketing was hired away from a competitor to revitalize a pet-food company. He was a charismatic individual, with star status and great business acumen, but before long he began to alienate peers and reports with his condescending attitude and sarcasm. He was impatient with the slower-moving, consensus-oriented culture of the company he had joined; he wasn’t available, didn’t attend meetings, and had his own agenda. To his credit, he was focused on results, but in the process, he ignored relationships, shook things up, let employees go, etc. His colleagues’ distress led them to appeal to HR, and they in turn called Guttman for help.

The Guttman coach began by collecting data from the CEO, president of global marketing, other SVPs, direct reports, and other key players in the business unit. Sample feedback: “He’s more interested in results than in people”; “He’s going to tell us what to do, so why bother to be creative.” She then fed the data back to the SVP, who was shocked by the negative feedback. He didn’t understand what he had done wrong: “They hired me to shake things up, why are they complaining about how I did it?” was his response.

But, faced with data he could not deny, the SVP soon realized, for the first time, that he was “a stranger in a strange land.” He hadn’t received any orientation to company culture; he didn’t understand how business was conducted, decisions made, and politics operated. In discussions with his coach, he came to understand how others’ perceptions of his behavior led to their stories and why his own story wasn’t valid. With this new consciousness, his concern shifted from “What do I need to do?” to “Who are the people I need to have relationships with?” and “Where do I need to create spheres of influence.” His coach arranged for the CEO and president of global marketing to begin mentoring him, sharing personal experiences and lessons learned.

The results: He began to communicate change more effectively, listen to others’ opinions, and engage in dialogue, not a monologue. The second collection of data from his colleagues revealed that he had made significant progress in building relationships.

At an international specialty publishing company, two departments, sales, and product engineering were at odds, lacking alignment on goals, roles, processes, etc. The SVPs of the two functions had a tension-filled relationship, which had cascaded down through their functions. Reporting to the SVP of sales was a new director who didn’t know how to manage or collaborate; reporting to the SVP of product engineering was a director who was frustrated and angry with her counterpart. And below the director level, there was high tension, low morale, confusion, and missed deadlines.

The Guttman coach assigned to the situation had his work cut out for him. His charter: get the SVPs to begin communicating and collaborating. Based on the data he collected, reduce the tension between them and get them aligned, then work with the two departments to help resolve the issues at lower levels. He began by meeting with the CEO, VP of HR, and the two SVPs to explain the process: data collection from both teams, feeding the data back to the two SVPs; then working with them individually and together to identify issues/perceptions and what needed to change. He began ongoing coaching of the SVPs, then conducted a two-day interdepartmental alignment of their teams. The final step: hold another inter-departmental alignment and conflict management training to include all members of both departments.

The outcome: The SVPs actually began talking to one another. At the first interdepartmental alignment, they showed a collaborative face and accepted responsibility for the situation. The two groups engaged in a “perception exchange” to the surface and clear stories each group had about the other. Sub-teams were created to work on getting clarity around roles and business processes. After the first alignment session, the tension in both departments was immediately reduced and a check with department leaders six weeks later revealed that morale was up and tension had continued to lessen.

The high-powered, talented VP of merchandising in a major apparel company was showing up to colleagues as overly emotional, resistant, and not doing her job. In short, not being “executive.” A Guttman coach was assigned to help her tamp down her emotional behavior and become more willing to engage others in solving problems and making decisions.

Her coach began by helping her “look into the mirror” in a self-assessment exercise. She discovered that she was holding onto a core thought: “It’s impossible for me to ever get support at work.” The next step was for her coach to conduct a 360-degree assessment of those she worked with. To the VP’s surprise, the data revealed that her subordinates and superiors were in fact eager to provide support. Her lack of support was in reality just her thought or “story.”

A key question posed by the coach to change her consciousness: In a world of unlimited possibilities, could you ever imagine a situation in which you would be supported at work? After the executive answered “yes,” the coach tested and probed her ability to exchange the old thought for a new one: “People are willing to support me, and it’s ‘safe’ to accept their support.” She committed to holding fast to the thought and began “living it.”

