Moen, a leading manufacturer of kitchen and bathroom fixtures, launched a leadership development program for its frontline supervisors after an employee survey revealed an opportunity to improve supervisory skills. The company partnered with DDI to develop a 10-course program delivered over 20 months to over 60 supervisors. The program improved supervisory coaching and communication skills, increased employee trust in supervisors, and helped Moen realize its goal of engaging and developing its workforce.

1. Moen
MOEN
The story of Moen Incorporated dates to 1937,
when company founder Al Moen designed the
first single-handle mixing faucet. After more than
seven decades of growth and innovation Moen’s
namesake company is a leading manufacturer of
kitchen and bath faucets, sinks, and accessories.
As with most manufacturing organizations in the
21st century, Moen has its sights set on global
expansion. Moen, however, is a company
defined less by its growth or its global footprint
than by its people.
“Like a lot of organizations, we’re focused on
growing in very targeted ways,” says Robyn
Hill, Moen’s vice president of human resources.
“In order to foster growth globally you need lead-
ers who can inspire people, who can motivate
people and keep them on track, help them
understand what’s important, and ensure
that the message around the direction of the
organization is carried through to all levels of
the workforce.”
Hill says that an important metric that Moen
tracks is employee engagement as measured by
an annual survey. Survey results pointed to an
opportunity for frontline supervisors to further
develop their leadership skills.
“We knew that the leaders at the supervisory
level had largely been promoted from within,”
says Terrie Szucs, senior organizational develop-
ment consultant. “Yet, they manage the largest
bulk of our population in the organization and
probably encounter the most difficult set of
dynamics.”
Seizing this opportunity, Moen launched a front-
line leadership development program based on
its competency model for supervisors.
A SOLID FOUNDATION TO INCREASE
EFFECTIVENESS
In implementing the program, Moen needed to
address some important challenges. For one,
while the company did not have a formal leader-
ship development program in place, many of the
leaders who would be required to go through it
would have to be convinced of its value.
“I’ve got probably 30-plus years of manufacturing
supervision experience and when it was
announced that I needed to attend these
sessions I didn’t think I needed to go,” says
one participant, a production manager in Moen’s
New Bern, N.C., facility.
GIVING LEADERS THE SKILLS TO DRIVE
ENGAGEMENT AND EXECUTE STRATEGY
REALIZED
IT.
STRONGER LEADERSHIP SKILLS FOR
SUPERVISORS
ABOUT MOEN:
> Moen is a leading
manufacturer of kitchen
faucets, bathroom faucets,
bath accessories, shower-
heads, and stainless steel
sinks for residential and
commercial applications.
> The company has
manufacturing facilities,
distribution facilities, and
offices in North America,
Latin America, and Asia.
Its headquarters is located
in North Olmsted, Ohio.
> Moen is part of Fortune
Brands Home & Security,
Inc., and employs
2,500 people worldwide.

2. Szucs says that this participant’s initial skepticism
was shared by many of the more than 60 U.S.-
based supervisors targeted by the program. But
she also says that the aim of the program wasn’t
to get leaders in classes but for them to develop
the skills they needed and apply them back on the
job on an ongoing basis.
To build a program that would do just that, Moen
tapped DDI.
“We settled on the DDI frontline leadership pro-
gram for a whole host of reasons,” says Hill. “We
believed it would really give us a solid foundation
to increase leader effectiveness and help our
employees work more toward their potential,
whether it’s somebody who wants to move beyond
the role they’re in or somebody who likes what
they’re doing and they want to be able to do it
more effectively.”
The program, which Moen christened the FrontLine
Leadership Program, featured 10 courses from
DDI’s Interaction Management: Exceptional Leaders
. . . Extraordinary Results®
leadership development
system. The courses included Essentials of
Leadership, Rapid Decision Making, Coaching for
Improvement, Resolving Conflict, Building an
Environment of Trust, Coaching for Success,
Leading Change, Motivating Others, Delegating
for Results, and Achieving Leadership Potential.
The courses, which were facilitated by Moen’s
internal OD staff, not only gave the supervisors the
skills they needed to be successful and provided
opportunities for them to practice the skills in a safe,
supportive environment, but they also introduced
them to discussion planners and other useful tools
they could refer back to and use as they went about
performing their jobs on an ongoing basis.
Rather than delivering the courses in tight
sequence, the delivery was spaced out over a
20-month period so that leaders would have a
month or more to apply what they had learned
and incorporate their new skills and tools into their
roles prior to going through the next course in the
curriculum.
To ensure that the supervisors got the support
they needed, Szucs says that managers received
a preview of the courses so they would know what
skills the supervisors reporting to them would be
developing and expected to apply on the job.
“We worked with the leadership team prior to and
after each course to discuss the content, the learn-
ing, the areas of reinforcement, when to coach it,
and the tools that were provided, so that they
could not only begin to utilize them as a leadership
team but they could also incorporate the focus on
the skill development into their daily, weekly, and
monthly coaching.”
Once the supervisors completed a class, they
were required to meet with their manager to create
an action plan for how they would apply their new
skills. “They were given some very clear actions
after every class to do in the four to six weeks
prior to the next course,” says Szucs. “From a
system standpoint, we looked at the whole organi-
zation and the way in which the new skills could
be embedded into the culture and really make it
part of the norm of the culture versus just an event
in time.”
To further promote ongoing skill application, the
skills imparted in the training were linked to
Moen’s performance management system with
objectives and measures to drive accountability.
Participants also took part in post-training monthly
roundtable discussions on topics related directly to
the course content.
In addition, Hill, as a member of Moen’s executive
team, served as the executive champion, building
awareness and support for the FrontLine
Leadership Program at the highest levels of
the organization.
“Never in engineering
school did we talk about
the PEOPLE ASPECT
OF CHANGE. It was
really an eye-opener for me.”
MATERIAL FLOW
ENGINEER, MOEN
DEVELOPING
LEADERS TO BE
MORE EFFECTIVE

