Solutions
Leidal continued to use the Carestream hiring methods but quietly inserted the Topgrading methodology that he had learned when he was CIO at Hayes Lemmerz – Job Scorecards, Tandem Topgrading Interviews, and reference checks arranged by candidates.
Leidal conducted thorough talent reviews of his entire department. There had been less than 1% turnover for years, which in this case indicated what the talent reviews revealed – mass complacency. He replaced all five of his direct reports and was able to replace 100 low performers with 50 high performers.
As an innovation, Leidal added minimum ratings on general competencies to Carestream's Job Scorecards. He had found that some people could achieve results but were such poor team players that they dragged down others' results and made the organization culture less attractive to prospective hires.
After improving hiring results and replacing lesser performers with high performers, Leidal mentioned the new Topgrading methods to Corporate Human Resources. Impressed, they attended a public Topgrading Workshop and have remained supportive of its inclusion.
"With a 4-year goal to reduce costs to 1.5% of sales, our team has almost achieved it (1.57%) in only 3 years. Efficiency has increased 10-fold and productivity is much improved. The only way we could have achieved those results is with Topgrading."
- Bruce Leidal, CIO
