Efforts to improve revenues and reduce costs require a foundation of personal and organizational accountability that provides an effective methodology for creating the necessary level of personal investment and ownership that produces success. Attempting any performance improvement effort without this foundation usually results in missed targets and disappointing results.
The Partners In Leadership training helps close the Accountability Gap™ that exists throughout the organization. These are the gaps between what you expect people to be doing and what they actually are doing. Identifying these gaps and then implementing a positive approach to creating greater accountability is the aim of the Partners In Leadership training and consulting methodology.
Every organization has to help their people move beyond mere compliance, where people concede to do what is asked, to true personal ownership and investment, where people take accountability to make things happen. The Partners In Leadership training achieves this aim by helping leadership teams create a Culture of Accountability® at every level of the organization.
Real results producing a tangible ROI achieved with the Accountability Training.
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Here are some client examples of the positive and powerful impact the Partners In Leadership training has in producing remarkable gains in client revenue enhancement and cost reduction initiatives:
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The Story: RxAmerica, a Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM), offers services to 60,000 pharmacies. A PBM is a third party administrator of prescription drug programs primarily responsible for processing and paying prescription drug claims.
Suffering from high turnover, high drug costs and poor client retention Rx America began working with Partners In Leadership to implement the Culture Track™ Training. They needed to get everyone in the organization aligned around the key results they needed to achieve and communicate those key results in a way that people could relate them to their daily work. The training engaged people at every level in the process. They were able to break down silos and create a "What else can I do to help differentiate ourselves in the market?" mentality.
After working with Partners In Leadership for 18 months, they were able to double the bottom line every 2 years versus the previous 3 years. With this new culture, they lead the industry with client retention and low drug costs. Employee retention improved 100%. John Gardynik, CEO at that time, said "Just as the Culture of Accountability process has made my job easier, it also has done that for our senior managers...Very important case in point is how and when to promote an employee becomes much, much easier...Results were always part of the process, but how they obtained the results has become much easier to understand, look for, and coach throughout the organization."
Accountability is the Prescription That Works...
The Results: Accelerated the doubling of revenues by over 50%, lead the industry in client retention and low drug costs.
The Story: RxAmerica, a Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM), offers services to 60,000 pharmacies. A PBM is a third party administrator of prescription drug programs primarily responsible for processing and paying prescription drug claims.
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Watch John Gardynick tell the RX America Story (View John's bio).
After working with Partners In Leadership for 18 months, they were able to double the bottom line every 2 years versus the previous 3 years. With this new culture, they lead the industry with client retention and low drug costs. Employee retention improved 100%. John Gardynik, CEO at that time, said "Just as the Culture of Accountability process has made my job easier, it also has done that for our senior managers...Very important case in point is how and when to promote an employee becomes much, much easier...Results were always part of the process, but how they obtained the results has become much easier to understand, look for, and coach throughout the organization."
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The Story: Hard Rock Café engaged Partners In Leadership to present the Self Track™ Training at an annual Leadership Conference and then continued their path to accountability through a number of other events that followed. The Accountability Training® was also incorporated into Hard Rock's Corporate University. Utilizing the principles from the Accountability Training, Hard Rock Café was able to restore and achieve $40 million in profitability.
Jim Knight, Senior Director of Training and Development at Hard Rock Café, reflects on the training: "I wanted to personally take a moment to thank you for all the work that you have done with Hard Rock over the last four years. From the first Accountability Training that you brought to our organization at our annual Leadership Conference to the ongoing sessions that you continue to provide as part of our Corporate University, the message continues to resonate with our managers. As Senior Director of Training & Development, my responsibilities include searching for effective learning opportunities for our folks, which balances both leadership needs and fitting within our unique and irreverent culture. When you first stood in front of our group, we were experts at the 'Blame Game' and sought out a library of reasons as to why our performance was not optimal. Holding others and ourselves accountable for results & actions was not something that was prevalent in our organization. The laser focus on 'accountability' provided in various events has helped us get back on the right track. The 'Above The Line' message is something that every organization could definitely use. The language of 'See It, Own It, Solve It, Do It' that you present is such an easy concept to comprehend and is used by several of our business operators as a defining compass to get results versus making excuses. Thank you for all that you have done to assist us in our quest and I look forward to the many years of our continued strategic partnership."
