FCCS News & Insights

Strategic Consulting Services for ProPartners

Farm Credit organization ProPartners has experienced a lot of change in recent years, including a new CEO in Tom Levasser who first reached out to FCC Services in 2015 for support with a strategic planning session, and who has since utilized strategic talent review and succession planning, meeting facilitation, and ongoing consulting services.

“One of my top priorities upon joining ProPartners as President was to update our succession plan for business and leadership continuity,” Tom says. “I reached out to FCC Services, and they’ve been a strong partner ever since.”

“When Tom first reached out to us, we spent some time identifying his objectives of the engagement. Based on his goals, we decided that we would use a personality assessment of the leadership team to identify each member’s communication and leadership style. This allowed us to have a conversation about the specifics of the data contained in the assessments, rather than generalities,” says Jay Lux, Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness Consulting. 

Jay spent time facilitating a visioning session with the leadership team, discussing how they wanted the organization to be perceived, what they wanted to be as a leadership team, and how to get there.

“We got to an effective place and identified specific actionable things to improve,” Jay says. “For example, the team recognized that they tended to move so fast that they could potentially make decisions without asking questions about how others may feel about them. The team got specific about how to better communicate with employees so decisions would be better understood and thus implemented more effectively.” 

ProPartners also turned to FCC Services for a strategic planning session, during which the organization updated its purpose and vision, and identified key factors impacting ProPartners’ business. This resulted in five key strategies, and key tactics to support each identified strategy. FCC Services led the leadership team through a process to identify the specific skills or “leadership competencies” that would be needed by organizational leadership to most effectively enact these strategies. 

This process of identifying important leadership competencies allows the leadership team to look at the talent of their teams with greater specificity, reflecting on the leadership competences, rather than generalities. It also allows individuals within the team to have a clearer picture of the skills needed for more senior positions as they grow their careers at ProPartners Financial. “For example, one leader may be good at developing people, but not as strong in developing strategy; this may just mean they need leadership to help them get some experience there,” Jay says. “By checking in regularly, we can maintain consistent leadership development across the organization.”

Effectively a combination of three different businesses operating as fairly independent silos, Tom was also leading ProPartners through significant operational changes, including structural leadership changes, consolidating operations and instituting consistent technology and processes. 

“We knew we wanted to move the business forward, and we used an employee survey to assess employees’ attitudes toward making changes,” Tom says. “The survey revealed that they were supportive of the changes, and in fact were frustrated with the inefficiencies of having the three business lines operating independently.” 

While open to the concept of change, Tom wanted to ensure that the employees were truly ready to make the necessary changes. He turned to FCC Services to facilitate the annual employee meeting in 2016 including an in-depth session on change management delivered by Chris Keller, Senior Vice President of Talent and Leadership Development with FCC Services.

“The employees really enjoyed Chris’ session and his message that they had the opportunity to develop our corporate culture,” Tom says. “FCC Services has definitely helped us move our strategy forward, and helped us manage through the change process and understanding the impact on our employees.”

Jay continues to work as a strategic consultant with ProPartners, meeting regularly with Tom and his leadership team to maintain strategic alignment and momentum. 

“Jay is viewed as a trusted advisor by our management team, and they appreciate his impartial contributions to our strategic discussions,” Tom says. “He really understands our business and has a lot of experience with the Farm Credit System we serve, so he carries a lot of credibility. He also creates a positive environment where people can have tough and productive conversations without finger pointing or blame.” 

For more information about FCC Services’ consulting services in the areas of strategic talent management, employee engagement, strategic planning sessions or any customized solutions, please contact Jay Lux or Chris Keller. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you.

Jay R. Lux
Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness Consulting
Jay.Lux@fccservices.com
651.982.4568 office
612.237.3196 cell

Chris Keller
Senior Vice President, Leadership & Talent Development
Chris.Keller@fccservices.com
303.721.3270 office
917.538.2540 cell