Dairy Farmers of America: Leadership Development Case Study

Their Challenge

The milk marketing cooperative Dairy Farmers of America faces a rapidly evolving dairy industry, with competitive and environmental pressure requiring leaders that could take DFA into the future. They recognized the need to prepare the next generation of leaders who respect DFA’s past, are deeply committed to DFA’s values AND can lead the organization through the complexity and various challenges.

Due to the nature of DFA’s growth – that of an organization of acquisitions – the strategic business units are susceptible to “talent silos.” Building the next generation of leaders would need to include a way to break down those barriers and for these top talent participants to begin learning about each other as well as other parts of the cooperative.

Our Approach

DFA launched the Make Your Mark leadership development and readiness program suite, including two programs that cultivate future cooperative leaders at the mid-management level and senior management level.

To develop a collective point of view on what skills future cooperative leaders will need to possess, DFA Talent and Organizational Development (T&OD) engaged Conversant to conduct senior leader interviews and analysis to derive the key development focus areas for both Make Your Mark programs, design the programs to address the key development focus areas, and facilitate each instance.

The T&OD team established an executive steering committee to ensure program related decisions stayed in alignment with cooperative-level imperatives over division-level interests.

Both leadership development programs feature immersive experiences, industry experts in critical competencies, and discussions with DFA leaders on the current strategy and issues within the cooperative. In addition to working on a real-world project and collaborating in a cohort talk space, participants received individual coaching and participated in assessments to further the respective development focus areas of each program.

The Impact

The first three years of the Make Your Mark programs gave rave reviews of their experience. These included marks of 4.8 for the mid-level leader program and 4.7 on a 5.0 scale for the senior-leader program regarding the overall experience value. They also expressed that their participation in the program will add value to the organization, through scores of 4.8 and 4.7 respectively.

The purpose of the Make Your Mark programs is to develop the future leaders of the cooperative. Therefore, the ultimate measure of success is the career advancement of participants. Within four months of the launch year program completions, three of the collective thirty-seven participants have been promoted within the organization. Two of the promotions were into roles that have been identified as critical roles to the organization’s performance, and one of the promotions was a female advancing into a senior director role.

Their Challenge

Our Approach

The T&OD team established an executive steering committee to ensure program related decisions stayed in alignment with cooperative-level imperatives over division-level interests.

The Impact

Their Challenge

Presbyterian Healthcare Services (PHS) had been working to improve the patient and member experience for many years with variable success; it was faced with renewed urgency to improve the customer experience in order to achieve their mission-critical goals with visible end results.

The risks were also growing with public transparency of performance and potential associated payment reductions. PHS leaders recognized that in order to significantly move the needle, they needed to connect with people’s hearts and minds.

Our Approach

If the solution were merely a clinical or business challenge, they wouldn’t have needed us, but they knew they had to go deeper, and engaged Conversant to guide more comprehensive change leadership. Our relationship with them began by meeting them where they were, taking stock of their organization as a unique ecosystem, and wrapping our expertise around their specific needs.

We began pouring over mountains of data and feedback that had already been collected from patients and members. This data was distilled into a ‘voice of the customer,’ which served as the basis for the work to come. We held workshops with the top 100 executives to help them understand what customers were asking for and create an aligned set of guiding commitments.

Our crowning achievement for PHS was this set of commitments to the customer, coined The Presbyterian Promise. Once The Promise was created, we learned that workforce members were confused with several sets of expectations and absence of clarity about what was relevant now. To address this we conducted a “clean the closet” activity where the leadership team reviewed past cultural icons and values to determine which ones would stay or go based on their alignment. Thanks to the clarity of The Promise, the task was easy, proving that The Presbyterian Promise was more than just nice words on a page. It serves as a filter and way to examine old ideas and ensure they helped achieve The Promise. By August of 2016, PHS advanced to a place where The Promise became part of their vision document and reaffirmed CARES Commitments- their refined values.

