Case M23 -- Excellence in CorporateTraining
EXCEL Learning, Inc. was founded in 1988 by Dan Robinson, arenowned author and seminar speaker. Dan teamed up with Walt Irwin,also a corporate consultant with skills in business management. Dandeveloped his book and seminar topics into several marketabletraining products, which were packaged into 2 and 3 day workshops,including participant workbooks, trainer guides and PowerPointpresentations. Dan’s reputation in the corporate marketplaceguaranteed initial acceptance of his training products by corporateclients.
Dan selected Walt, a former CEO, seminar client and old friendas a partner because they shared strong values of customer serviceand the influence that training can have on empowering one’sworkforce. Walt’s role was to create a marketing plan, recruittrainers, and generally run the business. EXCEL launched itsbusiness with Walt as President and Dan as Senior Vice President,hiring 10 affiliate consultants as part-time, sub-contractors todeliver training seminars. In a week-long retreat, Walt and Danoriented the new consultants to all training products and beganscheduling seminars with groups from Dan’s client companies. Danwas pleased with Walt’s ability to articulate their shared visionof service and to strongly communicate the need for consistency inoperating from this shared vision in all of their trainingservices.
During the first year, Dan and the affiliates had a fullschedule and the company was very successful. Walt and Dan wantedto keep the company small, so only a few new affiliates were addedto handle additional clients. Walt handled all the scheduling,finances, and supervision of consultants in the field. Dan agreedthat Walt would have complete control over hiring and managingclient relations – this was made clear during the orientation andsubsequent meetings with the consultants. Walt would have phoneconversations with each consultant on a regular basis to initiateclient contact and to debrief training events, often relatingclient comments on the consultants’ performance. Often, theseconversations would be late in the evening, and usually Walt wouldhave had a few glasses of wine before he made calls. Inconversations with consultants, Dan heard about some of theseconversations and was concerned. Cheryl, an accomplished trainerand old friend of Dan, related that Walt had been especially harshwith her about a recent training event and client complaint,insisting that she admit fault. She had since had a conversationwith the client and the client was satisfied, even requested thatshe be the lead trainer for another group. As Dan co-trained withother affiliate consultants, he heard stories of similar, lateevening conversations and an all-too-consistent pattern ofintimidation with consultants. Some of the younger affiliatesseemed to actually appreciate the “coaching,” (Rob Sites, forexample, stated “Walt is tough, but he has helped me grow to becomea better trainer. I appreciate that.” The more experiencedconsultants, however, were resenting the treatment. Even though theconsultants were part-time affiliates and sub-contractors (workinga maximum of 100 days per year), Dan wanted them to feel likepartners in the business, with considerable control over exercisingjudgment with clients.
One evening, over dinner, Dan and Walt were discussing businessplans and some overseas training requested by a corporate client.Walt recommended a team of consultants to follow Dan who wouldlaunch the training series. Dan confronted Walt about his mannerwith two of those consultants, who had mentioned their treatmentfrom Walt. Walt at first blew off the concern, but then becameangry as Dan discussed the potential of losing some of their bestconsultants. (Walt) “Do you want me to run the business or not? Youknow you are just too soft to manage these people. I know ourclients and I know what they want from the consultants.” Danagreed, sort of, but asked Walt to trust the consultants a littlemore. “You know some of our people are very experienced and theclients are not always right.”
Several weeks passed, the training in UK had gone well. Dan hadlaunched the first day’s training and left Cheryl to lead theremaining sessions with two other consultants. Dan and Waltfollowed the training with a conference call with the VP ofEuropean Operations who was very pleased with the results. Then Danreceived a call from Cheryl – she was in tears and was announcingher resignation. She had just finished a difficult conversationwith Walt the night before where he had raked her over the coalsfor being too soft with the finance group in London. (Walt) “Theydidn’t hire us to hold their hands, you know, they hired us to kickbutt! You really blew it. “ Dan begged her to calm down and hewould talk to Walt. Cheryl said she would not reconsider andthanked Dan for his kindness.
1. Analyze this case using modelsand principles from Organizational Behavior/Management. Describethe players, their styles/behaviors and relationships. Focus onmanagement and leadership.
2. What is your recommendation toDan, the primary stakeholder and person responsible for thebusiness? Include your rationale.
