February 8, 2021

Success Story: Millwork

The Challenge

Lack of empowerment, accountability, and performance

Our client is a family-owned and operated millwork dealer selling to single-family home builders and remodelers. The owner spent years operating the company as President, building a state-of-the-art custom millwork manufacturing and distribution facility. They had a long-standing legacy and strong brand recognition in the local market.

What the owner struggled with was creating a culture of accountability and hiring a strong leadership team. This led to lack of empowerment of employees, no metrics to drive high performance, and a break-even 0% profit on a $20m business.

Without a succession plan in place within the family, the owner needed to hire a new leader to take over the day-to-day operations.

Our Solution

Consultative partnership

As a full-service recruiting partner, the first thing we did was consult with the owner to help them understand the importance of self-awareness to their strengths as an owner and limitations as a day-to-day operator.

Based on the challenges the company was facing, we identified the need for a large corporate executive leader who could embrace the family legacy and tradition, while respectfully shifting the business model and raising performance standards.

Critical actions

• Maintaining a highly confidential search to not alarm the long-standing customer base and employees.
• Including the owner’s children in the hiring process, they sit on the board and this was a critical action to gain their support of the new leader.
• Enlightening the owner to understand the value of the position and ROI expected from the role was essential in attracting and retaining the desired top-performing leader.

Identifying top talent

Hiring the first non-family President in the company’s history was a giant step. The new leader needed to gain the trust of the long-tenured team who have been protective of the family culture. While protecting the established brand and reputation in the local market, the President needed to implement a culture of accountability and improve performance to drive company growth.

Access the full case study here to see the full story and results