Eclipse Engineering is a long-standing structural engineering firm located in the three states of Montana, Washington and Oregon with a regional office right here in Bend. Like all firms having any relation to the construction industry they saw a steep decline several years ago in the demand for their services, with their workforce at all-time lows.
At the end of last summer, one of their principals here in Bend, Rolf Armstrong, brought forth some new challenges to his Opportunity Knocks group not related to downsizing anymore but to addressing critical issues for successfully scaling their company for sustained growth. His questions had to do with how to create continuity, consistency and a competitive edge with their now growing workforce, now approaching thirty employees from a low of eight during the great recession. Accomplishing this task seemed overwhelming at first given their four regional offices over a three State region. They had the proverbial “tiger by the tail” and they knew it.
Rolf invited a fellow partner and the president of Eclipse from their Missoula, Montana office, Jesse Fortune, to attend his Opportunity Knocks meeting. Briefly, Opportunity Knocks is a local peer to peer business owner/leader group composed of up to 12 non-competing businesses here in Central Oregon that meet monthly for three hours to offer each other feedback and support to pressing business issues as well as encouragement for sustained professional and personal growth.
Both Armstrong and Fortune had done some research on how to manage a growing workforce by more intentionally defining their work culture, including their vision for the company along with their mission and values statements. They were experiencing typical challenges of a growing company including inconsistent communication, some unclear expectations for newer employees, and the need to clearly communicate who does what and how decisions got made.
The perception at the time of both the employees and the owners of Eclipse Engineering is that they were a typical top-down led company. Historically, what the leaders agreed on and communicated to the employees was what was done. This is how most companies are run. The leadership at Eclipse now wanted to wrap all levels together and create a tightly defined culture and a clear path for employees to greater success, as well as being able to deliver added value to their customers and partners.
At the Opportunity Knocks meeting, both Rolf and Jesse presented their idea to redefine their work culture and then communicate those changes to the other owners and then employees for implementation. It was at this juncture in the discussion last October that the Opportunity Knocks peer members provided Rolf and Jesse with another alternative. Why not first ask the rank and file employees their thoughts and ideas on this subject? If they participate in the process would they not feel more ownership with the changes and be more inspired as employees, sort of partners themselves in the company’s growth? Both Rolf and Jesse ran with this idea and with the help of the OK group developed the following survey questions that were completed by not just their leadership team but by the vast majority of the now 28 employees at the end of the year:
• What do you consider to be the strengths of Eclipse?
• How can Eclipse improve?
• What processes or systems should be improved to help you do your job better?
• What are your favorite things about working at Eclipse?
• Which values do you feel should be most important to Eclipse?
You might well expect the results of this proactive employee survey were then reviewed by management with some of the ideas being put in place but that is not what happened next. What happened next was nothing short of brilliant in my opinion, being directly involved in reengineering work cultures for long-term sustainability over the last four decades.
Four employees (who were not currently in a leadership position), one from each of their four regional offices, were given the opportunity to go on a retreat for two days at a location of their choosing to go over the surveys and come back with a proposed mission, vision, and core values and present their recommendations to leadership. This one decision to involve their employees in the creation of their desired future has made all the difference in the current success of their journey. These four employees comprised the “Culture Club” at Eclipse who also actively engaged each of their regional teams in this process of redefining the organizational culture.
What they discovered is that most of the ideas received from the survey were in alignment but were not written down or evaluated as to how the daily work got done and communicated. All employees are now more involved and have a greater understanding of how they can contribute to the success of their company. Younger talent and new leaders are showing up and being developed. There are less workplace conflicts and much better communication and creative problem solving. Core values are also used for staffing decisions and client/project decisions.
When you now go on the company website (www.eclipse-engineering.com) it is not only very clear about what Eclipse has done and is doing but on how that work is engaged; what both internal customers (employees and strategic partners) can expect from working at and with Eclipse and the brand promise to their external customers in terms of added value. Perhaps the first sentence of their “About Us” page tells it best:
“Our company culture is based on the belief that long-term success is dependent on delivering quality service with a high level of employee satisfaction”
Their Vision created from the ground up and adopted by the whole company is:
“To cultivate owner-minded employees who create technically excellent and cleverly devised structural engineering solutions for our clients.”
Their Mission, again spring-boarding from direct employee involvement is:
“The Eclipse Family is committed to bringing our clients’ vision to reality and fostering a culture of awesome. We attract talented people, encourage them to pursue their passions, and prepare them to be leaders in our communities and marketplaces.”
I would both encourage and challenge the reader to go to the Eclipse website to learn more about their journey and culture. What they have creatively done to come up with their seven working Values is some of the best work I have seen in this region.
Both the owners and employees of Eclipse are to be applauded for their great progress to date but they all understand that their new journey as just begun. Their potential for new heights is now limitless and that is just the idea-long-term sustainable growth and a greater competitive advantage.
Jim Lee, Principal at InvitExcellence 541-771-6184 jim@invitexcellence.com
For more information about Opportunity Knocks contact Dennis Hungerford at dennishungerford@opp-knocks.org
For a great reference on competitive advantage check out The Soft Edge by Rich Karlgaard, author and editor of Forbes Magazine
(Photo above: (L-R) Robert VanCamp, Sandy Crenshaw, Shannon Nelson, Rolf Armstrong, Julie Armstrong, Jamie Geis, Justin Holman, Matt Galvin, Nick Burnam | Photo courtesy of Eclipse Engineers)
