This federal government agency is dedicated to building a prosperous and sustainable future for America. With more than 1,600 employees, the department works to improve the global business environment and helps U.S. organizations compete at home and abroad. With a focus on strengthening U.S. industry and competitiveness and ensuring fair trade, the agency is guided by an overarching vision: to foster economic growth through global trade.

When their annual Human Capital Survey revealed that employees’ engagement levels could be improved and that perceptions of leadership were less than positive, the agency looked to The Ken Blanchard Companies^® (Blanchard^®) for a solution. Compounding the agency’s issues was the fact that teaming and communication among Senior Executive Service personnel were lacking. In fact, interaction between high level leaders was so infrequent that in some cases individuals working on the same floor might never meet or interact face-to-face. According to the Senior Operations Officer, “We needed to focus on teaming at the highest level with an emphasis on eliminating barriers between business units in order to build unity as an organization.”

The solution was to design a teaming experience for forty of the agency’s senior executives. The process began with Blanchard’s PERFORM team assessment which provided a snapshot of the team’s strengths and gaps in the seven areas common to all high performance teams. Then the executives participated in a one-and-a-half day offsite leadership summit to discuss the findings, learn about team member and leader skills, and create action plans for improvement in key areas. The summit offered a unique experience as it was the first time the team had ever been together.

While progress has been made, the agency feels the process is just beginning. “Changing our culture is not an overnight shift,” a spokesperson says, “but we feel good about what we’ve accomplished.” The agency also feels that communications and teaming have improved, that relationships have been strengthened, and that leadership and coaching have made progress. The agency has implemented several action teams to focus on improving decision making, autonomy, and leadership skills. In addition, the agency is focused on several employee engagement strategies, including focus group outreach to gauge employee opinions, tool kits that improve hiring practices, and twice monthly forums where top leaders speak to employees about current organizational initiatives.

The agency believes that the work with Blanchard has been extremely helpful. “Blanchard comes with an incredibly strong reputation. That had an impact on our senior leaders and they saw the value in the teaming process. Blanchard models engagement and high involvement. You can see it in their culture and in the interactions with their people,” says one executive. Overall, they are pleased with the outcomes to date. The agency plans to follow up with a posttraining assessment and is reviewing Blanchard’s Leading People Through Change^® process. And while their journey toward improvement is just beginning, the agency believes it now has the structure and processes in place to continue to improve employee engagement, teamwork, and communication.