It's Not that Hard with Accountability
The Results: Restored 40 million in Profitability
The Story: Hard Rock Café engaged Partners In Leadership to present the Self Track™ Training at an annual Leadership Conference and then continued their path to accountability through a number of other events that followed. The Accountability Training® was also incorporated into Hard Rock's Corporate University. Utilizing the principles from the Accountability Training, Hard Rock Café was able to restore and achieve $40 million in profitability.
Jim Knight, Senior Director of Training and Development at Hard Rock Café, reflects on the training: "I wanted to personally take a moment to thank you for all the work that you have done with Hard Rock over the last four years. From the first Accountability Training that you brought to our organization at our annual Leadership Conference to the ongoing sessions that you continue to provide as part of our Corporate University, the message continues to resonate with our managers. As Senior Director of Training & Development, my responsibilities include searching for effective learning opportunities for our folks, which balances both leadership needs and fitting within our unique and irreverent culture. When you first stood in front of our group, we were experts at the 'Blame Game' and sought out a library of reasons as to why our performance was not optimal. Holding others and ourselves accountable for results & actions was not something that was prevalent in our organization. The laser focus on 'accountability' provided in various events has helped us get back on the right track. The 'Above The Line' message is something that every organization could definitely use. The language of 'See It, Own It, Solve It, Do It' that you present is such an easy concept to comprehend and is used by several of our business operators as a defining compass to get results versus making excuses. Thank you for all that you have done to assist us in our quest and I look forward to the many years of our continued strategic partnership."
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The Story: Eli Lilly and Company, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, utilized the Self Track™ and Culture Track™ throughout their organization worldwide. Lilly management had established its operating income results, R2, for its European operations. Here, quoting from our trip debrief notes, is how a team used the training to help them achieve an aggressive revenue target:
"We were engaged to present the Culture Track Training to the senior and began by observing from the back of the room while the European General Manager made and announcement about their revenue target. He thought this would be a good way for us to see their culture in action. It was late October, 'By December 31st, we're going to need to turn $25M dollars more to the corporate headquarters than we were planning.' They took the next hour to come up with a plan on how they were going to deliver."
"Now, you might imagine how well this news went over. When the leader asked for additional contributions to revenue from the different country managers, the room literally went silent. The reality was, there wasn't a person in that room that felt they could do more than they were personally delivering already. Each country had a number they already needed to achieve. It was obvious to us, that there was only one person in that room who felt accountable for Europe's number; and that was the General Manager in charge of Europe. The GM recognized that they were sandbagging, a practice that had come to be known in the European team as the old-gray-fox syndrome, where country managers cunningly guarded their revenues to ensure they hit their individual numbers not only in the current year, but in the coming year as well. A cultural trait that needed to change if they were going to hit their number."
"As we listened to the country managers, we became quite convinced they didn't have any more money to give. The U.K. country manager was particularly convincing that there was absolutely no way they could deliver beyond the number they had committed to deliver. With that discussion in mind, the Culture Track Training workshop began. The team got engaged in the meeting, became aligned through open conversation and feedback, and actively participated in laying out a plan to shift the culture of their organization to target achieving their desired results."
"At the end of the workshop, we re-visited question: 'where are we going to come up with the additional 25 million?' It was quite a different experience than the previous conversation that started the two-day event. As the General Manager went around the room, country manager by country manager, he began to amass the sum he needed. Interestingly, the U.K. country manager, whom we were convinced had nothing he could possibly give, came up with an additional $5 million dollars. The team acknowledged that their hesitancy to contribute was related to a belief that they held: if they contribute more this year, their number will be even higher next year. The General Manager convinced the team that he would keep in mind the additional contributions when establishing next year's numbers and not inflate them based on that."
