Case Study – Danboise Mechanical

The Shift From ‘I’ to ‘We’: How Danboise Field Workers Coalesced Around Professional Values 

It’s rare that we run across an organization that doesn’t have issues with silos.   An organization might have five major departments, say A – E, and each department thinks and acts like it’s the king-of-the-hill.      Often this attitude emanates from the current department head or the greater culture that groomed him or her prior to taking the job.  The department head, giving them the benefit of the doubt, is trying to demonstrate value of their particular department’s function.

That’s all well and good but the price of the unintended consequences is usually pretty steep. Demonstrating value often has as its unspoken objective making department ‘A’ look better than (say) department ‘C’.   That often translates to a lack of collaboration across departments, verbally disparaging other departments, undermining other departments for precious resources (financial or human), etc.   As bad as this may appear, none of this is malicious.  Borrowing a term from family therapy professionals, the department head is engaged in a ‘fair fight’.

And if the department head is championing their department’s value proposition primarily to advance his or her career or inflate their ego, then it gets worse.  Then it becomes about bragging rights, conquests, winning, being right, and a host of other unhelpful approaches. And typically the means and methods of achieving the goal become more aggressive, more mean-spirited—leaving a contentious (and often dysfunctional) environment. You might call it an ‘unfair fight’ (winning at all costs).

The reality is that departments (let alone department heads) don’t exist in a vacuum.   That’s why Mind-Set #2 (Professionals Realize–and Act Like–They’re Part of Something Bigger Than Themselves) is so important.  And when people begin to act like they’re a part of something bigger, the ‘silo problem’ often gets mitigated.

It certainly did for Danboise Mechanical, a client of ours.  Danboise adopted the principles within The Power of Professionalism as their north arrow in terms of how they would conduct business. They went “all in”—aspiring to be the most professional organization our founder, Bill Wiersma, had ever worked with.

Based in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, Danboise Mechanical has provided mechanical contracting services to Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio for over four generations. At Danboise, they provide a variety of services: HVAC, electrical, and mechanical.  In each instance, the services include both ‘new install’ as well as routine maintenance functions.

As you’d expect, Danboise had established several departments (think: silos) around each of these services. Historically, department heads took great delight in delivering eye-popping P&L’s.  If those P&L’s made the department head look good relative to their peers—so much the better.  Danboise department heads seemingly put more energy in competing with each other than competing in the marketplace.

Yet the Danboise department heads eventually came to an epiphany: namely that the overall success of the organization would never be optimized if department heads continued to work independently in an attempt to optimize their own ‘individual’ operations (essentially creating an informal dysfunctional internal competition amongst department heads).  Their epiphany largely came about when they came to a full appreciation of Mind-Set #2.  They subsequently committed to break down the barriers between departments and operate in a manner that was in the best interests of the overall organization.  No more playing king-of-the hill.  They started working together in a meaningful way; the troops noticed. The department heads also concluded that ‘the troops’—those on the front line—had fallen into the same trap they had.

For instance, on the job site trade ‘X’ (working in department ‘A’) wouldn’t work with trade ‘Y’ (working in department ‘C’).  The same dynamic regularly occurred amongst just about any combination of trades you might want to mix-and-match.  This type of behavior was clearly undesirable—driven largely by the impacts of ‘silo mentality’.  All that seemed to matter to the staff was their department, their job function.  Two different trades on the same job site—both employed by Danboise—and one wouldn’t help the other. Go figure. This approach is myopic, certainly not one worthy of anyone who considers themselves to be a professional.

Executive Vice President Carl Pistolesi described the situation,

When it came to our people it was all, “I, I, I.” It got to the point where our clients were coming to us saying, ‘Is this the same company? The right hand’s not talking to the left hand!

Naturally this was frustrating to Carl and his team.  Carl sensed that Danboise front line workers needed a stiff shot of professionalism.  Carl felt that his blue-collar work force would respond favorably to the challenge of living up to the professional values memorialized in The Power of Professionalism. They did.

Since our firm’s engagement with Danboise, Carl has seen his workers grow as professionals and minimize the vast majority of dysfunctional behaviors that emanate from a ‘silo mentality’.  His workers are now acting from a higher-order plane. Front line workers from disparate trades now help each other out and see the company as a whole, rather than only through the lens of their particular department or job function.

According to Carl,

We have gotten rid of the ‘I’ and now it’s ‘We’. They’re working together as a team.

For Danboise, this has been a really big deal.  Their newfound unity helps them in a myriad of ways beyond worksite collaboration (as important as that is).  Is this merely some Kumbaya ‘feel good’ experience? No, not at all.  As a result of the newfound levels of cooperation amongst the staff (and the productivity that followed), Danboise is now able to offer clients a discount (ranging from 2% to 5%, depending on the job).   Naturally this development has contributed to the company’s competitive advantage in a significant way.

What enabled this significant change was a shift in thinking.  That change started with the staff’s desire to ‘show up’ as a professional would.  Then the mind-sets were used as a platform to drive the change. Ultimately a new (and very powerful) habit was formed.

The good news for Danboise is the impact this terrific outcome had on their business. The even better news for organizations facing similar circumstances is that this type of outcome isn’t unique, we see it with some regularity within our practice.