The Story of a Great Team

How Passion and Core Values Led to the Launch of Flourish Health

This fall, Flourish Health hits the shelves as a quality, made-in-Canada line of nutritional supplements bearing descriptive names such as Plant Warrior and Goddess Greens. While preparing for their entry into the retail market, Kelly Shott and Joe Heraldo from the leadership team at Canadian Premier Supplements (CPS) talk honestly about the triumphs and challenges when taking an entrepreneurial business to the next level of success and building a great team.

It's a journey that has brought Canada's leading private label manufacturer of protein powders and nutritional supplements to 30 percent growth over the past six months. But at one point—despite rapid growth—it was a far cry from "flourish".

"We start with a husband and wife falling in love with the business," says Joe, integrator of the new systems and processes now in place at CPS, “But the story really became how we regained trust in a team through vision, clarity, discipline, and accountability”.

To understand what was going on at CPS over a year ago, Joe and Kelly take us back to an all too familiar entrepreneurial story.

Everything Happens for a Reason

Founder, Dave Baillargeon, had followed the classic path of the hard working, humble visionary who had a good idea and took a risk. Dave saw an opportunity in the North American dietary supplements market, and with passion and determination, left a stable job in order to work night and day on the business. Before long, CPS had become Dave's own company. With Dave’s keen market intuition, and his innate ability to incite the trust of others, the business grew. And with such growth, came the complexities of managing a business.

"Five years running this amazing company, and in the year of COVID, we doubled our business," recalls Kelly—company co-owner and Dave’s wife, "we were on a path to do great things in the next three years, but we clearly needed help."

Again, Dave’s entrepreneurial courage came through. Knowing that he'd met his limits, Dave wisely surrounded himself with expertise in key areas, i.e., quality control, finance, HR, and operations. He also added someone who brought technical experience in manufacturing. On paper, it looked great—here was someone to balance Dave's visionary, people and sales skills. But after the first month, Kelly could see that things had gone terribly wrong.

Start with WHY

Desperate to get things back on track, Dave and Kelly decided to “get Joe in here”. Joe had built a reputation over the years as a stellar coach for over 150 entrepreneurial-led companies and their leaders. Kelly had met him at one of Joe's Inspired Leadership workshops. Joe was no stranger to the challenges faced by owner/founder companies when they hit a ceiling in terms of team leadership and communication. "Loss of trust and collaboration," notes Joe, "is a classic combination that can lead to dysfunction at all levels of the operation.”

Joe had developed his own framework, tools, and processes for putting in systems and processes to bring back vision, value and trust. In addition, he had experience and tools from facilitating client implementations using the EOS Proven Process (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and working closely with an EOS Implementor.

CPS hired Joe full-time to work his magic in the role of general manager, working directly with Dave, Kelly, and the six-person leadership team.

Clearing Head Trash

Joe's mantra for any team was simple: "trust is a must". Otherwise, there was zero collaboration in the relationship and an over-abundance of what Joe refers to as head trash.

"Head trash is a mixture of ego and politics," Joe explains, "it results in a culture of blame. Once you recognize it, head trash is pretty easy to spot. It shows up in attitudes such as protecting one's own silos, negativity, even a reluctance to share opinions."

It didn't take much for Joe to see what was going on at CPS. There was some tough work to do; figuring out how to face challenges together that arise when a company growing faster than anyone had expected. But instead of helping, the new hire just wanted to tear down and blame. The propensity to focus on who was right and who was wrong went right to the core of the problem. "This was someone who just didn't share the same values as to what it would take to be successful together," concluded Joe.

After six months, the individual and CPS parted ways, but the damage had been done. Those on the leadership team had lost sight of their own value in the company, and why they were there in the first place. Even Kelly recalls how she felt like an outsider in her own company, without a sense of her where, or if, she still fit it."

It was time to get everyone back on the same page.

"If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition at any time." - Patrick Lencioni

Start by Getting Everyone Rowing in the Same Direction

Joe started with a process to determine the "why" of the organization—in other words, the purpose. This was not some "fluffy" exercise", notes Kelly. Joe's process for developing CPS's business case was specifically designed to help shed egos and politics, and instead, see the value in shared contributions.

