Case Studies involving clients Willis Allen has worked with:

Client’s Needs:

One client was in a rapidly growing business with multiple locations found throughout Oklahoma and needed an ongoing supply of qualified leaders.  This client wanted a leadership development process and a complete succession plan for all leadership positions up to and including the CEO. 
A second client was an Oklahoma based company having problems with customer service.  Customers were complaining that it was taking too long to get answers to questions and solutions to problems.

Our Approach:
In both cases we started with establishing a foundation of information about the company.  With both clients we talked with the CEO about their goals, values and concerns.  To further understand the business we toured the facilities and then conducted a review of policies and procedures, company values, the strategic plan and other documents and guidelines for behavior within the organization.  Next was an assessment.  We selected participants from the senior managers, board members and mid level managers and conducted interviews.  With client number one we asked for input about the core competencies they felt were critical for a leader at each level of the organization.  For client number two we asked questions about problems they were seeing in the organization and the customer service process.  We wanted their ideas about why they felt the organization was not meeting the needs of its clients.  

Preliminary Results:
For client number one we got agreement from the senior executives that we had come up with a complete list of competencies that were approved as critical to the organization’s leaders’ success.  For client number two we determined that the root cause of the slow customer service was the lack of teamwork within the organization.  It was a large organization and different departments did not understand the needs of the other departments and there was little cooperation and poor communication between departments. 

Development:
The next step was to take the information we had gained and develop training workshops, and group activities that would help the organizations meet their goals.  With company number one participants were selected from employees identified through additional individual assessments, like the ones offered by Workforce Solutions, as being high potential candidates for advancement within the leadership ranks.  In company number two there were training and activities developed for the managers and supervisors so they could support the teambuilding initiative and help with training and projects in their departments.  We also developed some teambuilding, customer service and problem solving workshops that Gilbreath’s consultants taught to everyone in the company.

Implementation:
With company number one we held educational forums, gave participants individual coaching and had participants work as teams on real problems the organization faced.  All of these activities were designed to help the participants learn, demonstrate their ability to work as a team to make improvements with bottom line impact to the organization and to advance in the organization.

With company number two we conducted a series of teambuilding / customer service workshops for the managers, supervisors and associates.   After the first year we did another assessment and developed more workshops and activities to help maintain the progress that had been made and to address new situations that had become evident from feedback received during the first year’s training.

Results (Client Benefits):
After one year, client number one had promoted most of the original participants which had been selected from a group of mid level managers.  Several participants now reported directly to the CEO.  The organization felt the process had been so successful that in year number two it expanded the groups eligible for the process to every level of manager and supervisor within the organization.

Our work at company number two resulted in a better understanding, by everyone within the organization, of the company’s values, a better hiring process, an improved performance management system, increased productivity throughout the organization and a significant increase in customer satisfaction.