The outcome: Her job satisfaction increased significantly. She felt more empowered, her colleagues reported liking the “new” her. She was rapidly promoted to become the top advisor to the CEO.

The new president of a multi-billion-dollar global consumer goods corporation wanted to shift from a  top-down, centrally controlled organization to a culture where employees felt “at stake,” empowered, and accountable. However, a survey of employees indicated that only 18 percent were committed enough to achieve maximum performance.

Guttman was called in to assist the president and senior team to learn and demonstrate new behaviors: greater levels of transparency and accountability, interdependence, and evolved leadership. We began by coaching the president and aligning the senior management team to create an understanding of the desired behaviors. We coached them to “be the change” they wanted to create in order to ensure sufficient “pull” to change behavior at the next levels. Once we were sure that the coaching had “taken,” we began cascading the process down through the organization, aligning corporate staff and regional leaders and providing them with coaching and skills training to cascade new behaviors in their areas.

Immediate results: decision making was accelerated on all levels; employees indicated higher survey scores on commitment. Two years later: target commitment score reached, with continued acceleration within the areas serviced by Guttman coaches and consultants; growth and profit spike above projections.

Key insights: Culture change is likely when senior leaders demonstrate commitment to the right behaviors and buy into coaching. When employees see a change in leaders’ behavior, their commitment—and company profits—follow.

Often, Guttman is retained by clients to coach not just individual executives, but an entire team, as it strives to reach high performance. This was the case at Redken USA, where then-SVP Patrick Parenty brought us in to align his team, which was made up of vice presidents, including the national sales managers for each of the company’s three categories—cosmetics, skin, and hair; the heads of sales operations and human resources; and team leaders for two major customers.

The team actually went through the Guttman alignment process several times. Performance spiked after each session and then trailed off. Lightning struck when Parenty finally realized that the team’s problems stemmed from team members not having the leadership skills to play at a higher level. During the alignment sessions, they grasped the concepts intellectually, but afterward, there was no opportunity to internalize them. Parenty, who has since been promoted to president, of brands, Professional Products Division of Redken’s parent, L’Oreal USA, decided to make the full commitment and retained a Guttman coach to work with the team.

The coach began to work formally and informally with the team and its individual members in real-time, on improving their listening, assertion, and conflict-management skills. Before long, lasting breakthroughs occurred. “Until then,” said Parenty, “there had been a lack of true self-awareness on the team. We all had lots of blind spots. He held up the mirror to us, without brutalizing or damaging people, and made us see these clearly.”

“In retrospect,” he added, “there were a lot of indicators that there was a deficiency of leadership skills. We thought we were working extremely well together, that we had a common approach and voice, and that the field sales organization was receiving good direction and consistent leadership direction from us. When we took an honest look at ourselves, it became evident that that was not the case. One of the team members had an aggressive personality; another was passive-aggressive. Between them, a lot of factions had developed. On the surface, everything seemed to be fine, but beneath the surface, there were conflicts that had to be exposed.”

The coach helped expose these conflicts to Parenty and his two colleagues as a group and also individually. He showed them how they were contributing to the dysfunction, if only by allowing it and not forcing a change. In meetings, the coach remained process focused. When conflicts arose, he inserted himself and provided a running commentary on the dynamic that was being played out. “Once their dysfunctional interactions were pointed out to them,” according to Parenty “everyone wanted to improve. The willingness was there, or it would not have worked.”

Since the coaching intervention, there has been no more backsliding, and the team’s performance has remained consistently strong.

