by Site Staff
March 27, 2006
Therma-Tru joined the $6 billion consumer brands company Fortune Brands Inc. in late 2003. Its operating companies have brands and market positions in home and hardware products, spirits and wine, and golf equipment. Therma-Tru came from much more humble beginnings. What started in a man’s garage 43 years ago has grown into a large manufacturer of fiberglass and steel doors. Headquartered in Ohio, the company has more than 2,300 associates. The company strategy was a growth strategy. The leadership of the company realized that in order to maintain their success in growing, they needed concomitant growth in leadership competencies.
Tom Sherrier, corporate leader of organization and leader development, was presented with the challenge of putting together a system for doing just that. Since November 2003, he has led the development of a system designed to measure and grow leadership competencies and a culture in which people want to work. With the active support of top executives, ThermaTru got busy growing a culture of leadership and accountability using EQ (emotional quotient) principles to grow its leadership competencies.
From the beginning, the focus was on connecting with people. “The number one derailleur of executive careers is poor relationships. There are tons of smart people out there that go down in flames,” Sherrier said. “The way to get a car to operate better is to get under the hood. From my clinical work, I knew the same to be true for humans. EQ is the key to the source code for developing people. Our CEO agreed that developing our employees’ leadership competencies, including EQ, was necessary in order to meet our aggressive business objectives. That kind of support was critical.”
The company’s top 80 people defined Therma-Tru’s leadership competencies through an iterative vetting process. Then Sherrier and other leaders developed a sound method for measuring them. They created a customized assessment and development tool to measure and help grow leadership competence. Sherrier worked with a consultant to develop 24 two-hour leadership training modules that start with EQ. “We want everyone to understand that they get work done through other people, and in order to get work done in that manner, you must connect with their associates. If you don’t understand this, all other forms of development are just tools,” Sherrier said. In order to communicate the importance and staying power of the development program, Sherrier said, “We enlisted those who are required to model those behaviors to teach the program—operations directors, plan general managers, HR, a key R&D leader, product managers, etc. In training them to be trainers of this material, we’ve seen the greatest behavior change in them.”
Therma-Tru measures progress in both private and public ways. Every January, each organization rolls out its goals and objectives base on the business strategies. People review last year’s performance, look at the coming year’s mission and agree to a development plan that will help them realize these goals. “We strive for alignment between business objectives and growing leaders,” Sherrier said. Formal performance reviews that assess job competencies, functional skills and the leadership capabilities required for success at Therma-Tru are aligned with the company’s business objectives. Furthermore, managers are expected to meet with team members at least twice a year to discuss their leadership competency development. “Both of these processes require relationship skills, and that’s where emotional intelligence has big impact,” Sherrier said. Finally, according to Sherrier, the organization’s performance on key issues such as safety, quality, service and cost are shared publicly. “Group behavior does impact business results, and we want managers who are responsible for their team’s performance to see the reality of that,” Sherrier said.
After the first year, Therma-Tru demonstrated a 0.6 percent decrease in its unwanted attrition, and it saw a 3.8 percent increase in wanted attrition. “That is the impact of accountability and culture in my mind,” Sherrier said. What’s more, 89.5 percent of those who went through the process and used a coach as part of their follow-up had positive career impacts of either promotions or succession-planning improvements. What’s the bottom line? Therma-Tru is on track to complete its 14th consecutive year of record growth.
Tanya Goodwin-Maslach leads the creative and developmental forces behind the learning and development solutions offered by TalentSmart Inc. She can be reached at tmaslach@clomedia.com.