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Our Clients
Our clients are typically very successful privately owned or closely held companies from a broad range of markets and businesses. Although they have already achieved a high level of success before working with us, they each recognized there was something in the way they were working that was limiting their ability to reach their highest goals or face new threats they envisioned coming into their market. Through adopting and practicing The Collaborative Way, they were able to gain the edge they needed to meet these challenges. While The Collaborative Way is obviously only one part of their success, it is a key component that enables all the other components to reach their full potential.

The following statements from a number or our clients express what they have gained from their practice of The Collaborative Way.

American Infrastructure is an organization of over 1,800 committed workers who strive everyday to build highly complex heavy civil construction projects in the Best, Fastest and Safest manner in our industry.

We are the 25th largest construction company of our type in North America. We consistently win National, State and Local awards for the quality and safety of our projects. What I am personally most proud of though, is being voted by our employees as one of the 100 Best Places to Work in PA, five years in a row.

We constantly strive to compete and win against the Best, Fastest and Safest competitors in the world. We continually push ourselves and each other to be leaders of technology and processes in our industry. The centerpiece of who we are, however, is to be continually striving to build a great place to work.

Our industry is tough and demanding, and yet we have created a unique culture where we respect one another while constantly pushing toward taking on the challenges and changes necessary to become and remain the best. The Collaborative Way gives us the tools to accomplish this. Without it we would not be as good a place to work and we would not be nearly as good at what we do.
- Ross Myers (CEO, American Infrastructure)

 

Diccicco Battista Communications is a brand communications agency.

Everything we do from top level strategies to street level executions is focused on brand performance. The Collaborative Way is, without question, the single most important building block of the Diccicco Battista company culture. Its impact on our company today is dramatically greater than when we began our practice several years ago. Some people get on board quickly — some need time and encouragement — new people need orientation, understanding and support. But we see the end result — an amalgamation of diverse personalities who truly understand how to communicate with each other successfully (sometimes under trying conditions) — as a fundamental competitive strength of our company.
- Mike Diccicco (President, Diccicco Battista Communications)


Stockwell Rubber Company’s core business is providing sealing and cushioning solutions for the analytical instrumentation, medical diagnostic equipment, aerospace and information technology equipment sectors.

As a US manufacturer, Stockwell Rubber Company can not compete solely on cost due to the forces of Globalization. We have taken on Responsiveness – and continually improving responsiveness – as a key deliverable for gaining market share in our core business. The practice of The Collaborative Way is essential to our success in this area. We are coming out of a difficult period for the US Manufacturing Sector. During the past two to three years, we have continued refining the Focus of our Core Business to leverage limited resources with the best result. Including our employees in this activity throughout this period was essential so they could better understand the game. Now that business levels have increased significantly, the communication skills learned in The Collaborative Way have been essential to supporting our ‘Up-tempo’ commitment to service.
- William B. Stockwell (President, Stockwell Rubber Company)


The Helm Group is a heavy highway and mechanical construction firm.

We are committing to an investment in the Collaborative Way because it will help us achieve our values.

Performance excellence results when all energies are focused in the same direction. The principles of the Collaborative Way promote open, honest, respectful communication, inclusion of those needed to make the best decisions, and a method to get buy-in and support for those decisions. Practicing these principles will create a unique culture that will increase organizational speed and agility, develop extraordinary teamwork, and create an enriching and satisfying work environment.
- Bob Helm (Chairman, Helm Group, Inc.)

 

The Conard-Pyle Company is a wholesale nursery growing and selling a wide range of roses, shrubs, trees and perennials to independent garden centers throughout much of the United States, and introducing outstanding new plants to America’s gardens.

We at The Conard-Pyle Company have successfully used The Collaborative Way as a tool for increasing the level of efficiency and effectiveness of personal performance throughout the organization. As a framework for how we interact and how we do our work, it provides a common structure in all areas of the company.
- Steve Hutton (President, The Conard-Pyle Company)


 
 
 
 
 

Brandywine Building Services, American Seaboard Exteriors and American Seaboard National are a closely held group of service companies managing contract facility cleaning and maintenance at Fortune 500 companies throughout the US and Canada.

