Veridian HomesHandbook for Winning - HousingZone.com Forums

 

 

 

Veridian Homes is a relatively new home builder in Madison, Wis., except it's really not. Prior to that, he was president of Don Simon Homes, a company that won both the NHQ Silver Award and the NHQ Gold Award. This year Veridian applied after a merger with another major builder in Madison, Midland Homes, and created a brand new organization. In its first year, they again applied for NHQ and won the Silver Award. David Simon is president of Veridian Homes.

 

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Managing a Merger

One thing the NHQ judges asked us about is, "How did you go through this merger? How did you come out of it really a top-notch, quality company"? We merged two family-owned companies that have been in business separately about 50 years, one founded by my father, the late Don Simon, and the other by my partner's father, Gill Rosenberg. We both [grew] from very small companies to mid-sized home builders and thought that the strategy looked really good financially. Synergy-wise, it made sense merging the companies. But it takes a lot more than just numbers and landholders to pull this off. What we did might give you some ideas, not about how to merge a company but, quite frankly, how to just build a company and about culture.

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A Marriage of Cultures

We were concerned about our people and how we could bring two companies together and be successful. Typically, 80% of all mergers fail to meet the high standards and objectives that they set out to meet because they can't get the cultures to come together quickly enough. We spent months assessing the two companies, determining where the gaps were in the two cultures, and where they were aligned. Is one company directive and controlling or more open and inclusive? Is it idealistic of values or more pragmatic? It's not saying that one idea is better, but where does each company stand?

We then took that information and put together a plan of action: How were we going to overcome cultural gaps while going through the change curve? How do we keep the companies building homes and quickly get both companies onto the same set of standards, specifications and systems and processes so we don't lose a beat? We are in business to serve the customer; how do we make sure it's seamless for them?

Think about systems and processes. Think about documenting that. How you merit and earn this type of award is by developing systems and processes of what you do every day.

 

"Think about systems and processes. Think about documenting that. How you merit and earn this type of award is by developing systems and processes of what you do every day." - David Simon

We put together a production timeline to see how quickly could we get our trade partners cycled through and on-board with the two companies going into one and get this process into our even-flow schedule. We're a very systematic, even-flow home builder. I would suggest that if you're not doing it, you would consider doing it. For example, we haven't missed a closing now since the late 1990s. When our sales manager signs off on the business contract with the customer, we quote that consumer a closing date within 24 hours of that contract being executed. The judges said, "I just can't believe you could do that." But you can, through systematic, organized processing.

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Understanding Your Core Values

I'm assuming that most of you have values - a vision and mission. It really is the beginning of your strategic plan. It's what you need to do with your team every day to walk the talk, and if you're not living your vision - if you're not pulling it out every day with your team and discussing what it means - I think you've got a lot of room for improvement there. Our team knows this. We recite it. We start every team meeting with this.

Vision: We focus on building homes that enrich lives and realize dreams. It's about customers - their lives, their dreams and what you are satisfying. It's not about building 700 homes in a tract and moving down the street. It's all about one customer at a time and one home at a time. It's about how that customer is important. What they're doing in that home - raising kids, growing old together, whatever it is - we're about dreaming, building and living. That's how we tag our companies. Let's dream. Let's build. Let's live.

Mission: We build great homes by never losing sight of what's important: Our customers, our employees, our communities, and our environment. We talk that and we walk that every day at Veridian Homes.

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Employee Relations

People are the most important asset. But really, it's the right people. Jim Collins' "Good to Great" - if you haven't read it, go get the book. The idea there is that you've got to get the right people on your bus going in the right direction. And if they're not in the right seat on the right bus, you've got to move them to the right seat or get them off your bus. Also, don't hire until you've found the right person. I don't care if you've got to fill that slot; it's more painful if you hire the wrong person - emotionally and financially.

Innovation, integrity, pride and passion - we hire on these four traits. Innovative minds, people with integrity and pride - so much of that is missing in business life in the United States today. And what's life without passion? It's the passion about my kids, my life, and my business. If you don't understand what's important in life, you don't have passion for it, forget all of this right here.

We have certain success drivers: business profitability, customer loyalty, operating efficiency and employee department loyalty. We link all this together through quarterly managers meetings, monthly and weekly departmental meetings, and biweekly team meetings. Every other Thursday morning - 9:00 a.m. - everyone comes together in the organization - all 140. We start every meeting with our vision or mission. We talk about and celebrate victories and accomplishments. We talk about what's changing, what's new. We share successes. We talk about sales numbers. We have a lot of applause. It's how you communicate effectively with your team about what's important. You need to be part of that process.

The other thing on this list is weekly one-on-ones. It's a way of connecting. People can come in with their agenda, knowing it's their time to talk about stuff that's important to them. We call it frustration resolution. One of the questions we ask is, "Do you like working here?" You should never have somebody quit and be surprised if you're doing these types of one-on-ones right. And they should always know how they're doing. It shouldn't have to come down to semi-annual or annual review processes if you're doing weekly one-on-ones. But we will tie those into what we call PPDs - Performance and Planning Development programs - that we review every few weeks and quarterly and so forth. Those are used in setting goals and opportunities for improvement for the team and individuals.

We link everything into our Gain$hare Program. It's a way of giving back and sharing the wealth with the entire organization. We measure a variety of things and if gains are made in those measures, we give back a pool of money monthly and quarterly to our team on an annualized basis. We believe you need to communicate what's important on those measures to the team in real time. We do it weekly with e-mails and every two weeks at our team meetings so that people have an opportunity to react to the data and improve and know if they are on track or not. There are goals that are very understandable for the team and they can then understand how they affect the results of the company.

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Our Communities and the Environment

We had a very strong commitment on how we'd give back to our communities and how we give back to our environment. Every home we build is Green Built Home™ certified in the state of Wisconsin. Every home we build is Energy Star® certified. Veridian also happens to mean a shade of green. So in choosing a name, we wanted something that meant something and could tell a story. We're big into recycling, big into building green and big into saving energy.

What an easy way for our customers to really give back! They don't know what this all means, in all honesty. But they do know that they just saved 100 trees today. They know that they just saved so many gallons of gasoline. They do know that because we built a Veridian Home that they just saved so many pounds of stuff going in the landfill. We try to talk in terms of how they can get involved.

This is just a quick look at what we do. We listen to our employees - our internal customers. If you're not satisfying your customers, you should be. If you're not surveying your employees, your team, you should be. If you're not surveying your customers, you should be, and you should also consider doing it with your trade partners.

 

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Visit the Veridian Homes Web site at www.veridianhomes.com