The President of Proceco, a Montreal, Quebec based international manufacturing company partnered with Patwell Consulting and used Triple Impact Coaching to support his management team in developing the people strategy required to grow a small company into a mid sized organization.

Proceco engineers and manufactures integrated cleaning systems for manufacturing industries. The company was founded and headquartered in Montreal, Quebec Canada in 1975. At the time of this coaching project, it had approximately 125 employees and over $20,000,000 in sales. Proceco has sales offices in Canada and the US and export about 75% of its products worldwide. Robert Burns had been President since 2002 and an employee of the company for over 25 years. In 2001, just prior to Burns’ promotion to the presidency, Proceco deployed a strategic plan to differentiate itself from its traditional business which was quickly approaching maturity.

Just as things started to turn around for the company, two unforeseen events seriously impacted the company’s sales: 1) the aftermath of 911 pushed the already distressed aerospace industry, a key market for Proceco, into decline, and 2) a rapidly rising Canadian dollar reduced the company’s competitiveness. Proceco’s work orders dropped significantly to the point that the company’s employees were working at half capacity. The sales team became de-motivated. Sales strategies that worked in the past were ineffective. Employees were misaligned, internal power struggles were building and silos were becoming entrenched. Without loosing sight of its strategic direction, severe measures with an emphasis on increasing sales, reducing costs and getting orders out as fast as possible were put into action.

In 2005 Proceco could see the benefits of the strategic turn around. Sales increased and by January 2006 the company had a record backlog of orders. Robert decided in September of 2005 that he needed to do things differently to lead Proceco through the next stage of growth. Previously, he was successful as an operational leader, but now he needed to work out of his comfort zone and be more strategic and coach and empower others to act. The results of an employee survey also revealed that the employees felt overworked and unmotivated. They thought communication was lacking and they were frustrated with the ineffective planning which was creating a culture of firefighting and a loss of work life balance.

Robert knew he would have to influence his senior management colleagues to buy into a new vision and obtain their active support in making change happen at Proceco. To meet these challenges, he signed up for the coaching course given by Patwell consultants at the McGill International Executive Institute. Through the course he learned about the Triple Impact Coaching Model and wanted to use it in his company. He engaged Patwell Consulting to design a six-month coaching program to support him to lead and coach others through the next phase of company transition. The company challenges, consulting and coaching approach, actions and results are summarized on the chart above.

Proceco President Robert Burns described the company’s transition as follows:

During 2003-2005 I had two major strategic issues to overcome: 1) a misaligned sales force that lacked leadership, direction and motivation and 2) a frustrated engineering group who were critical to our success in the new phase of growth. Our existing processes and structure was becoming inefficient, resulting in poor planning, a lack of accountability and a loss of customer focus. We were also getting ready to embark on using new technologies in our products that were driven by our client requests. As I approached this phase of our development, I searched for an easier way to lead change.

Patwell Consulting assisted me in developing a collaborative process to design an all-employee meeting which focused on the vision and strategic direction of the company. We built in a process to obtain feedback after each step, from every level of the company. This approach was new for me, and my team, and enabled me to understand areas of concern, resistance and support. This very positive approach continues today and is helping me to be more supportive, empowering and responsive to the needs of the employees.

Coaching helped me to learn while doing. My behavior became more intentional and resulted in more effective results that rippled throughout the organization. I learned about how my actions affected teams, and the company at large. My Patwell coach provided me with specific readings, benchmarks, best practices, assessment tools and processes that helped me. We also developed an action plan that I could commit to. I was able to more clearly articulate the vision. I created senior management buy-in and set objectives and alignment throughout the organization.

Once I was able to effectively communicate the vision and create a sense of urgency by showing the team why we needed to act, it became easier to set challenging objectives. Patwell provided support to the management team and we developed a People & Leadership Development strategy to support the changes. This, I believe, demonstrated our investment in our people. I am very proud to say everyone is committed and actively implementing changes within their own span of control.

Triple Impact Coaching took into consideration the organizational context, selection process and check point meetings. We really wanted to develop a learning culture which meant spreading this approach throughout the organization. We used the initiatives and business challenges that we faced on a daily basis as a means of examining our assumptions, beliefs, choices and actions. We also developed a leadership profile and competency model which helped us reinforce how we wanted to change. These tools and processes have strengthened our leadership culture and positioned us for sustainability in the long term.

The full Proceco story is available in the book Triple Impact Coaching.