10.10.09

The Origins of Side by Side Leadership® Success

Posted in Leadership, Research at 11:20 am by Dennis Romig

For 28 years Side by Side, Inc. has collected and summarized research studies on leadership and teamwork.  In the beginning the most popular approaches included recreational teambuilding and interpersonal confrontation trust building.  We discovered that these approaches had no research support for improving productivity. On the other hand productivity soared when leaders asked for and listened to their contributors’ ideas for:

• Setting goals;
• Solving problems; and
• Making decisions

Motorola University discovered Side by Side, Inc.’s research and training when they visited with two training managers at the Austin Motorola computer chip factory, Dave Olski and Dave Willis.  Motorola contracted to develop their entire leadership, management and teamwork training around Side by Side, Inc.’s research.

After Motorola implemented the research-based training programs their corporation’s revenue grew from $3.3 billion to almost $11 billion in eight years.   Texas Instruments, Motorola’s main competitor, who was ahead in 1981 with $4.4 billion revenue only grew to $6.6 billion in the same eight years.  Motorola University invented the now famous Six Sigma quality program using Side by Side Inc.’s participative management and teamwork programs as a foundation for employee involvement.

Motorola, along with Ford and Xerox, led the way through the late 1980s showing how research based participative leadership and teamwork combined with quality programs increased both revenue and profits.  Motorola’s high tech competitors as well as other corporations visited Motorola in Schaumberg, Illinois to learn more. Some of the visiting leaders and training managers asked Motorola University who had helped them with their leadership training.  Motorola answered Dr. Dennis Romig in Austin, Texas.  Through Motorola referrals Side by Side, Inc. provided leadership training and coaching to most of the other major high tech companies – Texas Instruments, Dell, IBM, Raytheon, and Advanced Micro Devices.

Energy companies from Houston, Texas heard about Side by Side, Inc.’s successes in High Tech and engaged Side by Side to coach and train their leaders as well (Arco, Shell,  Vastar Resources, Inc. and Noble Energy).  In all cases companies achieved 20-40% improvements per year.  These case studies and the research behind the team approach were published in Breakthrough Teamwork, 1996 and Side by Side Leadership, in 2001.

Side by Side, Inc.. had some good luck and help with the book, Side by Side Leadership ; It was a 2001 Wall Street Journal and 2001 and 2002 New York Times Business Bestseller.  Side by Side Leadership also won the award for Best Business and Career Book of the Year for 2002.

One of the chapters in Side by Side Leadership  presents how Side by Side, Inc. assisted an Arco’s subsidiary, Vastar Resources, Inc., in growing its market cap from $2.8 billion to $8.3 billion using Breakthrough Teamwork and Side by Side Leadership .  All of the research-based success stories in both books were published with the permission and endorsement of the executives of the corporations who had benefitted from the leadership training programs.

The results sound unbelievable, but they are real. The outstanding results are because of the hard work of our clients and us applying the best scientific research on leadership, teamwork and synergy. Every month I am excited by reports from current and previous clients on new breakthrough results!

(Side by Side, Inc. was formerly named Performance Resources, Inc.)

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