We have been practicing the Collaborative Way for 7 years and have made it a cornerstone of our company culture. In day to day business, this practice has aided our people in overcoming view-point differences and personal communication snafu’s and diminished hidden agenda priorities to provide a stronger, collective focus on the company goals. Many times I have been amazed at the degree of swiftness certain people pull together to achieve a positive result on a project or crisis when, in the past, just getting them to agree on anything was a daunting task. Several times a year, employees will come to me privately and thank me for the opportunity of The Collaborative Way. Usually they have just been through a situation where they consciously applied one or more of the principles with positive forwarding results. At this juncture, they feel very accomplished and in control; I in turn, listening to them, feel a renewed sense of pride in our organization.
- Brian S. Blair (President, Brandywine Building Services, American Seaboard Exteriors and American Seaboard National)

Charter Homes is the leading homebuilder in Central Pennsylvania offering the best designed homes and neighborhoods in the most sought after locations throughout the region.

The success of our business is determined by how quickly we can act together to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us, staying out in front of competitors, to create value.

And that requires people to work together. The faster we move, through constant collective focus of our efforts and resources on what needs to be done, and minimizing drag as a result of ineffective understanding and expectations, the better chance we have of being successful.

The Collaborative Way is integral to defining what working together looks like for us, increasing our level of performance, and delivering results. Our business has doubled in the last 3 years.
- Rob Bowman (President, Charter Homes)

rsi logo

RSI is an employee benefits broker serving clients with 50 to 1000 employees in NJ, NY City, Philadelphia, and Northern Delaware.

Over the years we’ve worked incredibly hard at RSI to intentionally build a very specific organizational culture. I’ve learned that building such a culture is an absolutely essential part of our business differentiation. My experience is that at least 50% of the reason people buy from us is due to our culture and 90% of the reason people work for us is that culture. My experience also tells me that there are a number of ingredients that are necessary to build a truly powerful culture.

The most important of these ingredients is the ability to harness the collective energy and intelligence of our workforce. While it seems patently obvious, employees that are excited, energized, and engaged are clearly going to outperform those that are not. When engaged employees share a deep commitment to the organization, to a set of values, and to each other, the results become extraordinary.

The Collaborative Way is the “lubricant” that keeps all the parts working together. It has given our people the tools to create an environment to communicate in that is not common in the workplace, much less in the home. While we may experience challenges similar to other companies’, the speed with which we surface the challenges, deal with them effectively, and move on to solutions far surpasses that of almost any other organization. The Collaborative Way is truly part of the fabric of our culture; it’s simply how we operate.

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to explain the Collaborative Way to many other business leaders. Candidly, it’s impossible to do effectively. It too often sounds “touchy-feely” or “soft” or “nice.” The reality is that it’s demanding and rigorous and critically important. When you think of the number of times each day that each employee interacts with a customer, vendor, or fellow employee and multiply this by the number of employees and the number of workdays, you realize just how many human interactions take place in a year. If we could improve the precision and effectiveness of those communications by a factor of just 10%, the business results would be staggering. This is the perspective from which I believe leaders should view The Collaborative Way.

Today, it’s hard for me to imagine where we’d be if we had not “taken the leap” to invest ourselves in learning The Collaborative Way some 7 or 8 years ago. It sure seemed strange back then and required a certain degree of faith. Few investments we’ve made have paid off as handsomely.
- David Friedman (President, RSI)

 

Metallurgical Products Company is a world-class manufacturer of specialty alloys used by the copper melting industry.

Because our products are considered to be commodities, it is difficult to distinguish ourselves from the competition based on product quality. While our competitors may be able to produce a product of similar quality, they can’t duplicate the way we work together as a team. For this reason, we see the Collaborative Way as a vehicle that gives us a powerful competitive advantage.
- Mike Goodman (President, Metallurgical Products Company)


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