Complete Automation Culture Case Study – One Team, Creating Complete Solutions

About

Ken Matheis and the Complete Companies were recognized as a leader in navigating the COVID-19 crisis and Ken was interviewed by Fox2News Detroit.

To listen to Ken’s interview on the local Detriot News Station, click here.

The Complete family of companies includes:
Complete Filtration, involved in the design, engineering and manufacture of products for the air filtration industry.
Complete Automation, focused on the design, manufacture and installation of paint delivery systems.
Complete Finishing providing metal finishing products and services for Aerospace, Brewing, Medical, Military and many other demanding applications.

Founded in 1984 and located in Lake Orion, Michigan, just north of Detroit, the Complete Companies currently employ nearly 300 teammates, all driven by one common purpose and set of values:

Purpose: “One Team, Creating Complete Solutions”

Core Values: Empathy, Integrity, Ownership and Quality.

Their Purpose provides direction for the team; their values establish their ‘How’… how they act, how they interact, and how they make decisions.

Situation

Founded as a family-owned and managed company, the founder and CEO, Ken Matheis has always emphasized and nurtured a family-oriented culture from the inception of the company. However, as the company grew, the organization began to compartmentalize into silos and functional areas with little operational overlap.

Although dedicated teams continued to perform, improve operations and overall quality, the separation began to reduce communication, influencing trust and negatively impacting the overall culture.

Looking to reverse this trend, All American Leadership (AAL) was selected to help Ken and his leadership team regain the sense of family, establish ‘Purpose & Values’ and improve cross-company communication.

Approach

Rob Nielsen, Founder and CEO of All American Leadership, led the initiative with the Complete Companies, utilizing a three-step approach: Assess, Address, and Nurture.

Assess

Using the AAL Culture Assessment, a snapshot of the Complete Companies was created as an objective baseline to determine where the company was, and what the best allocation of focus and resources would be to influence organizational performance. 78% of the organization participated. The Culture Assessment measures and compares four primary dimensions of culture: Trust, Communication, Accountability, and Alignment. The Culture Assessment uses the results to generate a custom action plan that prioritizes opportunities with the greatest potential for positive impact.

The overall results of the assessment were ‘average’. The Complete Companies’ culture was no worse or better than any other first time participating organizations. Looking at the performance dimensions, the Complete Companies scored a 5.6 out of 7.0 in Trust compared to an average of 5.7 and scored a 5.5 out of 7.0 in Alignment compared to an average of 5.7.

The Action Plan was more telling. As expected, communication was confirmed as an area of opportunity; but communication was not the greatest area of opportunity.

Our company communicates in a way that helps us adjust quickly to changing situations was the area of greatest opportunity within communication with an average score of 4.3 out of 7.0 and only 8% of the Complete Companies’ workforce reporting they had the information they need to perform effectively.

As a team, we communicate effectively to do our best work was the second area of opportunity within communication with an average score of 4.6 out of 7.0 and shows 17% of the Complete Companies’ workforce reporting that team communication was executed effectively.

As mentioned earlier, although communication was an area of opportunity, communication was not the driving factor impacting the Complete Companies culture. The driving factor was alignment. Alignment takes into consideration purpose & values and ‘are we doing what we say we will do’ as an organization.

The Purpose of the company is consistently communicated and emphasized.

The Purpose and Values of the organization are discussed and emphasized regularly.

With average scores of 4.1 and 4.2 out of 7.0 and less than 10% of the organization reporting they felt ‘purpose & values’ were effectively communicated and emphasized, alignment rather than communication was determined to be the greatest dimension of need. Adding weight to the assessment, the question related to importance was the third-highest scoring driver with a score of 6.3 out of 7.0 and over 61% of the workforce reporting that the purpose and value significantly mattered to them.

The purpose and values of the organization are important to me.

Conclusion

Based upon the results of the AAL Culture Assessment and debrief with the executive team, AAL and the company determined that a lack of a common purpose and core values across the three operating entities was the greatest source of the communication challenges and sense of frustration across the
Complete Companies.

As the company grew, the three operating units began to operate in isolation and ways of doing things that did not necessarily align or were not understood by the other operating units. In short, the Complete Companies was increasingly operating as three separate and disconnected companies rather than as one cohesive organization.

Address

To address the need to align the whole of the organization, The AAL team conducted a 2-day Purpose and Values event that incorporated the voice of the entire company through the findings of the Culture Assessment, and physically included approximately 20% of the company, with representatives from across all operating units.

During the event, executives, managers, and team members shared their individual and collective beliefs, experiences and definitions around what the company stood for, did and achieved when performing at its best. Also included in the dialogue was why people joined the Complete team in the first place, and what they like best today about working there.

