Pervasive Leadership Excellence
A LEAN Manufacturer’s Commitment to Developing Its Leaders
Established in 1955, TimBar Packaging is an industry leader in the production of point-of-purchase displays and specialized corrugated boxes. The company, which currently employs approximately 1,000 people at 10 locations, has been utilizing TalentQuest’s performance management solution since 2005. In 2007, they approached us with a very specific goal in mind: to raise the level of effectiveness of their manufacturing management teams by providing supervisors with a common set of comprehensive leadership skills that would be practiced in each of the company’s facilities.
TimBar is, and always has been, a leader in embracing the disciplines of LEAN manufacturing. Their traditions of quality, service and innovation have enabled them to build relationships and grow their service area to include most of the eastern United States. Company leadership is keenly focused on continually improving safety, productivity and efficiency. All employees are highly engaged and well-equipped to drive efficiencies across the operation and its business processes. However, after assessing their long-term organizational goals, senior leadership realized that operational prowess was not enough to take their business to the next level and that pervasive leadership excellence was just as critical. They realized that, in combining comprehensive leadership skills with the principles of LEAN manufacturing, their supervisors would have the tools they needed to effectively analyze operational metrics and the confidence they needed to manage their teams in a way that maximized business results.
TalentQuest Manager Competency Model
Developing Emerging Leaders is based on the TalentQuest Manager Competency Model, a research-based model that captures the skills most critical to management success.
Leadership Boot Camp
TalentQuest worked closely with TimBar’s senior leadership to develop a supervisory tract of TimBarTech, their enterprise learning program. Our Developing Emerging Leaders (DEL) program was customized to create “TimBar Leadership Boot Camp,” a component of TimBarTech. The “Coaching for Excellence”, “Gaining Credibility and Influence” and “Managing Change” modules were particularly compelling to TimBar, so the program was tailored to address these components especially.
In the boot camp program, participants gain knowledge of management fundamentals, practice the skills associated with successful management, and ultimately create lasting changes in effectiveness back at their jobs. The high-energy program appealed to TimBar’s culture because its interactive, blended learning approach combines instructor-led presentations with small and large group discussions, case studies and simulation-based role plays.
Participants learned best practices in leadership, teambuilding and communication and ways to apply these in the TimBar culture.
Always maintaining a focus on maximizing the success of the business, they also learned how to decipher and balance the needs of their ‘critical maintenance clients’ with those of their ‘strategic growth clients,’ while managing the needs of their invaluable team members at the same time.
The program was rolled out in one facility the first year, and then in the remaining facilities the following year.
The Results
“The results were immediate and pretty dramatic,” said Bill Thom, Senior Vice President of Operations at TimBar. “In groups that were led by supervisors who had completed the Leadership Boot Camp, we saw improvements in productivity and other operational metrics in the first year. In fact, their performance metrics were 15 percent higher than other groups within our organization. Needless to say, we were very pleased with these results.”
With an ultimate goal of world class reliability for their clients, TimBar recognizes that each manager is responsible for a host of moving parts, all of which need to be supervised and synchronized for success. By improving the overall skills of their operational supervisors, TimBar is building a heightened sense of autonomy in decision-making and ownership of process results in each individual. The resulting “value-stream manager” operates with a strategic mindset rather than the previous “fire-fighting” approach.
As the program has been rolled out to TimBar’s other facilities, the feedback has continued to be immensely positive. Supervisors have a better understanding of how their actions and the decisions they make can measurably impact overall business results. As such, they are making decisions with the bigger picture in mind. All employees, including the Boot Camp program participants participate in periodic peer reviews, performance reviews and 360 degree team reviews. Disciplinary actions have drastically dropped since the program was implemented, and communications have expanded across all levels of leadership as the company continues to build upon its culture of entrepreneurship and innovation. Metrics involving downtime, set-up time, through-put and waste have improved across the board. Furthermore, supervisors have displayed increased levels of confidence, empowered with the skills needed to resolve conflicts, build and develop teams, coach others, and make a real leadership difference.