Amazingly, that organization, between late October and December, actually achieved not only $25M in additional revenue for the corporate headquarters; they achieved $34M by December 31st. Every leader of the European Management Team went back to their respective countries, committed to a result bigger than their own country number and, using the Accountability Training® principles and practices, created a "What else can we do to achieve this greater number?" mindset, focusing on it day in and day out.
Accountability begins by getting an entire organization focused around the results that you need to achieve. When you align the culture to achieving those results, you achieve results that would come in no other way.
The Old Gray Fox Syndrome...
The Results: Generated 34 million beyond plan when corporate asked.
The Story: Eli Lilly and Company, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, utilized the Self Track™ and Culture Track™ throughout their organization worldwide. Lilly management had established its operating income results, R2, for its European operations. Here, quoting from our trip debrief notes, is how a team used the training to help them achieve an aggressive revenue target:
"We were engaged to present the Culture Track Training to the senior and began by observing from the back of the room while the European General Manager made and announcement about their revenue target. He thought this would be a good way for us to see their culture in action. It was late October, 'By December 31st, we're going to need to turn $25M dollars more to the corporate headquarters than we were planning.' They took the next hour to come up with a plan on how they were going to deliver."
"Now, you might imagine how well this news went over. When the leader asked for additional contributions to revenue from the different country managers, the room literally went silent. The reality was, there wasn't a person in that room that felt they could do more than they were personally delivering already. Each country had a number they already needed to achieve. It was obvious to us, that there was only one person in that room who felt accountable for Europe's number; and that was the General Manager in charge of Europe. The GM recognized that they were sandbagging, a practice that had come to be known in the European team as the old-gray-fox syndrome, where country managers cunningly guarded their revenues to ensure they hit their individual numbers not only in the current year, but in the coming year as well. A cultural trait that needed to change if they were going to hit their number."
"As we listened to the country managers, we became quite convinced they didn't have any more money to give. The U.K. country manager was particularly convincing that there was absolutely no way they could deliver beyond the number they had committed to deliver. With that discussion in mind, the Culture Track Training workshop began. The team got engaged in the meeting, became aligned through open conversation and feedback, and actively participated in laying out a plan to shift the culture of their organization to target achieving their desired results."
"At the end of the workshop, we re-visited question: 'where are we going to come up with the additional 25 million?' It was quite a different experience than the previous conversation that started the two-day event. As the General Manager went around the room, country manager by country manager, he began to amass the sum he needed. Interestingly, the U.K. country manager, whom we were convinced had nothing he could possibly give, came up with an additional $5 million dollars. The team acknowledged that their hesitancy to contribute was related to a belief that they held: if they contribute more this year, their number will be even higher next year. The General Manager convinced the team that he would keep in mind the additional contributions when establishing next year's numbers and not inflate them based on that."
Amazingly, that organization, between late October and December, actually achieved not only $25M in additional revenue for the corporate headquarters; they achieved $34M by December 31st. Every leader of the European Management Team went back to their respective countries, committed to a result bigger than their own country number and, using the Accountability Training® principles and practices, created a "What else can we do to achieve this greater number?" mindset, focusing on it day in and day out.
Accountability begins by getting an entire organization focused around the results that you need to achieve. When you align the culture to achieving those results, you achieve results that would come in no other way.
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The Story: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (OCD) is a leading provider of total solutions for screening, diagnosing, monitoring and confirming diseases early. Their parent company, Johnson and Johnson, frequently moves leaders within the subdivisions of their companies every couple of years as a matter of policy. Ortho Clinical Diagnostics has had an entirely new leadership team every three years for the last 10-12 years.
Cultural, this has created some predictable challenges with implementing any new kind of change initiative. One strong belief is that you can just "wait it out, because the leadership will change" the initiatives, quality of initiatives, product number, how products are produced, how they maintained their product, efficiency, new innovations and new generations of their product. With a focus on needing to reduce waste in the manufacturing process, OCD began working with Partners In Leadership using the Self Track™ Training. The training helped the leadership team eradicate the Below the Line® cultural traits that stood as such a strong obstacle to performance. Things started to change. People started taking ownership for results, working to optimizing performance. OCD then implemented the Culture Track™ Training. They've been able to almost double revenue and achieve profit numbers in the high 50% range. The parent organization was so impressed with the results OCD was achieving with the training, that they began implementing the Self Track Training within their own organization. Where OCD was once viewed as an undesirable assignment, they are now viewed as a leader in the portfolio of J&J companies.
