Sustainable Leadership Development at Cupertino Electric

Since 1954, public and private organizations have tapped construction and engineering firm Cupertino Electric, Inc. (CEI) to design and construct first-of-their-kind electrical systems.

In 2009 and 2010, CEI employees helped position the San Jose, Calif.-based company as the highest-ranked electrical contractor on the Silicon Valley Business Journal/San Francisco Business Times “Best Places to Work” list. The high level of employee satisfaction at CEI is attributed, in part, to the company’s focus on developing and retaining talented people.

Because the future success of CEI resides within its talent pool, creating and implementing an effective leadership development program is a top priority. With this in mind CEI management tasked a core group of leaders with designing their own development program.

“We had an accelerated leadership development program in place two years ago, but last year it became apparent participants were not getting what they needed to take the next step up,” said Rose Baldwin, CEI’s director of human resources.

Positioning the work as an action learning project, eight managers in CEI’s accelerated leadership program were assigned to redesign the course for current and emerging leaders in 12 weeks without compromising their work performance.

The team worked with a facilitator to identify capability gaps and immediately recognized core capabilities in communication and problem solving needed strengthening across the management population. This lack made it difficult for leaders to collaborate effectively. These also were recognized as fundamental capabilities needed to build strong relationships and drive business value for clients.

Drawing from numerous books and articles, internal and research data and benchmarks from leading companies, including Cisco Systems, the high-potential team partnered with Harvard Business Publishing to develop the curriculum. Then the team went through the program together as they designed it, practicing skills and receiving feedback along the way, and immediately applied new skills throughout the process to heighten the learning experience and enhance the final delivered program.