BELRON keeps a close eye on the climate

Abstract

BELRON keeps a close eye on the climateLeadership initiatives concentrate on empowerment M ost companies would settle for growing at 17 percent a year for five years, but BELRON wanted more.The business, better known as Autoglass or Carglass in Europe and as O'Brien in Australia, still had only 8 percent of the world market for repairing and fitting vehicle glass. And chief executive Gary Lubner recognized that it would not be strategy, access to capital or opportunities to enter new territories that would stand in the way of BELRON achieving further sustained growth, but leadership capability of its managers.Five years ago, therefore, the organization began transforming its approach to leadership development using ''organizational climate'' as an input.Organizational climate is how people perceive, either directly or indirectly, their work environment. Some have suggested that high-performance organizations have climates with specific measurable characteristics. Work within Hay Group, for example, indicates that organizational climate can directly account for up to 30 percent of variance in key business-performance measures.BELRON operates in 30 countries. It has some 1,600 service centers and 7,100 vehicles, providing a service to around 8 million customers and employment for 19,500.'' Managers no longer feel that they must have all the answers -thus leading to more of a coaching relationship. ''