Just Give it Time, They Will Go Away...
The Results: Revenue nearly doubles, profits rise to over 50%
The Story: Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (OCD) is a leading provider of total solutions for screening, diagnosing, monitoring and confirming diseases early. Their parent company, Johnson and Johnson, frequently moves leaders within the subdivisions of their companies every couple of years as a matter of policy. Ortho Clinical Diagnostics has had an entirely new leadership team every three years for the last 10-12 years.
Cultural, this has created some predictable challenges with implementing any new kind of change initiative. One strong belief is that you can just "wait it out, because the leadership will change" the initiatives, quality of initiatives, product number, how products are produced, how they maintained their product, efficiency, new innovations and new generations of their product. With a focus on needing to reduce waste in the manufacturing process, OCD began working with Partners In Leadership using the Self Track™ Training. The training helped the leadership team eradicate the Below the Line® cultural traits that stood as such a strong obstacle to performance. Things started to change. People started taking ownership for results, working to optimizing performance. OCD then implemented the Culture Track™ Training. They've been able to almost double revenue and achieve profit numbers in the high 50% range. The parent organization was so impressed with the results OCD was achieving with the training, that they began implementing the Self Track Training within their own organization. Where OCD was once viewed as an undesirable assignment, they are now viewed as a leader in the portfolio of J&J companies.
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The Story: Precor, one of the largest fitness manufacturers in the United States, sets the Global standard for innovation and excellence in fitness equipment quality and customer service. They have a history of entrepreneurial success, but were not satisfied with "staying in place." Their ability to step up to the next level and achieve their objectives and potential required them to transform their culture and to focus on innovation, results and product development. Using the Self Track™ Training, they focused on Creating A Culture Of Accountability® at every level of their organization. Precor leadership clearly articulated what they were trying to achieve in order to align their entire team, define their culture, and enroll their employees in taking accountability to achieve their vision.
Rather than resting on their laurels and accepting their current level of performance, and using the principles and practices from the Accountability Training,® they created a world class manufacturing organization and addressed market challenges in their distribution system. In a Precor all-employee kick-off meeting, President Paul J Byrne stated: "The world's a mess, the company is slow, and the weather is bad (a Seattle-based company). We're simply not going to accept any of these old excuses anymore." Greater personal and organizational accountability was becoming a part of their organizational culture; it was just the way things worked there.
At the beginning of the engagement, Precor's Management team completed an assessment regarding how they demonstrated each of the best practices associated with the Steps To Accountability.® Fifteen months later, their score dramatically improved as the team learned how to model and implement positive accountability throughout the organization. More importantly, in terms of revenue, Precor recorded their best year ever, increasing revenues by 13% and profitability by 66%, and experienced substantial increases in service measures.
Exercising Accountability to Build Results...
The Results: Recorded Best Year Ever, Revenue up 13% and Profit s up 66%
The Story: Precor, one of the largest fitness manufacturers in the United States, sets the Global standard for innovation and excellence in fitness equipment quality and customer service. They have a history of entrepreneurial success, but were not satisfied with "staying in place." Their ability to step up to the next level and achieve their objectives and potential required them to transform their culture and to focus on innovation, results and product development. Using the Self Track™ Training, they focused on Creating A Culture Of Accountability® at every level of their organization. Precor leadership clearly articulated what they were trying to achieve in order to align their entire team, define their culture, and enroll their employees in taking accountability to achieve their vision.
Rather than resting on their laurels and accepting their current level of performance, and using the principles and practices from the Accountability Training,® they created a world class manufacturing organization and addressed market challenges in their distribution system. In a Precor all-employee kick-off meeting, President Paul J Byrne stated: "The world's a mess, the company is slow, and the weather is bad (a Seattle-based company). We're simply not going to accept any of these old excuses anymore." Greater personal and organizational accountability was becoming a part of their organizational culture; it was just the way things worked there.
