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PROVEN

At NXLVLUP, Marilyn has a history of providing clients with services resulting in effective and measurable outcomes. 
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Biotechnology Company

Company Scenario & Challenges

Midsize biotechnology company with highly educated workforce. Organized in multi-disciplinary matrix teams charged with developing programs and drug trials that deliver medicinal products for approval by the FDA. First-to-market pressures for their drug class, to beat the competition and preserve exclusivity to recoup development costs. Multi-disciplinary teams depend on each other for information and expertise, with each member having a role within the drug development process and the larger picture.

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The company was experiencing employee burnout and high turnover rate, crisis responses, long working hours and program delays.

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  • Leaders frequently requested last minute information or data with unreasonable turnaround times, sending employees scrambling to respond to fire drills and reprioritized work, resulting in longer hours and/or program delays

  • System access issues prevented new employees from getting up-to-speed in a timely fashion

  • New employees found it difficult to get questions answered on high profile programs in a judicious manner

Discovery & Actions

Marilyn recognized that the company embraced a culture of non-responsiveness with a crisis management mentality, causing employee burnout which resulted in high turnover rates and program delays. Several causes were determined:

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  • Company accepted non-responsive culture

  • Leadership was complacent and unable to see or understand the non-responsiveness or impact to lower-level employees and programs delays

  • Did not see the impact of their data requests on programs due to reprioritized activities

  • Lack of streamlined systems to accommodate the data request in a timely manner

  • Leaders demanded “just in time” information due to their lack of planning, creating fire drill scenarios for employees

  • Utilization of antiquated systems to mine data efficiently – requiring multiple systems to pull and present correct data

  • Employees not held accountable for their actions

  • When employees or supervisors did not know the answer(s), they chose not to respond, or identified the same path to obtain the information that they had already tried. This occurred despite their prior communication that this route was already taken, creating a circular unresolved situation. This lack of efficiency/effectiveness increased frustration, reduced motivation, and created low morale for employees

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Marilyn coached leadership on the importance and need to intentionally build and cultivate the company culture. Discussed leadership styles and impact of actions and tone set within the company. Partnered with leaders to determine criterion and create an action plan for new culture rollout. Some of the criteria established:

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  • Set the expectation for collaborative communications within the company and developed criteria for holding people accountable

  • Identified necessity for leaders to take ownership when failing to communicate properly

  • Established communication plan to institute when requesting last-minute information and data is requested

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Developed an action plan to create and standardize a program dashboard tool for streamlining and communicating program information to leadership on a monthly basis. Also, created a standardized pictorial for each program, communicating changes in significant program timelines.

Success & High Impact Benefits

  • Improved overall communication and productivity within teams and company

  • Developed communication processes and tools to keep leadership apprised of programs on a monthly basis

  • Reduced the need for “just in time” information, preventing excessive fire drills

  • Removed barriers, which demonstrated to new employees that they are supported, and that leadership is vested in their success

  • Set defined company culture expectations and accountability for everyone to follow, transforming from a non-responsive culture

  • Reduced burnout and turnover

contract, gavel, and person
Trust Company
Company Scenario & Challenges

The CEO and CFO are co-owners and partners of a small trust company. They were frustrated with poor staff performance, including inability to complete their work in a timely manner to meet client needs. This in turn, caused billing delays and created cash flow issues. Dealing with significant staff problems also caused the partners to work longer hours to accomplish their own work, impacting work-life balance. In addition, each partner conveyed separately that their own communication with each other was disjointed and not working effectively.

Discovery & Actions 

Marilyn discovered that the partners were not holding regularly scheduled meetings together to discuss critical aspects of the business thereby causing communication issues.

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  • Partners were not collaboratively solving the company challenges, such as staffing issues

  • They dealt with each crisis as a separate unique event that arose as a standalone problem, while each partner handled the situation differently

  • There was no cohesive plan to collectively deal with these problems

  • Ineffective management and costly operations plan caused frustration between partners and employees

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Marilyn created exercises for the partners to envision their ideal operations and future for the company, helping them visualize from a different perspective the overall business needs. Then the current and future business states were compared, in which they were able to clearly see the gaps. Utilizing The Synergy Model, a roadmap was devised, and priorities were selected to begin the journey toward success.

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Marilyn facilitated weekly partner meetings to create a safe space for them to air their grievances and learn to constructively communicate with each other for positive outcomes. By strengthening the leadership team’s communications, this also improved communications within the whole company, creating a unified message and increasing employee satisfaction.

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A significant area of focus was that their current hiring practices did not lend to hiring the most qualified people or skillset for the positions and needs of the company.

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  • Job descriptions and performance measures were evaluated and revised to fit business requirements

  • Partners were trained in proper candidate review, interviewing techniques and selection practices

  • Performance evaluation tools were revised lending to accountability, and leaders were properly trained in how to conduct employee performance reviews

  • HR support services were brought in to supplement these efforts

Success & High Impact Benefits

  • Improved partner communications – less friction, unified message to staff

  • Increased confidence in candidate selection for the right skillset and employees for further company growth and efficient operations

  • Increased cash flow and mitigated billing delays

  • Decreased stress and fewer crises

  • Reduced long hours, leading to improved work-life balance

  • Improved overall company communications

  • Set processes and expectations of performance and accountability

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