The Promise was designed to build PHS leader capacity to host conversations, align colleagues and help them move forward to deliver The Promise. To work, it had to resonate with its 10,000 employees and not be viewed as the “idea of the month.” We were asking the workforce to engage differently with their work, and we wanted to reach each person at the level of meaning and purpose. We needed to “do with” and not “do to” or “tell.” Instead of just presenting The Promise, meetings were designed so that each person got involved in the conversation. Leaders were supported with a cadre of facilitators to deliver conversations to over 9,000 employees through 700 collaborative leadership development sessions. Throughout the organization, we asked, “why does your work matter?” Employees became even more engaged and inspired to care for patients in a way that demonstrated the power of The Promise.

The Impact

PHS has seen progress in its mission-critical goal of improving the patient and member experience in the hospitals and health plan.
The nature of conversations within the organization has changed. Leaders are focused on facts, finding intersections in difficult conversations, and asking, “what is it time for now?” Awareness of presence, learning to listen and the impact of leader behaviors on the environment are forefront.
The method and approach have contributed to tangible improvements in workforce engagement. In fact, subsequent work in deploying strategy has utilized the approach and methods.
Capacity has been built inside the management team in using appreciative coaching skills.

Conversant is a true partner invested in our success. They met us where we were and have given us very practical skills to deploy in the moment to move us forward. Today I go into conversations that I might have avoided before; better prepared. Conversant is unflappable. They ‘locked elbows with us in moving us forward’ and addressed challenges and issues as they arose; true partners and guides in building our capacity as leaders and as an organization. I am grateful for the gift of how to have more productive organizational communications that allow us to be more productive  and stronger.

Their Challenge Presbyterian Healthcare Services (PHS) had been working to improve the patient and member experience for many years with variable success; it was faced with renewed urgency to improve the customer experience in order to achieve their mission-critical goals with visible end results. The risks were also growing with public transparency of performance and […]

Leadership Development & Coaching, Change Leadership

Dairy Farmers of America

Their Challenge

Our Approach

The T&OD team established an executive steering committee to ensure program related decisions stayed in alignment with cooperative-level imperatives over division-level interests.

The Impact

Their Challenge The milk marketing cooperative Dairy Farmers of America faces a rapidly evolving dairy industry, with competitive and environmental pressure requiring leaders that could take DFA into the future. They recognized the need to prepare the next generation of leaders who respect DFA’s past, are deeply committed to DFA’s values AND can lead the […]

Leadership Development & Coaching

Secureworks

Their Challenge

Secureworks is a cybersecurity firm specializing in threat intelligence detection and response. The company offers advance threat and critical asset protection, compliance and cybersecurity risk management, and security operations services.

In 2017, Mike Cote, CEO, began a multi-year strategic change from a largely services driven business model to a largely Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) business model. The transformation led to changes in the leadership team (50% turnover), pace of research and development, marketing and sales processes, and a shift from a culture driven by efficiency to a culture driven by innovation.

Our Approach

To improve team performance, Secureworks introduced Conversant’s DecisionStyles assessment for executive team members that helped them see each others’ strengths more clearly and allowed each leader to know and understand one another in new ways.

Executive coaching for the CEO, the President, and the Chief Operating Officer supported them in creating a climate in which integrating new and old executives was an occasion for learning, personal growth, and unprecedented strategic alignment.

We worked with the entire executive team on the timing and quality of the conversations they have with one another, with the people they lead, with customers, and with board members. Using the Cycle of Value: Align, Act, Adjust and the Conversation Meter, they learned to diagnose situations, predict trends and prescribe solutions to practice effective change leadership and address alignment challenges.

Following Secureworks’ strategy implementation and partnership with Conversant, the entire company is focused on “innovating faster than the threat actors” in order to achieve cybersecurity.

The Impact

The Secureworks executive team, according to the CEO, is more aligned to strategic priorities than any time in their history.
The shift from efficiency to innovation accelerated the development of a new Counter Threat Platform that is the foundation for their SAAS offerings.
The CEO reported the executive development program Conversant provided for the President and the COO of Secureworks is the most impactful leadership development he has seen in his career.

Their Challenge Secureworks is a cybersecurity firm specializing in threat intelligence detection and response. The company offers advance threat and critical asset protection, compliance and cybersecurity risk management, and security operations services. In 2017, Mike Cote, CEO, began a multi-year strategic change from a largely services driven business model to a largely Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) business […]

Leadership Development & Coaching, Team Performance, Change Leadership, Strategy Implementation

Dairy Farmers of America

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The Impact

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