Chrissy Nardini, president of American Metals Supply, was eager to get her team aligned around an energetic growth strategy in late 2014. The profitable wholesale distribution firm, which serves HVAC contractors and the construction industry, had reached $56 million in revenue since her grandfather, Al Hassebrock, a sheet metal salesman, started it in Springfield, Ill., in 1962. She saw plenty of potential to build on that.
But the price of steel, which accounted for 40 percent of revenue at the firm, was dropping. To keep the firm growing, Nardini needed to get all 85 of the firm’s employees—spread out in seven locations in the Midwest—rowing in the same direction simultaneously.