The People: Scholz & Associates
When an organization needs help with employee development, the best way forward is to partner with a coach or consultant who understands their needs.
Scholz & Associates, founded by Chip Scholz nearly two decades ago, offers the expertise that executive teams need to help grow their business with a deep-rooted knowledge of human behavior and a passion for people.
Through years of coaching executives across the country using proven exercises, tough questions, and honest conversations, Scholz & Associates has brought success to clients of all kinds, including multi-million dollar companies, logistics and construction organizations, nonprofits, and state and local governments.
Scholz & Associates has a mission to create work cultures of well-being and guide individuals and their teammates to their absolute best selves.
The Problem: Creating a Lasting Talent Pipeline
A common issue that Scholz & Associates have run into over their years of work is the prioritization of results over people. Before coaching from Scholz, many of their clients were focused on profit and margins instead of company culture and the well-being of their employees.
Haskell didn’t want to make that mistake.
A pioneering architecture, engineering, and construction firm, Haskell wanted to prioritize their people and their company culture, which is critical in a business that owns the entire lifecycle of its product. In Haskell’s case, that means buildings, development, and procurement of equipment, and they found that the organization was focusing more on performance and numbers rather than employee development and fulfillment.
They wanted to make a change and their mission aligned with Scholz and Associates. David Thaler, Haskell's Chief Human Resources Officer, helped Scholz hone in on what the organization needed: Haskell determined that they were looking for the right opportunities to professionally develop employees, ensuring that the best people were retained and promoted.
This allowed Scholz to craft a new program that was fine-tuned for Haskell’s development needs, utilizing TTI Success Insights assessments.
“There was resistance [from] some groups that put performance first, and that’s a hard thing to get over,” said Scholz. When trying to coach teams to make beneficial changes, specific individuals would question “What do we need a coach for?” Not seeing the value of help from an outside perspective was an initial hindrance in this process.
Thankfully, Haskell’s executive teams took a hands-on approach to change the organizational culture. “David and I were actively involved in changing the culture of Haskell from an authoritarian type of company to a more people-oriented culture built on the core values,” said Steve Halvorsen, CEO of Haskell.
The Solution: Tailored Insights To Develop Communication
Scholz & Associates developed a three-year leadership program called “The Leadership Series” for Haskell. At the start of each year of the program, all attendees would take TriMetrix® HD, The Stress Assessment, and Emotional Quotient®. These are three of TTI Success Insights' most powerful tools that help reveal a person's behavior, capability, and emotional intelligence.
By assessing each employee at the start of the series, Scholz was able to establish a baseline understanding of where every individual began their development journey. He expounded on this information with more data on their improvement as they completed the program.
Scholz stressed the importance of Scholz & Associates’ goal; “We want [our clients] to be better humans. We don't want them to be a better employee just because that's what their organization wants. We want them to become better so they’re better for their families and the people around them in their communities.”
Through the use of the TTI Success Insights assessments, Scholz & Associates was able to help the employees of Haskell understand themselves and communicate better internally and externally. Scholz’s approach focuses on creating cultures of well-being with the companies they work with, and assessments and coaching helped teams develop the crucial communication skills needed for a successful workplace.
The Results: A New Culture, Built To Last
The Leadership Series breaks development into three parts.
- The first year focuses on the employee leading themselves. It teaches skills like time management, self-awareness, and motivation.
- The second year is focused on development within the company — working on public speaking, interacting with peers, and how to own your space in the organization.
- The third year brings it all together and develops each employee’s style of leadership.
In 2022, there are over 200 graduates of the Leadership Series. 92 percent of the graduates have been promoted within Haskell, and 82 percent have been promoted more than once.
“That number is huge,” Scholz said, “Out of the Haskell promotions recently announced, three out of the six employees graduated from the Leadership Series. One of them is someone I coached personally!”
The heavy emphasis on professional development and promoting a people-oriented culture has enabled significant growth for Haskell overall. At the onset of their partnership with Scholz & Associates, Haskell operated 3 offices and employed 600 people. They now currently operate over 25 offices internationally and employ over 2000 people.
This growth and focus on company culture has also contributed to Haskell being named an APEX Award winner by Training magazine for the 10th consecutive year.
“If you're just starting off in the business [of coaching, consulting, and assessments] just remember to be as good as you can,” Scholz said when asked about the secret to his success. “It’s going to take a while to learn everything you need because it’s not all in the manuals—success comes from doing the work.”
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