Lehr Precision, A Division of Sermatech International, Inc.

Lehr Precision, A Division of Sermatech International, Inc.

State-of-the-art aerospace and power generation component manufacturing

Cincinnati, Ohio

Maximize individual and team leadership effectiveness for achieving business objectives in a soft market.

In the midst of a rapidly softening market, Lehr's senior management team engaged in a multi-stage process to enhance its effectiveness as a leadership group. Increased effectiveness centered around accelerated new business development.

The first stage of the process challenged members of the team to clarify new and extended business objectives and related obstacles. The team also defined critical leadership and management competencies that they believed each member should proficiently demonstrate in order to achieve these objectives.

During the next phase of the program, each member of the group was assessed using a "360° feedback" instrument that measures individual and "team" effectiveness on the previously defined, critical competency areas. Co-worker feedback from the 360° assessment helped the team discover individual and collective strengths and developmental opportunities. Also, individual team members engaged in an in-depth assessment of personal characteristics in order to discover strengths (which could be leveraged) and potential weak points (which needed to be challenged and improved). The strengths and weaknesses connected with personal characteristics were systematically related to each person's 360° competency results. For example, understanding the link between judgmental tendencies (personal characteristic) and team motivation (competency) created a foundation of insight, which is a key factor in improving leadership effectiveness.

Once clear about developmental opportunities, the team and individuals set goals that linked developmental initiatives with new business objectives. For example, while focused on becoming more positive and less critical in motivating his team, the VP of Marketing & Sales set the following goal: "Generate $70M of shippable backlog by January 1, 2001."

During the final stage, team members enlisted the assistance of one another and coworkers throughout the organization ("change partnerships") to sustain commitment and promote individual improvements in connection with achieving new business objectives.

As a result of both the program and the team's dedication and follow up work, the company introduced and shipped five new product lines (their goal was three), increased their operating profitability by 17% more than their projection, and increased their operational productivity by 7.5%. All of this was accomplished while lowering their manufacturing cycle from a 21-day average to a 12.5-day average (a 43% change). And, partnerships among team members improved substantially. Every member of the team also realized that improvement in at least one targeted competency area, not only correlated with enhanced team synergy, but directly impacted measurable business achievements as well.