At the beginning of the engagement, Precor's Management team completed an assessment regarding how they demonstrated each of the best practices associated with the Steps To Accountability.® Fifteen months later, their score dramatically improved as the team learned how to model and implement positive accountability throughout the organization. More importantly, in terms of revenue, Precor recorded their best year ever, increasing revenues by 13% and profitability by 66%, and experienced substantial increases in service measures.
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The Story: Schwan's is a multi-billion dollar, privately owned company with 17,000 employees. They are the largest direct-to-home food delivery provider in the United States. They began with home delivery of their family's homemade ice cream. J. Ronald Frump, SVP and COO for Schwan's Home Service East, a division of The Schwan Food Company introduced the Self Track™ Training in the Southeast Region. The impact was fairly immediate, exceeding their goals of retention and sales. Subsequent to the initial Self Track Training, Schwan's Corporate University trained internal facilitators for their employee's enterprise wide.
Frump comments: "We knew that we had challenges in our management organization and we had to teach accountability and responsibility to achieve our goals. Since that day back in March, I can say we accomplished our objective. Since the group training session, (The Self Track Training) has been taught many more times and has cascaded down throughout the entire organization. As a result, we are more focused, we are more results oriented and best of all, we are seeing improvement in overall business performance. We are clear on goals, we hold ourselves accountable and more importantly, we overcome any challenge."
Appetite For Accountability
The Results: Increased RM retention by 5% and lead the org in this category. Hitting their $5000 per week metric.
The Story: Schwan's is a multi-billion dollar, privately owned company with 17,000 employees. They are the largest direct-to-home food delivery provider in the United States. They began with home delivery of their family's homemade ice cream. J. Ronald Frump, SVP and COO for Schwan's Home Service East, a division of The Schwan Food Company introduced the Self Track™ Training in the Southeast Region. The impact was fairly immediate, exceeding their goals of retention and sales. Subsequent to the initial Self Track Training, Schwan's Corporate University trained internal facilitators for their employee's enterprise wide.
Frump comments: "We knew that we had challenges in our management organization and we had to teach accountability and responsibility to achieve our goals. Since that day back in March, I can say we accomplished our objective. Since the group training session, (The Self Track Training) has been taught many more times and has cascaded down throughout the entire organization. As a result, we are more focused, we are more results oriented and best of all, we are seeing improvement in overall business performance. We are clear on goals, we hold ourselves accountable and more importantly, we overcome any challenge."
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The Story: Founded in 1960, Domino's Pizza is the recognized world leader in pizza delivery operating a network of company-owned and franchise-owned stores in the United States and international markets. Domino's Pizza's Vision illustrates a company of exceptional people on a mission to be the best pizza delivery company in the world. Domino's engaged Partners In Leadership to deliver a keynote to over 300 of their top leaders at Domino's National Sales Meeting using the Self Track™ Training.
It was a precarious time in their history. They needed to identify the gaps and implement a positive approach to creating greater accountability. Internationally, no one could compete with them. But, domestically, they were losing market share-and fast.
Creating A Culture Of Accountability,® Domino's leadership changed their strategy in the marketplace and executed their plan flawlessly. Implementing the See It® best practices, they listened to what customers were saying about their pizza: "This tastes like cardboard!" and "the sauce tastes like ketchup!" to name a few. The leadership team scraped their entire pizza recipe and sauce and introduced a better-quality pizza that has been fantastically received by the marketplace. As a result, these actions and strategy led to the highest year-over-year increase in the fast-food industry of 14.6%.
Why Not?
The Results: Highest year-over-year increase in the fast food industry of almost 15%.
The Story: Founded in 1960, Domino's Pizza is the recognized world leader in pizza delivery operating a network of company-owned and franchise-owned stores in the United States and international markets. Domino's Pizza's Vision illustrates a company of exceptional people on a mission to be the best pizza delivery company in the world. Domino's engaged Partners In Leadership to deliver a keynote to over 300 of their top leaders at Domino's National Sales Meeting using the Self Track™ Training.
