UPSCALE GOURMET MARKET

Turn-around Teamwork

Situation

A high-end market in an affluent resort city in Southern Florida was facing the influx of new and extensive competition after many years of being unique in their marketplace. They had committed almost $1 million to accomplish a major facelift for both the interior and exterior of the store. Although they had many longterm management employees who individually oversaw various and independent departments, they were also only concerned with their respective departments.

Our Approach

Through discussions with ownership, we were able to point out the values associated with creating a single-entity management

team with all focused on the overall success of the market. We were able to relate the effectiveness of such a coordinated mindset in being recognized as the number one gourmet market in the region. We interviewed the entire management group of the organization and gained their individual perspectives as to how they saw the past and current situation as well as how they viewed the benefits related to being a single team with overall concern for the general well-being of the market. This validated our suspicions and enabled ownership to realize that the creation of such a team and related mindset was at the head of what they wanted to accomplish whereas the remodel would create the pleasant atmosphere.

Solution

Our solution was to devise a program that combined both individual and group coaching. The group event--two days in length--was designed to create the single-entity team, and then have this team establish goals for gaining control of being number one, the related strategy for achieving them and finally, implementing that strategy. A committed group emerged at the end of this session--a team excited about the prospects of accomplishing what they had identified. They were also somewhat skeptical that such a new way for them to relate and operate could and would really happen. The individual coaching is where we were able to move the skeptical to being believers. Working with each manager, they were challenged to identify what had the potential of getting in their personal way when it came to following threw on their commitments on behalf of the overall team.

Results

The resulting company ‘team' had held their first-ever management meetings to follow through on their strategic plan. Personal issues that existed between any individual members of the team were addressed through the coaching process, and in several cases these people have found the path of working together in the spirit of cooperation and with a joint focus of being number one. The company has contracted for additional individual coaching for the entire team because of the promising results of the initial round. Their next step is to create the performance standards expected of all associates in the store and train the full employee base in these performance standards.