With CEO’s concurrence, Tony Mulkern conducted anonymous interviews with all senior level managers and mid-level managers. This revealed numerous communication lapses and causes for dissatisfaction. Chief among them was the CEO’s own style. Additionally, he tended to delegate the same responsibility to several people at one time, with predictable conflicts and confusions.

The CEO was extremely open to the manner in which the feedback was presented and showed great eagerness to increase his leadership effectiveness. We scheduled regular coaching sessions to help him improve his communication and delegation skills. We also clarified each senior team member’s main areas of contributions and set objectives within those areas, tied to bonuses.

Turnover was reduced by 50% among all corporate employees and remained at zero among the senior officers for many years. Numerous field managers as well as corporate officers reported the vast improvements in the CEO’s management style and communications. The company became recognized as leader in industry due to a high level of profitability and growth.

Confidential interviews with team revealed some expected recommendations for improving management style. The truly eye-opening finding, however, was that former support staff whom he had trusted implicitly were seen by others as blatantly undermining him. There were indications that this "blind spot" might be part of a self-defeating pattern.

While working to soften his general communication style, perhaps more importantly, we also worked to improve his skills in screening and hiring, in delegating responsibility effectively, and in following up. Particular emphasis was placed on effectively evaluating who was worthy of his trust and how to terminate those who were not, while minimizing liabilities.

For the past several years, the problem of rancorous support relations has not recurred, and client has experienced significant increases in executive responsibility, authority, and income.

An assessment plan recommended by Mulkern Associates was implemented to interview, with a pledge of anonymity, all employees of one badly divided department. The plan also included interviewing the man who charged racial bias in regard to the disciplinary notice as well as the two women who had filed the complaint.

Trust with the effected employees was quickly established, and they were extremely candid in interviews. The conflicted department was a very racially diverse group. Several members used to tease one another good naturedly by using racial epithets. When a new employee joined the department, she was deeply offended.

The man who charged racial discrimination admitted making sexual comments to two women, but said they never complained when other men had made similar remarks to them. He was of a different race than the women and the other men and was confident the women’s complaint was based on this fact.  Interviews with these women tended to corroborate the man’s conclusion. Nevertheless, by law the company had to act on their sexual harassment complaints, even if they were partially based on racial bias!

The Mulkern Associates report was an eye-opener for the CEO, who received the information gratefully.

Recommendations were made to provide coaching, counseling, and training and to establish policies that were uniformly applied. The disciplinary warning was rescinded and expunged from the file. All recommendations were accepted and implemented. The CEO’s actions were seen by employees as a sign of the company’s sincere goodwill to get off to a fresh start.

Cohesiveness was restored in the effected department, and the charge of racial bias in regard to discipline was dropped. Coaching with the CEO produced strategies for maintaining his finger on the pulse of the company while growing a very demanding business. The CEO expressed the highest satisfaction at the outcome.

We scheduled regular coaching sessions with CEO to go through the issues that kept her awake at night. These sessions provided her with approaches for

• Raising difficult subjects, while minimizing defensiveness
• Establishing accountability
• Sorting out the facts from hearsay
• Dealing with resistance to change
• Putting responsibility for solving problems where it belongs, the person who owns the problem.
• Assessing which executives were good fit and possessed high potential.

A more professional, experienced, and qualified team was formed. Plans were created and implemented to hire other senior staff, together with procedures for getting best possible candidates.

CEO gained trust in key people; goals and objectives were clearly set throughout the entire senior team; and an executive bonus plan was implemented, all contributing to significant, continued growth.

The company retained Mulkern Associates as coach to provide the CM with a more effective approach to dealing with people and conflicts. CM at first was resistant to coaching but gradually came to see the benefit and to regard it as invaluable. Coaching was in four principal areas.

• How to establish accountability with people who did not report to him
• Reducing stress
• How to leverage position in firm to ensure quality of initial engineering plans
• How to prepare for possible advancement in the firm.

As a result, five main outcomes were produced:

1. Tony Mulkern modeled for CM an empathetic, coaching approach to problem solving that obtained desired results while reducing his stress
2. More candid, consensus building communication was established with boss
3. CM gained greater respect of project client, who agreed to follow key recommendation CM had made to no avail for 12 months
4. CM developed training program for the company on increasing quality of plans, thereby minimizing need for costly rework. Boss was elated with the results
5. CM received promotion to desired position and accompanying raise.
   

Strategic planning process facilitated by Mulkern Associates produced challenging but realistic and measurable goals and objectives. Senior officers were each asked to plan measurable individual/department contributions to overall corporate goals and objectives. Some team members were unable to specify outputs and action plans for achievement. When subsequent coaching produced no greater clarity or specific results from these highly-compensated executives, it became clear that they were an impediment to corporate and team success, and they were replaced.

Other executives who aligned their specific output targets with overall corporate goals contributed to the continued growth of the firm, a successful IPO, and to making the CEO/Founder a millionaire many times over.