3. EMBRACING CHANGE
While the FrontLine Leadership Program may
have engendered skepticism among some of the
supervisors required to go through it, that skepti-
cism was allayed once they attended the courses.
For example, the production manager with 30 years
experience who didn’t think he needed to go
through the program came to see it as valuable.
“While I pushed back initially on going to the class-
es, after completing them I was glad I did,” he says.
He also insists that he came away from the pro-
gram with “new ideas and techniques” that he didn’t
have before.
This positive assessment of the program was
echoed by multiple participants. Among the bene-
fits supervisors have attributed to the program:
better relationships with direct reports, more
confidence in their leadership abilities, and
greater proficiency in managing conflict.
“The supervisors are resolving problems instead of
letting them escalate up the ladder which frees up
more time for myself and my HR manager to be
involved in more things and be more productive,”
says the manager of Moen’s distribution center in
Kinston, N.C., who had two supervisors reporting
to him go through the program. “Morale has
increased as a result of that.”
Part of the program’s success can be attributed to
how it was delivered, with supervisors from differ-
ent parts of the business brought together in one
of two central locations for the classes.
“The relationships that I saw start to blossom with
these folks across their facilities was tremendous,”
says Heather Cornett, senior organizational devel-
opment specialist, who, along with Szucs, facilitat-
ed the courses. “They really learned from each
other. And that initial been-there-done-that attitude
and the I-already-know-this-stuff mentality went
away quickly, which was great.”
Beyond the raves from participants, the program
also contributed to significant improvement in
various areas measured on the annual employee
engagement survey. From 2009, the year the
program was first implemented, to 2010, positive
responses across six critical questions increased
an average of 17 percentage points, including a
19-percentage-point increase in positive responses
to a question concerning the degree of trust and
confidence team members have in their supervisors.
The program also succeeded in helping supervisors
fill out their skill set in ways they didn’t anticipate.
Another program participant, a material flow engi-
neer at the New Bern, N.C., facility, appreciated
how the leadership skills he learned gave him a
new—and needed—perspective.
“Being an engineer, I spend a lot of time focused
on the technical aspects of implementing change.
But never in engineering school did we talk about
the people aspect of change. It was really an eye-
opener for me to learn to see both sides and really
relate both to those implementing a change and to
those affected by it. As a result, I focus a lot more
on communication than I probably would have a
year-and-a-half ago.”
Having partnered with DDI to design and
implement a leadership development program
for its supervisors, Moen is realizing the follow-
ing results:
> 17-percentage-point average improvement in
the number of positive responses to six critical
questions on Moen’s annual employee
engagement survey.
> 19-percentage-point improvement in the
number of positive responses to an engage-
ment survey question concerning the degree
of trust and confidence team members have
in supervisors.
> Supervisors who have gone through the
program cite multiple benefits, including
better relationships with their direct reports,
more confidence, and improved ability to
manage conflict.
> Managers indicate that the supervisors report-
ing to them now demonstrate improved coach-
ing and communication skills.
THE BOTTOM LINE
“THE SUPERVISORS
ARE RESOLVING
PROBLEMS instead
of letting them escalate
up the ladder.”
MANAGER
DISTRIBUTION CENTER,
MOEN

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