Case Study: Distributor of Building Supplies

Who Did We Help?

A Midwest distributor of building supplies that made an acquisition of a competitor. With that acquisition, the company grew to 16 locations with just over 300 employees.

What Was the Problem?

Eight months after acquiring the new location, most things were not going as planned. Morale was suffering. Projected cost savings simply were not materializing. Team members were frustrated with management. Communication was sporadic at best. The new team members were, in the absence of data, filling in the gaps with doomsday scenarios, e.g., job eliminations, back office consolidations.

CultureMD was called in.

What Did We Do?

After meeting with the senior management team to share the process that would be deployed, CultureMD experts visited 4 of the 16 locations interviewing 45 team members across all functions from administration and warehouse to drivers and management. The interviews were 30 minutes each and were conducted confidentially. The findings were carefully evaluated and presented to management along with recommendations for a strategic plan to develop a common vision for a "new" company for the acquired organization as well as all existing locations and all future locations.

This new vision lead to a key exercise conducted with the management team to craft a set of values that would define how people were expected to behave in the organization no matter the location. Each value was accompanied by a clear set of operating principles that fully spelled out the expected behaviors team members were to exhibit. The newly defined values and operating principles became the common language that was needed to make sure all team members understood the company’s expectations while empowering them to make decisions day in and day out.

What Was the Result?

With the newly created vision and values in hand, and additional acquisition was made. The challenges experienced in the first effort did not occur as an understanding of each and what the expectations were, was clear.

What Did We All Learn?

When open and clear communication occurs early, when the expectations that define who will do what and where, and expected behaviors are shared through values and expectations, the culture that emerges will be successful.

And that is the real bottom line.