The CPS purpose statement (in place since that day) put in writing the commitment made by each team member to reach the desired outcome.

We are committed to developing this team to master our facility, processes, and systems to provide trusted supplement solutions that help people lead a healthy and fulfilled life!

The above purpose brought vision, and desire instead of excuses. Once the team had drafted the "why", clarity was added by answering the questions: "what does this mean for the company 3 years from now, 1 year from now, even the next 13 weeks?"

Four Core Values Foundational to Our Great Team

The team then looked at how it would go about executing on the "why"—which would form the core values. The four values drove right to the heart of what it meant to be a team that is accountable to one another. Phrases such as "advice that cares and serves" and "courageous accountability" were specifically chosen to highlight concepts that would eventually become performance metrics.

"Determining the core values put us all on the same page emotionally in terms of where we're heading, and in a very positive manner," recalls Kelly.

Founder trusts team and let's go

The next step was to make sure that the right people were in the right seats. Given the purpose and the core values, the leadership team was asked to answer three questions: Why do they get it (the purpose), want it, and why they have the capacity to fill their role.

Dave went first, outlining his vision for leading and managing the company and the ultimate confidence he had in his team. Accountability for Dave included coming up with fresh ideas, building key relationships, and keeping the organizational culture safe and great. The others followed, in what Kelly describes as a transformative experience.

By the end of the time together, five members from the leadership team confirmed why each of them is needed (their value) for CPS to continue to succeed. For Kelly, the exercise shone a spotlight on her considerable skills in managing relationships and emotions—two competencies that would be critical during implementation and beyond.?

Core values separate out low trust performers

Putting the right people in the right seats also meant making some tough decisions when it's the wrong fit. Within weeks, it was clear that one senior leader had succumbed to her own head trash. It was the typical tearing down and negativity that breaks down trust in a team. Using the four core values as a measurement tool, Joe and Kelly were able to call out the employee's commitment to the organization. Their "courageous accountability” made what could have been a difficult decision, a choice that was obvious for both sides.

"There was no place for ego or politics on this team," says Joe, after CPS and the employee parted ways. "If we were going to move forward together, we have to be able to trust each other."

The Team Gets it, Wants it, and Elevates Behavior

As CPS prepares to launch Flourish Health, it is particularly imperative that the company measures performance in a meaningful way. Instead of looking purely at the ability to execute on the job, one of the new processes put in place uses an EOS tool called the People AnalyzerTM. The tool measures performance by looking at how well each employee demonstrates their commitment to the core values and company purpose.

"From the leadership team to the company's graphic designer", says Kelly, "this ongoing evaluation process ensures we keep trust high as well as performance."

The approach is departure on how most companies hire (and fire): in most instances, those who are good performers are rewarded over those who can build trust with a team. It's a practice that according to organizational guru, Simon Sinek, leads to a toxic environment in companies despite initial success. (As an aside, every new employee at CPS is required to watch the Simon Sinek presentation on Performance Versus Trust!)

With its new systems and accountability measures now in place, CPSs profits continue to grow. Equally important, however, Dave, Joe, Kelly, have all regained balance in their lives, each able to achieve great things not just at work, but also in their personal lives.

Flourish Health on retail shelves

The official launch of Flourish Health is set for the holiday season. Specifically targeted to the women's market, ages 31 to 50, Flourish offers a range of supplement solutions that are a perfect nutritional fit for the right person. “We’re using our passion and core values to attract this community,” says Joe, “the sentiment is reflected in our new tag line: Flourish looks different for everyone.

With the dietary supplement market poised to grow to US $272.4 billion within the next seven years, CPS is forecasting 60% growth by 2024. The leadership team at CPS has no doubt they'll get there, particularly with Dave at the helm and what Joe describes as Dave’s “quiet brilliance, with the courage to let the right people carry it through”. The company has a 3-year plan in place, in addition to ongoing 90 day and 13-week targets where they continue to measure performance, as well as accountability and trust. Most importantly, everyone knows they are part of a team, they feel valued, and they know how they fit in.

"I am super excited for all of us," notes Kelly. "I know we are going to make money and I know that we are going to be successful, but on top of that, "everyone here wants to come along on this ride, not just for us, but with us."