A leading multi-sited, home improvement company was struggling to meet demand due to an unexpected increase in interest. The supply chain was still trying to catch up following the pandemic, teams were stretched, customer satisfaction was dropping and revenue and jobs were at risk.
Creating Dynamic was approached to identify new ways of working and deliver transformational efficiency through Traction EOS™.
To protect client confidentiality, all names have been anonymised in this case study.
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A post-pandemic problem
No company can succeed if there isn’t a clear understanding amongst employees of its key goals and the processes needed to achieve them, but such clarity isn’t easily achieved. A variety of problems, both within and beyond a company, can undermine clear thinking, and the biggest issue in recent years has been the pandemic.
Each company experienced COVID in different ways, some seeing business grind to a halt, others seeing it expand dramatically. But while the impact was different, the reaction needed to be the same: a rapid re-adjustment of company strategy and quick rebuilding of the clarity COVID had removed.
Home improvement benefitted more than many industries. As lockdown forced people to spend more time at home, many busied themselves by investing in their living space, leading to a surge of interest that was unlike anything HomeCo had seen before.
This created deep-running challenges and exposed a number of long-standing operational problems. Increased enquiries meant more sales opportunities, but it also led to over-stretched teams, longer lead times and a supply chain struggling to meet demand.
It was a perfect storm that put customer satisfaction, company reputation, revenue, and ultimately jobs at risk.
Building up Traction EOS™
Creating Dynamic founder Adam Johnson was brought in to find solutions, and he started with strategic consultations designed to identify the root causes.
From these sessions, it became clear that while teams were working well in themselves, structure and communication were missing, leading to a siloed mentality and reactive approach to problem-solving. In other words, the company was always fighting fires.
A new approach was required. Rather than working in isolation, individuals and teams needed to understand each other’s roles, the work they were doing, the problems they were facing and the ways they could work in tandem to solve them. Close collaboration would put HomeCo on the front foot, and Traction EOS™ provided the perfect framework.
Developed by Gino Wickman, Traction EOS™ is a management framework that helps businesses succeed through greater organisational clarity. HomeCo was new to the Traction methodology, so during a series of off-site meetings, Adam introduced the leadership team to the key concepts, outlined their benefits and provided insight into how they could be applied to meet the business’s specific needs.
This led to an intensive full-day session with the Senior Leadership team. The session focused on brutal honesty and encouraged people to show vulnerability as they mapped out every issue, obstacle, blocker and risk that the business experienced. Such openness can be difficult, so Adam drew on his facilitation and coaching skills to create a safe and respectful environment for all.
A series of workshop-style sessions with key stakeholders across the business were also introduced. During these meetings, Adam walked the group through the Traction EOS™ methodology, helping the team develop a common language so that people understood the approach and adopted the ways of working in a quick and effective manner.
As a result, ‘Level 10’™ meetings were introduced. Using agendas detailed by Wickman’s methodology, these meetings were conducted by the leadership team under Adam’s guidance every Wednesday. They lasted for 90 minutes and started with a focused review of a scorecard (again, devised by Adam in collaboration with HomeCo) that listed the company’s key metrics for success and how it was tracking against them.
Crystal clear clarity
Adam’s work has had a profound impact on HomeCo, helping them gain greater clarity and get a better vision of what they want to achieve and how they’re going to achieve it.
“Adam has a lot of experience with Traction EOS™ implementation and he showed the depth of that experience across the entire process,” Ben, a member of HomeCo’s leadership team, said.
“In a clear and systematic way, he helped us understand the process for implementing Traction, showing us what the steps are, why they matter, and how to apply them. Most importantly, he gave us clarity on what we were doing and what our objectives were.
“I would recommend Traction to any business, but it’s vital to bring in people like Adam to make it happen, both smoothly and quickly, so that the business can gain the benefits and achieve the clarity to move forward at a faster pace. It’s such a fundamental change that it requires objective experts to make it work – and Adam at Creating Dynamic is definitely an expert!”
Contact us today to discover how Creating Dynamic can help your company become more efficient and achieve better results.
