The business environment in which manufacturing operates has become increasingly dynamic and complex. Consequently, there is a greater need for manufacturing companies to develop business processes.

Nova Chemicals Decatur, producer of plastics and chemicals, had a lack of effective business processes and communication. Nova Chemicals did a great job of advertising to their employees with bulletin boards, newsletters and emails; but their leaders were not communicating. At the end of the day, no one was accountable for the current Nova Chemical situation or lack thereof.

Fundamentally, organizations must equip leaders with a system that allows them to lead with confidence, focus and a sense of urgency. This system must not be dependent on the power of the leader’s personality. An effective system must have as its foundation the creation and utilization of non-negotiable business processes. These processes should focus on elevating expectations throughout the organization, building a sense of urgency to accomplishing business goals and promote shared accountability to ensure business results.

Nova Chemicals was ready for a change. There was a need to find the right processes to make their manufacturing site a success. They realized the need for a common business focus, which would allow all employees to promote a quality mindset. Every employee needed to feel that they were personally invested in the success of Nova Chemicals. Process Based Leadership® fit the need perfectly.

Initially, Nova Chemicals introduced scorecards and actions registers, integral components to the use of PBL. With no formal training or administrative support, they were successful at the site level…but as they worked down the ranks, the quality dropped off considerably and very few employees understood what the real purpose was for the scorecards and action registers.

The leadership team made a commitment to proceed with formal Process Based Leadership® training with Competitive Solutions, Inc. CSI was brought in to work with the site leadership team to develop strategy, vision, goals, focus areas and objectives. Nova Chemicals has now completed scorecard training for the entire organization. At the end of the year, they purchased the PBL ScoreCard® to make the scorecard process and tracking much more efficient.

Nova Chemical's employees ate up the training, and they have commented that "Process Based Leadership is down to earth, practical and will help them focus on business results." Process Based Leadership has changed Nova Chemical's business performance in the following ways:

• Great communication processes leads to a safer workplace;
• Accountability processes allow Nova Chemical to produce results with fewer employees; which in turn, allows for reallocation of resources for future growth and safety initiatives;
• Less workplace conflicts translates to less time wasted by leadership in resolving conflicts;
• Weekly focus meetings on key business metrics gets the right people working on the right things at the right time;

Nova Chemical found that Process Based Leadership® results can be fully documented processes that can be repeated and adapted to any environment. These processes can be audited to measure their effectiveness resulting in measurable outcomes in the performance of an organization. These processes can be adapted and changed as the environment of the organization changes in order to maintain its competitive edge in the marketplace. As a result of the success of the Decatur site, the Belpre also implemented Process Based Leadership®.

-article from "Living Your Leadership Legacy" Newsletter
by Competitive Solutions, Inc.

Competitive Solutions, Inc.(CSI) is a leadership training and consulting company that specializes in helping organizations improve communication, develop meaningful business scorecards, create accountability at all levels and set behavioral expectations using a business alignment system called Process Based Leadership.®