Developing leadership capabilities among the ranks of senior executives and mid-tier managers is essential for the future growth and success of organizations, as these Guttman clients discovered:

L’Oréal Paris

As a member of a team of leaders, every player, on every great team, needs the same degree of proficiency in leadership skills, including the ability to influence others. It’s a lesson that David Waldock, senior vice president of sales for L’Oréal Paris, learned as he moved his team along the horizontal playing field. “When we began moving toward the high-performance model,” says Waldock, “we assumed too much. We thought people would get it and start using leadership skills after a couple of formal sessions. What we didn’t account for was that many members of our top team in Sales had been promoted because they had excellent technical and execution skills, but they were quite junior in the sense that they had less practice in leadership positions. After the alignment, we gave them as much additional exposure to and practice with the skills as time permitted.”

Was the effort worth it? “It was invaluable,” concludes Waldock. “I’m not sure we would be functioning well today if we hadn’t made the commitment we did. We have expanded our sales activities and brand initiatives. And we’ve done it without increasing headcount. Instead, we have learned to be much more efficient and much clearer in our communication. We get to conclusions much faster. We are no longer a team just on paper, working independently. We have a real group dynamic now, and it’s a good one.”

A major pharmaceutical organization

When a senior research executive was promoted to executive vice president of a major pharmaceutical organization, he realized that he needed to become more of a “player-centered leader.” In individual coaching sessions, a Guttman consultant provided him with the capabilities needed to vary his leadership behavior—directing, coaching, collaborating, or empowering—in response to the individual needs of each member of his team. At the end of the coaching, he asked us to impart the same capabilities to his team, so that they could do the same with their direct reports.

We conducted a one-day “Developing High-Performance Leaders” program for the team, in which they learned how to assess the skill and engagement levels of their reports and how to structure their interactions accordingly. With their new-found skills, the team members were able to not only develop their own direct reports but, as a group, now had a basis and a common language for assessing the organization’s overall bench strength.

In today’s organizations, much of the work gets done through project teams, which is why Guttman has designed a project management program that uniquely combines leadership skill development and team dynamics with the mastery of project management tools.

An information technology company

The Vice President of R&D of a West Coast information technology company was increasingly concerned about the inability of project teams to deliver projects on time and on goal. Highly technical team members were experts in food science but were unable to go from idea to commercialization. They lacked EQ and interpersonal skills. The multicultural setting—Indians, Russians, Mexicans, Chinese, and Americans—added complexity to the situation. As a result, most projects ran two-to-three times longer than anticipated and habitually over budget.

Guttman’s Charter: Transfer project management skills to four key teams, responsible for a total of 75 projects. One team was up and running; the other three were about to be chartered. Our aim: Go beyond developing the standard skills relating to GANTT Charting and Work Breakdown Structure to developing leadership skills and high-performance behaviors on teams and ensuring alignment of project goals with outcomes at each phase of projects.

In an initial meeting with the VP of R&D, the project sponsor overseeing the entire project portfolio, we drafted an overall project charter and selected four project team leaders. After several meetings with the sponsor, team leaders, and, ultimately, the entire team, to ensure alignment on objectives and expectations, Guttman highlighted the importance of developing high-performing leadership behaviors. It was as important as technical mastery of project management skills. Guttman then conducted a series of two-day programs for core team members. Sessions ran the gamut from project management skills to how to align project objectives with workflow and outcomes to how to capture lessons learned at each step of the process. The final step: Learning by doing, with live-action coaching conducted as teams worked through project implementation.

Results: The existing team delivered its key project on time—based on its renegotiated schedule—finally, four years late! Two other teams met project objectives on the first project each tackled. The fourth team soon neared completion of its project, per plan. Team members were able to navigate myriad potential problems, especially those relating to interpersonal conflict.

The “art of the deal” is a learnable and essential skill for any individual or team tasked with negotiating “big deals,” as well as day-to-day contracts, licensing arrangements, vendor agreements, and the like.

A manufacturer of electronic components

One manufacturer of electronic components sought to break the cycle of its contentious, acrimonious, “win-lose” negotiating sessions with a major supplier. Both sides’ focus on “CYA” had led to broken promises, product-delivery delays, and a lack of transparency.