Facilitated by AAL, the participants in the Purpose & Values event found commonality and shared passions across the functional teams and created a unifying Purpose and set of values that supported the sense of family that was core to the Complete Companies and its roots.

The final results of their efforts brought the whole organization together: Purpose: One Team Creating Complete Solutions
Values: Empathy, Integrity, Ownership, Quality

Nurture

While common purpose and a shared set of values was the core challenge facing the Complete Companies, this was only the first step. The need for more effective communication remained.

In order to improve communication within the organization, Complete partnered with AAL to execute an inaugural leader development program, launching Class 001 of the Complete Leadership Academy in the 3rd quarter of 2019. Conducted over a six-month timeframe and comprised of 30 Complete Automation executives and mid-level leaders, the AAL team facilitated a mix of developmental sessions as well as individual and team assignments that guided the Academy members through a series of simple, yet comprehensive principle and concepts built around the AAL Developmental Framework of:

– Leading Self
– Leading in Relationships
– Leading in Teams
– Leading in OrganizationsAll of which are designed to transform cultures by inspiring trust, creating alignment and optimizing performance.
The results of the first Academy Program were significant. Collectively the Academy Members:• Developed a communication plan and program to onboard new Complete Companies team members. • Created a mentoring program to develop team members and managers
• A formal plan to introduce each team member to all of the company’s operating units
• Formal implementation of ‘Pre’, ‘In’ and ‘After’ Action Reviews.
• On ongoing emphasis on discussing, living and celebrating actions and behaviors that reflect the Complete Purpose & Values.Building on the success of Class 001, a second Academy (Class 002) was announced in February, 2020 with over 90 team members and leaders submitting their interest to be interviewed for 30 available slots. Scheduled to begin in March of 2020, Class 002 has been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will now begin summer 2020.

Measure

Beyond qualitative feedback, AAL and Complete Automation are using the Culture Scan (C-SCAN) Pulse Survey, created in collaboration with The Culture Think Tank, to regularly gauge ongoing trends and employee perceptions related to the baseline Culture Assessment domains: Trust, Communication, Accountability
and Alignment.

These four to five question polls, completed every two to four weeks, provides a pulse of the organization’s culture, including metrics and insights that senior leaders need in order to prioritize decisions, actions and resources related to employee connection. By measuring these organizational perceptions over time, the company can begin to apply analytics to maintaining a high level of employee wellbeing, commitment

and performance.
Similar to the Culture Assessment, the C-SCAN provides comparative global results.

After taking the Culture Assessment during the Summer of 2019, the overall results of the Complete Companies were average as compared to global data. Based upon the C-SCAN conducted in April 2020, the transformation within the Complete Companies was dramatic.

The Complete Companies April Pulse Survey recorded a connection score double the average of all other organizations. Interestingly, the top two needs and/or opportunities reported by the organization were continued support and consistency.

Taken during the time of COVID-19, the need for additional support was expected due to disruptions within the workforce. The second greatest need was consistency; but not from a lack of consistency. The workforce reported that they had everything they needed and just needed their team members, managers, and leaders to “keep doing what you’re doing”.

That sentiment is best reflected in the operational and financial results of the Complete Companies. During the time of COVID-19, the Complete Companies kept all 280+ team members employed and fully paid. No one lost their job or was furloughed. When team members felt uncomfortable coming back to work, due to potential exposure they may cause at-risk family members they cared for, the organization collectively found ways to cover and support their decision.

When faced with its greatest challenge, the company’s continued focus on its people and its culture provided the foundation for the Complete Companies not only to survive but to demonstrate what right should look like in this unprecedented economic storm.

“The people and the culture of our organization are the keys to our success. The AAL team was invaluable in helping us define our unifying purpose and values, giving us clarity of direction and codifying how we act, how we interact, and how we make decisions. Further, they provided us the leadership tools to give people a sense of psychological safety and belonging, so that today our people feel empowered to reach, take ownership and strive for quality, as one team, across everything we do. Ultimately, they have helped us build trust within the company, and provided the metrics to sustain and grow the culture we have today.”

Next Steps

• The Complete Companies continue to actively monitor and nurture their culture through the C-SCAN polls and dashboards.

• During the summer of 2020, the Complete Companies will complete their second Culture Assessment.

• Late Summer 2020, the AAL team will launch Class 002 of the Complete Leadership Academy at the Complete Companies.

If you would like to learn more, book an appointment for a 15 Minute Virtual Meeting at Connect2Metrics or Join the Culture Think Tank to take your Free Test Drive of the Pulse Polls & Analytic Dashboard solutions.