It was a precarious time in their history. They needed to identify the gaps and implement a positive approach to creating greater accountability. Internationally, no one could compete with them. But, domestically, they were losing market share-and fast.
Creating A Culture Of Accountability,® Domino's leadership changed their strategy in the marketplace and executed their plan flawlessly. Implementing the See It® best practices, they listened to what customers were saying about their pizza: "This tastes like cardboard!" and "the sauce tastes like ketchup!" to name a few. The leadership team scraped their entire pizza recipe and sauce and introduced a better-quality pizza that has been fantastically received by the marketplace. As a result, these actions and strategy led to the highest year-over-year increase in the fast-food industry of 14.6%.
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The Story: When Grill Concepts ordered up the Self Track™ Training for their Annual Management Conference on the topic of accountability, they were experiencing a decline in upscale casual dining due to a shift in the economy. The ownership of their 29 restaurants was also in transition from privately owned to publicly held, with new leadership in place.
Grill Concepts engaged Partners In Leadership's services three years in a row. After implementing the Self Track™ Training, they experienced a successful transition of leadership, and increased same store sales of 11% in spite of an economic downturn. When every other restaurant in category declined, Grill Concepts was able to maintain same store sales. "Learning how to See It, Own It, Solve It and Do It, has made us better team members and Managers". - Louie Feinstein, Vice President, Operations.
Accountability is A Restaurant's Recipe For Success
The Results: Same store sales increased 11 %
The Story: When Grill Concepts ordered up the Self Track™ Training for their Annual Management Conference on the topic of accountability, they were experiencing a decline in upscale casual dining due to a shift in the economy. The ownership of their 29 restaurants was also in transition from privately owned to publicly held, with new leadership in place.
Grill Concepts engaged Partners In Leadership's services three years in a row. After implementing the Self Track™ Training, they experienced a successful transition of leadership, and increased same store sales of 11% in spite of an economic downturn. When every other restaurant in category declined, Grill Concepts was able to maintain same store sales. "Learning how to See It, Own It, Solve It and Do It, has made us better team members and Managers". - Louie Feinstein, Vice President, Operations.
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The Story: This leading Fortune 500 Company improved their financial health and expanded their business operations internationally. Partners In Leadership conducted ten workshops for their Delaware offices. The workshop participants were able to internalize the Above The Line® behavior by asking the question "What Else Can I Do?" Using the principles and practices of the Accountability Training,® this team was able to exceed plan by increasing their sales revenues by 20% and increasing the number of countries they were doing business in from 5 to 7 new countries per year.
Accountability Improves Financial Health
The Results: Increased sales revenues 20% and increased number of countries doing business with.
The Story: This leading Fortune 500 Company improved their financial health and expanded their business operations internationally. Partners In Leadership conducted ten workshops for their Delaware offices. The workshop participants were able to internalize the Above The Line® behavior by asking the question "What Else Can I Do?" Using the principles and practices of the Accountability Training,® this team was able to exceed plan by increasing their sales revenues by 20% and increasing the number of countries they were doing business in from 5 to 7 new countries per year.
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The Story: Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. Haemonetics, a global company that markets automated blood processing systems, helps health care providers hold on to blood. The company develops and produces blood recovery systems that collect and re-infuse a patient's own blood before, during, or after major medical procedures. With the aim of Creating A Culture Of Accountability,® Haemonetics rolled out the Self Track™ in the United States, Canada and France. The result: increased profitability as sales contracts increased 15% year over year.
Accountability: The Life Blood of An Organization
The Results: Increased sales contracts 15% year over year
The Story: Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. Haemonetics, a global company that markets automated blood processing systems, helps health care providers hold on to blood. The company develops and produces blood recovery systems that collect and re-infuse a patient's own blood before, during, or after major medical procedures. With the aim of Creating A Culture Of Accountability,® Haemonetics rolled out the Self Track™ in the United States, Canada and France. The result: increased profitability as sales contracts increased 15% year over year.