One week before the next negotiation session with the supplier, the company’s director of OD asked Guttman to facilitate a strategy and skill-development briefing for its negotiating team. On the table: a $350 million contract. Aim: transfer negotiation skills and processes to the team, set a negotiation strategy and tactics, and specify the behaviors and outcomes needed to avoid the “same old/same old” results.

The Guttman consultant began by interviewing players on the company team to conduct a situation appraisal: What were the pinch points in past negotiations? Where did discussions break down? What types of issues are “up” this time around? Next, he met with the team probe its goals and objectives, needs and wants—and those of the supplier’s team. He encouraged team members to try to get “inside” the heads of those on the other side of the table: What preparations were they making? What did they want from the negotiation? What corporate objectives did they want to achieve? What personalities and behaviors would the company team have to deal with?

The next step in the Guttman process was helping the team take a deep dive into tactics. How were issues going to be negotiated: one by one or as part of a package? What about timing: When were they going to make an offer or counteroffer? What were the countervailing pressures—on their team and the suppliers—for a deal? What kinds of information would likely help move issues to resolution? Which were the power relationships?

As a result of the preparation, team members gained a deep understanding of the negotiating process, especially the need to set a clear end game and understand the objectives and constraints of the other side, along with power relationships, pressures, timing, and information requirements. During the actual negotiations, the team felt it could be more flexible and creative because it had a clear handle on the other side’s needs. The three negotiating sessions went off smoothly. Both sides walked away satisfied and fully committed. Each team was a winner.

A human resources executive in a Fortune 100 company had just been promoted to head of HR for the Asia/Pacific Region, and the company’s COO recommended that Guttman coach him through the transition period. The COO wasn’t worried about the executive’s ability to handle his new responsibilities, but he was concerned about the way people outside the department viewed him. One major problem: Because of his low-key, nonassertive personality, the executive’s internal clients perceived him as being not highly engaged in their issues, indecisive, conflict-averse, and without any real power in the company.

The Guttman coach began by asking the executive what his Intention was. What would the happy ending look like if the coaching sessions were successful? His answer: He would be seen not just as a hiring-and-firing manager, but as a strong person whom others would rely on to provide them with the talent they needed and whom they would seek out for advice and counsel on all matters relating to human resources.

The coach asked him to project forward to that end state. In a meeting, what was his new persona doing? How was he interacting with others? How did he comport himself? When interfacing with a colleague one on one, how did he open the meeting? What mood was he projecting? How well was he listening? What was his body language like? Did his demeanor change in social situations?

The executive’s answers to these questions enabled his coach to set a very specific Intention and to develop a plan to realize it. Since the initial meeting, the executive has been working on replacing his old behaviors with the ones he envisioned: saying more in cross-functional meetings, volunteering for projects outside his own area of expertise, and offering more information. At the end of each encounter with an internal client, he makes sure that he and the client “contract” for expectations, next steps, time frames, and responsibilities. In staff meetings, he solicits the opinions of his department members, asking: What issues are of concern to you? What resources do you need? What help can I give you?

And it’s working. His confidence has risen dramatically, and feedback from his coworkers indicates that they too are confident that his promotion was well deserved. By living in his Intention, this executive brought his Intention to life.

These skills are of paramount importance in today’s highly complex, matrixed, and global enterprises, which makes our programs in these areas among our most popular offerings.

A large retail chain
Howard Guttman aligned a large retail chain’s senior HR team. After the alignment session, he provided the team with the basic influencing and conflict management skills they were going to need to work together in the new horizontal, high-performance environment. But in order to cascade the model down through the function, the team’s 60-70 direct reports also needed to acquire new capabilities.

A Guttman consultant began by asking selected members of the senior team three questions:

In what business situations would your people benefit from improved influencing and conflict management skills?
How does the corporate culture support or hinder the successful use of influencing and conflict management skills?
What specific areas or issues would you like us to focus on in the two-day program we design to impart these skills?
The second of these questions turned out to be the most useful in our program design. The company’s culture was founded on three basic beliefs: respect for the individual, service to the customer, and striving for excellence every day. As positive as all three are, the first had some unintended negative consequences, according to the senior team. The horizontal, high-performance model requires people to hold each other accountable and confront conflict openly and honestly, yet in this culture such behavior was often construed as disrespectful.

