Grandson Rescues Company from New Leaders

The founders’ grandson agreed to an EMBA project designed to save the company, based on guidance and counsel from LoV and Dr. Spencer. What unfolded was a proactive intervention that directly contradicted both the directives and goals of the new leaders, including personally confronting them on their motives and plans. In the end, the new leadership team left, were replaced by proven past leaders who have provided new energy to retain the best of existing methods while installing new and more modern elements all along the value creation process. Sales, new products with highly successful applications and profits have soared.

This family owned industrial coating business had been very successful, but a move to “modernize” turned over leadership reins to outsiders who promised dramatic growth in revenues and profits. They looked at the highly specialized industrial model being used to create and deliver value to users as ancient and outmoded. They observed a very technical and precise industrially focused organization that used at times almost primitive means to create and manufacture outputs for specialized applications and said, "Changes are needed now."

Their consumer-based experience selling coatings in retail stores was built on a totally different low tech product and business model. Their planned changes included moves into mass production guided by a complex consumer-type distribution model with many different and untried new product offerings. They were rapidly moving resources to the new ways of doing things and away from the more paced, tried and true methods that had been used in the past.

No one disagreed that newer ways were needed to bring things up to modern-day, lean manufacturing standards. But industrial customers were the ones most concerned with how new leaders were managing things and creating unreliable coatings because of manufacturing changes in both new and old products. These customers were leaving in large numbers as the company moved away from its roots, creating product failures at a rapid rate. The EMBA project ended with a very successful intervention that continues today with excellent results.