New Hampshire Ball Bearings, Inc.

The Business

Large manufacturing company

The Need

Most of the company leaders were hired for their technical skills and grew into leadership roles because of their ability to complete a job well. Communication and interpersonal skills required constant attention, but workplace demands had diverted attention from these “soft skills” for a while. As a result, leaders were having trouble implementing the more collaborative style of management that has become expected by younger generations of workers.

The Response

Sapphire Consulting was hired to provide leadership development programs emphasizing company based leadership competencies and greater self awareness through emotional intelligence assessments:

EQi®

Sapphire Consulting completed Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQi®) assessments with more than 50 company leaders and met with each leader individually to review the results to help participants understand their emotional strengths and weaknesses.

Leadership Training

Sapphire followed up the EQi® assessments with leadership training classes. Initial classes focused on helping employees learn to use and understand their emotional intelligence assessments to compensate for weaknesses and become more effective leaders. Then Sapphire conducted a series of classes to introduce transformational coaching, conflict resolution, employee motivation techniques, teambuilding, time management and a culture of coaching to the organization.

The Outcome

Major changes in the culture of an organization come about slowly. While employees quickly reported improvements in the way they related to and communicated with co-workers, the company has found it difficult to sustain peer coaching and a move to a coaching culture. Additional leadership development programs are being implemented for 2008 and will focus on team development and other support systems as a follow-up to initial efforts.