Our consultant began the program by explaining that not holding a colleague accountable—allowing him or her to fail—was in fact a sign of disrespect. When you respect people, you want to see them succeed, and you do all you can to help them do so, even if it means pushing them beyond their comfort zone. With this new mind-set, participants in the program began to understand how to give feedback rather than feedattack, depersonalize conflict, and get the buy-in of colleagues without alienating them.

Participants in the program gave it the highest rating, but the true measure of success is behavior change, and that was definitely accomplished. When the senior HR team and its direct reports recently went through a multi-tier alignment, both levels demonstrated their new proficiency in managing conflict and influencing: they used a common language; made clear, direct requests of one another; delivered targeted, depersonalized feedback; and showed up as powerful, confident, and results driven.

A consumer products company
When a large division of a consumer products company got a new vice president and general manager, morale was low and there was a sense of defeat among employees. Managers in the division complied with directives, but they did not feel heard or empowered. While results in other parts of the organization were skyrocketing, the division was experiencing a decline. The GM realized that a turnaround was needed and that people needed to start feeling differently about coming to work. He engaged Guttman to initiate the change.

Realizing that what was needed was for the GM and his leadership team to start steering differently, we began by first aligning the top team, so its members could begin working together more authentically and collaboratively. Then, we aligned the next level down. The GM emphasized the need to move away from one-way communication and toward greater discussion and dialogue at all levels. He invited everyone to speak their mind without fear of repercussions. and a new sense, among the people reporting to the senior team, that they were truly valued members of the organization.

But for them to accept the GM’s invitation, there was a need for employees throughout the organization to learn to be more assertive, more intentional, and more honest in their communications. They also needed to make sure that their ideas were being listened to and taken seriously. For this, they needed to acquire two critical sets of skills: influencing and conflict management. Six Guttman facilitators conducted two two-day capability development workshops to provide the functional teams with these capabilities. The results: a common language and a set of common practices that accelerated the shift in the organizational culture.

A supplier of food additives
At the end of the year, the head of the North American Division of a global supplier of food additives and his senior team went through an alignment session led by Guttman. As a result of this session, it was determined that both the senior team and the levels below it needed additional capabilities in order to keep them moving on the path to becoming a high-performing team. Influencing and conflict management skills were the focus of a series of two-day programs, which were attended by executives, managers, and individual contributors from the first, second, and third tiers, along with a one-day program on influencing skills for administrative employees.

Two years later, the top two levels had made significant progress, and there was general agreement that in order to cascade the new high-performing-team model further down in the division, another tier should be aligned. This time, individual contributors and managers from the first three tiers—a total of 90-100 people—were included in a special multi-tier team alignment session.

All three levels were now speaking the same language and shared the same goals. The new high-performance-team model was being followed by all.

A software development firm
One of this company’s cross-functional project teams was charged with developing a new suite of software products for the financial and accounting industry—the biggest and most important project in the company. The team needed to put aside functional self-interests and start working more interdependently. But it had also become apparent that the team was conflict averse in general, and team members were not comfortable engaging in difficult conversations cross-functionally and with the vice presidents leading the project team. They needed to learn to work through their differences and establish ground rules to engage and communicate with one another openly and honestly.

In addition to team alignment sessions, Guttman consultants delivered a two-day program on influencing and conflict management skills for all project-team members. The objectives: learn and practice key skills needed to influence across functional lines and to participate in effective and efficient conversations around difficult issues. Dramatic changes ensued. The pace picked up, as long-standing barriers to activity were at last broken through; triangulation—enlisting the support of third-party “rescuers”—ceased, as team members began going straight to each other with concerns; individuals began taking greater ownership for results. One team member, who had been very aggressive in his interactions, became much more collaborative and easy to deal with. Another told us that, after going through the program, it became “painful” to deal with other divisions of the company, where people didn’t “get it.”

