Strategic Success, Real Results by Transforming the Leadership Culture

CLIENT:	KONE Americas, global leader in the elevator & escalator industry
LOCATION:	Headquartered in Lisle, Ill. with operations spanning the United States, Canada, and Mexico
SIZE:	50,000+ employees

Client Profile & Challenge

With urban environments growing fast in recent decades, KONE’s deep experience creates tremendous potential for growth. But the company faced challenges in turning that potential into reality and meeting the ambitious goal of moving from No. 4 in the industry to No. 1.

In the Americas, internal concerns typically overruled customer needs. Safety incidents were occurring too often, and operational discipline was lax and inconsistent. Former CEO Vance Tang expected more from KONE, and he viewed leadership development and culture change that ultimately focused on the customer as the best way to get there.

The company had ambitious goals, including:

Achieve industry leadership;
Drive organizational performance through people leadership;
Set the ambition to be different, to be better, to be great; aim for excellence;
Be more strategic and less operational;
Collaborate more on customer-focused processes across functions and regions;
Draw on different perspectives to generate new ideas for the business; and
Win with the best talent and the best leaders; attract and develop talent.

What would it take to transform KONE’s culture, accelerate leadership, and achieve desired results?

Solution & Results

Our Organizational Leadership faculty worked with KONE in a powerful developmental process called Transforming Your Organization. We collaborated with the KONE senior leadership team during each step of the process.

The senior team began by spending time to increase feedback, build trust, and communicate better with one another. Then they boldly engaged the top 100 KONE Americas leaders in a 2-day leadership development event.

The meeting was focused on strategic direction and determining the changes in mindset and leadership needed to enact the strategy successfully. Senior leadership began by laying out the vision: Taking KONE from No. 4 to the industry leader.

During the event, the senior leadership team took the stage to hold an open discussion among themselves about what matters most to the success of the organization. They discussed how they were changing personally and how, as a leadership team, they were facing big shifts. They explored the leadership style required for achieving the organization’s new vision and plotted concrete steps to reach it.

KONE has chartered 4 strategy teams responsible for specific areas: leadership, profitable growth, environmental excellence, and financial excellence.

Team members are drawn from multiple functions and levels within the organization.

“An eagerness to think about strategy is permeating the culture,” says Chuck Moore, Senior Vice President of Human Resources. “People all over are weighing in. The goal is to let the best ideas win.”

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KEY RESULTS

Safety incidents have declined more than 70%;
Customer satisfaction levels have tripled;
Employee engagement has reached world-class levels; and
Market share and profits have risen substantially.

Participants Say

“We had to appreciate that we had to change ourselves first in order to change the culture. CCL helped us talk to each other. We spent time on feedback, trust, and dialogue. Now we can openly challenge each other and achieve better outcomes because we can all be on the same page and work much faster.”

Vance Tang

Former CEO
KONE Americas

“Transforming Your Organization is not a step-by-step plan. It’s not an HR program. It’s a more complicated journey of shared leadership. We had to learn how to collaborate and be interdependent in order to make this journey.”

Chuck Moore

Senior Vice President of Human Resources
KONE Americas

Partner With Us

We can partner with your organization to develop a customized solution that transforms your leadership culture. We’ll work with you to build the culture and the team that fits the future of the business you want to create. Learn more about our Organizational Culture and Leadership solutions today.

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