Simonton Windows: Future Leaders Accept Challenge, Open Windows of Opportunity for Themselves and Others
Pete Rawlings displays one of Simonton
Windows' latest products
Pete Rawlings, Corporate Training Manager and Director of Simonton University for Simonton Windows, is a man on a mission, determined to help his company’s current and future business leaders hone the skills they need to further accelerate Simonton’s growth.
In little more than 50 years, Simonton has transformed itself from a family-owned, West Virginia aluminum awning company into a national powerhouse. Offering a broad line of vinyl windows and doors, Simonton consistently earns the industry’s highest ratings of quality through its commitment to product excellence, customer service and its employees.
Planning for the company’s continued success and growth, Rawlings envisioned an innovative leadership learning program that would help build Simonton’s leadership bench strength - at all levels of the organization – now and in the future. To make this vision a reality, he sought a leadership education partner capable of collaborating with the Simonton team to create and implement a customized, practical leadership education program that could deliver real, measurable business results. The partner he selected - Lake Forest Corporate Education.
“As our success climbs to new heights, so does our demand for effective leaders,” Rawlings observes. “Our partnership with LFCE helps ensure we’ll be able to meet this need.” To assure the program’s success, LFCE worked closely with Rawlings and his team to understand what capabilities the organization needed achieve its objectives, and identified key competencies Simonton leaders would need for the future.
In addition, Rawlings interviewed Simonton’s key executives, and LFCE conducted a best practices survey of innovative leadership learning techniques to ensure a proper fit of the content and chosen learning approach. Ultimately, the Simonton Leadership Challenge was born.
The Leadership Challenge includes three, 3-day courses, each of which builds on the knowledge and skills learned in previous sessions, and culminate in a Certificate in Leadership from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Participants focus on core competencies such as strategy execution, finance acumen applicable to Simonton, impactful communication skills and coaching techniques. In addition, the program uses various learning tools, including an online communication assessment that offers each participant pragmatic insights into his or her personal communication style.
A key to the Leadership Challenge are real-world projects which allow participants to use their new skills to solidify their learning and ensure this learning transfers from the classroom to the workplace. Each participant had the freedom to choose a Simonton special project or an outside community project they found meaningful.
They were expected to apply the specific leadership skills taught in the course, track their progress and report the results of the project and their learning from it. Thus, participants challenged themselves to stretch their skills, advance their performance and increase their confidence while making a notable contribution to Simonton or the community at large.
“In our experience, participants are more likely to gain new leadership habits when they have the opportunity to push new skills to the limit and directly apply the learning to tangible situations,” notes Howard Prager, Director, LFCE. “The Simonton Leadership Challenge participants proved willing to take such risks and enjoyed remarkable success as a result.”
The community projects participants selected covered a wide spectrum. One project used leadership and training to help reduce turnover in the plants among new hires. Two participants created an elective program that trains high school and adult education students in Simonton’s manufacturing principles as well as general HR requirements. This program has targeted area high schools, with the curriculum being approved locally and getting approval for use as an approved curriculum through the State Board of Education. Recent graduating students have shown a strong interest in working for Simonton, with Simonton’s hope that they will have new long-term employees.
Another participant sought to build his coaching and interpersonal communication skills. He left an indelible impact on the lives of six “at-risk” youth, with five graduating from high school along with their class.
“Encouraging participants to become active in community service not only helps Simonton build future business leaders, it also advances ‘The SBR Way’ - Simonton’s corporate philosophy of commitment to its people, service and community,” observes Kathy Leck, Executive Vice President, LFCE.
Other participants chose to work on special company projects, attracted by the opportunity to work with other departments and use different skills. One participant proposed a new delivery system for returning sash and screen reworks to customers, designed to cut the company’s customer response time and save money. The participant calculated a potential savings of $200,000 per year for his facility alone. A trial implemented on the screen repair process, a small piece of the overall change, produced over $21,000 in savings in just 6 months.
Two internal quality managers from different plants collaborated to design an ergonomic assembly table that increased worker efficiency and decreased workplace injuries. The innovative solution to a pervasive problem was so successful the design materials were shared company-wide to enable other plants to duplicate the results. Simonton also now enjoys a smaller parts inventory, made possible by Leadership Challenge participants who designed and installed a radio frequency inventory system throughout a new vinyl facility, allowing more just-in-time material, fewer shortages and quicker inventory turnover.
“In establishing Simonton University as our corporate university, a key objective was to create a cornerstone program that would illustrate, in real terms, the true impact leadership development can have on individual employees, organizational results, and the broader community,” Rawlings explains. “Looking at the results the first group of Leadership Challenge participants achieved, in terms of delivering individual skill development, corporate business results and community goodwill, I think it’s safe to say we’ve achieved this objective and are looking forward to the future.”
With the windows of opportunity sprung wide open, Rawlings smiles, thinking of all the amazing results to come as the current participants continue to build on their results and future participants accept the Challenge.