Performance management is one of the most important—and toughest—jobs of a manager. Perfomance incentives and reivews are often flashpoints for controversy. This Guttman program combines performance consulting with skills transfer.

A worldwide shipping company
A few years ago, a worldwide shipping company needed to reevaluate its performance management system. After several profitable years, employees had come to expect year-end bonuses based on their day-to-day job performance, as opposed to performance above and beyond their job. As a young company that wanted to inculcate high-performance behaviors and values in its employees, it decided that going forward people would need to earn bonuses by demonstrating achievements above and beyond their daily activities. Basic performance evaluation, used for merit increases, needed to include those competency-based behaviors that the company wanted to drive.

Working with the vice president of human resources, Guttman began by creating a new performance evaluation and incentive program, in which bonuses were tied to goals above and beyond typical performance, as well as to company goals. Beginning with the CEO and his senior team, strategic goals were set for the company and each function and then communicated down through the organization. Each successive level was then charged with creating goals to align with those set by the senior team. All managers and employees participated in the Guttman program, “Optimizing Your Performance Management System,” where they discussed upcoming changes to the system. They learned how to create performance goals that clearly define results and can be measured objectively. They were also given the interpersonal skills needed to participate in effective performance discussions year round. Managers received coaching skills and practiced giving feedback and conducting effective coaching and performance evaluation conversations.

After the initial session, each manager sat down with his/her direct reports, one at a time, to set goals and determine how success would be measured. Then they began partnering to achieve the goals—and the bonuses that went along with success.

The results: People understood that incentives were not an automatic entitlement. They were also clearer about what was, at their level and in their job, merely good performance and what was superior performance. The quality of performance reviews rose when both parties possessed the skills needed to give and receive feedback and resolve differences of opinion. And, because each function’s operational goals were tied to the company’s strategic objectives, there was greater alignment of goals cross-functionally.

The ability to influence, rather than dictate, outcomes has become increasingly important, especially when an executive or manager enjoys only positional authority. This is especially true in highly decentralized environments.

A consumer healthcare company
In decentralized organizations, work doesn’t get done so much through executives’ power as managers as through their power as people. In such an environment, the ability to influence others is a prerequisite for success. One highly decentralized consumer healthcare company is so convinced of this that for the past 10 years Guttman’s Leadership Development program, “Influencing Across Organizations,” has been one of the offerings in its internal “university.” Tailored especially for this company’s managers, the program helps them understand what we mean by having influence over others: having people listen to you, exciting others, and getting them to follow your lead and embrace your ideas. These skills are especially beneficial to those who have just moved up to a new role, where they are going to have to work with a wide number of colleagues, over many of whom will have no direct authority.

Guttman’s premise is that everyone has the ability to be an effective influencer, but for many, it takes focus, belief, practice, and new ways of looking at things. There needs to be a paradigm shift, a breakthrough. They need to see themselves as capable and know what to do to initiate the change process. Participants examine what is currently preventing them from exercising their power and, more often than not, they realize that “the enemy is me.” Next, they identify their stakeholders: those who have the ability to help or hinder them as they strive to achieve their goals. What should they do/not do to influence these people, to make their working relationship more effective? On the second day of the program, participants engage in simulation exercises, practicing using influencing skills to ensure that their needs are met. We discuss the power and the stories people hold onto about their personal power—or lack of it.

Several hundred people in the company have gone through the program, and the Guttman consultants who deliver it have received much positive feedback: participants say that they use the skills and as a result has been much better able to exert influence and build strong relationships, not only at work but at home and in their community. First-level supervisors and administrators now see themselves as powerful. They realize that, prior to attending the program, the image they projected may have kept others from following their recommendations and buying into their ideas. Participants generally give the program the highest rating on a scale of 1 to 5.

