Case Study #1:

Company facing massive burnout increases production by 300% while eliminating burnout.

Case Study #2:

A completely dysfunctional sales team re-discovers a winning culture and increases sales by 276% in 12 months.

Case Study #3: 

A struggling senior leadership team re-engages, stops resisting change, agrees on path forward.

Case Study #1:

Company facing massive burnout increases production by 300% while eliminating overtime and burnout.

Problem –Due to changes in the marketplace, orders had doubled from previous highs and the department manager couldn’t hire or train people fast enough. His team had been working overtime for months. Exhausted, their morale was dropping fast.

Solution – We helped his team redesign and implement a simple new system for allocating incoming work with their existing team without hiring any new people.

A month later their orders had tripled their original highs. They not only handled the load, they did it with less stress and without extending their hours. His people were enjoying their first work-free weekends in months. Morale was on the rise. People felt hope again.

Case Study #2:

A completely dysfunctional sales group rediscovers a winning culture and increases sales by 276% in 12 months.

A sales director received yet another complaint from one of his best customers about his top producing sales rep. He could see that she had gotten complacent and was no longer giving her clients the attention they deserved.

He also knew that her prima donna attitude had permeated the whole department, poisoning the culture. Sales were far less than they needed to be.

He wanted an upbeat sales department where people supported and trusted each other; a team that enjoyed outstanding success.

What he had on his hands was a nest of vipers.

The logical thing to do was to sit down and talk it out with his lead sales rep, and then with the group. But communication had gotten so bad he had cancelled their weekly staff meetings because key players were no longer on speaking terms.

The sales director felt like someone had to go, but resisted firing his lead sales rep for fear she would take some huge accounts with her.

Privately, he considered leaving himself.

That’s when the CEO asked us to help.

Action – We met with each person on the team invidually to connect, build trust and get buy-in. Then we went off-site for a 3-day retreat. As we taught them the fundamental principles behind the human experience, they began to see their situation from an entirely different perspective.

As they settled down, their minds cleared. They began to see the truth of the situation.

Everyone, without intending to, had contributed to the situation they found themselves in. They began to take personal responsibilty for the poor communication, backstabbing and poor performance.

As the quality of their thinking improved, ideas for solving the problems began to flow. For the first time in months, they were able to connect with each other as fellow human beings, and to feel genuine hope for their future together.

Outcome – Following the retreat, the mood in the group shifted dramatically for the better. People worked together. They found common sense ways to communicate more effectively with each other and their clients.

Problems that previously seemed intractible, suddenly found solutions.

Trust levels grew dramatically.

In the next 12 months, no one left the team and sales increased by 286%. This was accomplished without sales training, conflict resolution, or team building.

Summary – Often the toughest challenges that business leaders face are these kinds of human interactions gone amuck. These situations are challenging because they appear complicated; there is a painful history, feathers have been ruffled, trust has been lost, performance has suffered.

We were able to relieve the stress and enable a paradigm shift in people’s thinking. Once their thinking changed, their feelings changed and they saw the possibility of a new way of doing things.

The solutions they created were sustainable because they arose from their own common sense, creative ideas and genuine good will.

Case Study #3:

A senior leadership team re-engages, stops resisting change and agrees on the path forward.

A company president had good people on his leadership team, but they were struggling to get on the same page and they had no clear vision of where they were going as a team. Whenever they tried to plan for the future, they would get bogged down in the details and end up feeling frustrated.

Because past efforts had resulted in frustration, the president found it difficult to generate enthusiasm for new strategic planning efforts.

Action – First we interviewed the team. Then we met with the president and helped him see that his team was not opposed to strategic planning per se; they were opposed to wasting time and feeling frustrated.

Working with the entire team, we helped them address their concerns and create an approach for creating a practical and inspiring vision for the company’s future, while also finding permanent solutions for some ongoing problems.

Together, we designed a 4-day offsite. During the first two days we would teach them the Insight Paradigm. Day three would focus on solving current problems, and day four would focus on strategic planning for the future.

Since personal and group concerns had been effectively addressed in advance, everyone arrived at the retreat feeling change was possible.

Outcome – Using the framework they learned on days one and two, the team resolved their most challenging issues before lunch on day three. They resolved personal conflicts, reorganized workloads, modified job descriptions, and designed new internal communication systems. Each task had a timeline and a champion. For issues that could not be addressed because of a lack of information, they assigned research projects with their own timelines and champions.

On day four the team could focus creatively on the future because present-day concerns had been addressed. At the end of the day, for the first time, they shared a common vision for the company’s future, a vision that felt both doable and inspiring. It provided direction and basis for decision-making for months to come.

Summary – First, we helped them find their own long-term solutions to pressing business problems that had been nagging them form months, even years. Working together, they achieved results that they could measure, feel good about, and that would make a genuine bottom-line difference.

Second, we taught them simple universal principles that would empower them to access wisdom, insight and common sense when faced with new challenges in the future. Each of these leaders now had common understanding and an approach that they could use to solve problems and for bringing out the best in their people.