In today’s competitive marketplace, in order to become high-performance players, employees need to possess a full range of skills. For many clients, Guttman has custom-designed programs that focus on a number of key individual and team skills.

A Financial Services Firm

Several years ago, senior management at a Northeastern financial services firm conducted an employee-engagement survey. Responses revealed that the level below officer—directors and senior directors—was being underserved by the firm’s development programs. These individuals, the future leaders of the company, were not prepared to take over the reins. Heeding the wake-up call, top management called in Guttman to custom-design a multifaceted capability development program for the next generation of leaders.

Guttman began by identifying the key skills needed at the officer level and the areas in which directors were deficient. We then created a capability development program to close the gaps. Based on data gathered in personal interviews of officers and directors, our consultants concluded that the firm needed to focus on five capabilities: influencing, conflict management, strategic thinking, problem-solving/decision-making, and developing team members. We designed a comprehensive capability development program, which the company called “Leadership Excellence” and which was presented in five modules, one month apart, in which each capability was introduced; the on-job application was carried out between each module, and results were presented the next time participants met. In the final module, participants made presentations to senior management around compelling business issues they were beginning to solve with their new skills.

Eventually, Guttman consultants delivered the program to nearly 250 directors and senior directors over a four-year period. Six months after each five-module program, the company held focus groups with participants: Were they using the skills? Answer: Definitely. At the same time, their colleagues and supervisors were asked if participants’ behavior had changed since going through the program. Answer: Definitely. The same questions were asked of both groups one year later and the same responses were received. Participants gave the program the highest rating of all those ever run by the firm; there was a year-long waiting list to attend, and at least one to two participants in each program was promoted within a year after attending.

A global pharmaceutical company

A global pharmaceutical company’s U.S. business had been growing organically for a number of years. Dealing with rapid growth hadn’t left senior management much time to consider how results were being achieved. Now, as the company faced increasing pressure to maintain its profitability, attract the best talent, and keep the drug pipeline full, the top team realized that it was time to step back and take a longer view: identify the most efficient, effective way of working together, which everyone could follow, and institutionalize it across the company.

Beginning with the premise that, “What got us here won’t get us where we need to go,” the Management Committee engaged Guttman to help employees shed old, ineffective behaviors and institutionalize new, more productive ways of working together. The culture had been one where everyone was very nice; no one said no or pushed back. The conflict was avoided. Many people had been promoted to leadership positions because of their technical or functional expertise, but they were lacking the leadership skills they needed to shift the culture.

We began by offering capability development programs in seven areas, then homed in on the four that seemed to be most critical:

• Influencing skills, including active listening and assertion: How do you get others to do what you are convinced needs to happen? How do you build commitment vs. compliance? How do you assert your point of view without either ignoring others’ ideas or allowing them to bully you into agreement?
• Conflict management skills: How do you work through issues in a way that accelerates relationships and results in stronger outputs? What stories are you currently holding onto that are keeping you mired in unproductive conflict? How can you transform that conflict into a positive force for you, your colleagues, and the company?
• Developing High-Performance Leaders: Because teams are instrumental in accomplishing the company’s goals, participants in the program needed to learn how to develop the individuals on their teams. How could they assess each person’s strengths and needs? How could they vary their leadership behavior to best fit each player’s needs?
• How to Lead Your Team: Creating a high-performing team involves more than interacting effectively with individuals, so this program focused on working with the team as a whole. How do you improve your capabilities as a leader of a team? How do you structure the team for high performance from Day One? What vehicles can you create to keep your team moving forward?

Guttman has been conducting this suite of capability development programs at the company for several years. As a result, there is now a consistent way of operating throughout the organization. Employees now hold not only themselves but also their peers and their leaders, accountable for results. There is much more transparency and receptivity to others’ points of view. Conflict is handled above board and swiftly. These changes have been woven into the culture, resulting in a more effective, more efficient workplace and a degree of conscious competence that did not exist previously.