In 2001, Theodore Vairaktaris founded UHK (United House of Kolor), a small-scale painting company on the Gold Coast. The company soon grew into a recognised name in the painting industry, running several other divisions simultaneously. In 2018, The Usher Group was formed after integrating all services into a single organisation. Today, The Usher Group is among the largest commercial painting companies in Australia, offering a full range of painting and related services to cater for the diverse needs of their clients.
The client approached us for creating a leadership development plan for the top 24 people in the company, including the stakeholders, the heads of all 7 divisions, as well as the mid-level leadership, so as to develop a winning team culture across the company.
They also needed our assistance with succession planning for the founder, Theodore Vairaktaris, so he could gradually hand over the business and oversee the company as the Chairman of the Board.
It has been 36 months since Peter Cox started working with The Usher Group, and the project is still going on successfully and as planned.
We started the project with a 4-hour-long session with the 24 leading members of the organisation, introducing them to the Leadership Dynamics process that they would be undertaking in the upcoming months.
In the next stage, we divided those 24 members into 2 rounds of 12 people, where each of them had an exclusive 90-minute monthly leadership session with Peter for 6 months.
During these sessions, Peter worked closely with the top leadership of the company. We presented them with multiple inspirational leadership case studies, helping them identify their true potential. This helped them determine the future direction of their business, furthering their 20-year legacy.
In addition to working with the key leadership of the organisation, we added 30 of their senior-level employees to our online training program, Leading4Growth: High-Performance Team Fundamentals.
Being the founder and the key stakeholder of The Usher Group, Theodore Vairaktaris had a significant influence on the organisation. It was challenging to transfer his trust and responsibility in the organisation to the other two stakeholders and enable them to take charge of the company, so Theodore could step out of the business. However, our sessions proved to be fruitful in developing the desired level of trust and understanding between the key leaders, and the upper and mid-level leadership, that would eventually be passed on to their reports.
If given the opportunity to do something different, we would want to maintain the monthly rhythm of our process. During our time with the company, round two started with the middle leadership, which became an addition to the project. We would have wanted the three stakeholders, Theodore, Stuart, and Shane, to continue a disciplined monthly rhythm with our process.
It was a proud moment to see the founder, Theodore, step out from his day to day business activities and take time to pursue other business opportunities.
One of the other key and proud moments was to witness the huge personal change and leadership growth of the 24 key team members who were part of the Leadership Dynamics process.
We instigated a Vision Launch for the business in May 2021. It was here that the Founder, Theo, was transparent about their 20-year journey, including their struggles and achievements. This led to an increase in the level of trust his people had in him and it also led to an increased level of influence of the 3 key stakeholders. This proved to be a stepping stone for leading the business successfully into the future.
We underpinned the existing high-performance team spirit and the Usher family vibe culture, with an expert leadership framework, and the results have been outstanding.
The project has been going on for the past 24 months, and during this time, we have observed significant individual growth. Some team members consider the training sessions to be a life-changing experience in their professional as well as personal lives, and this is a major success on its own. The sessions helped strengthen the feelings of unity and harmony among the team members, providing them with a healthier working environment where they are made to feel valued, heard, and acknowledged.
After learning about the power of edification and applying the strategies that Peter discussed during his leadership sessions, they were able to identify the hidden potential of their key people across the organisation. As a result, a significant improvement in the workplace culture has been observed company-wide. People have made great progress in terms of showing accountability and respect towards the chain of command, and all the processes finally seem to have falled into place.
By applying the principles of honesty and transparency, a deeper level of understanding has been developed on a personal level throughout the organisation. And since the leadership has learned to understand and acknowledge the emotional tone of its people, it has become easier for them to lead the organisation and team in the right direction.
In addition to bringing about a positive outcome within the organisation, the training has brought a significant improvement in the personal lives of the attendees, including their relationships with their spouses. They have started to recognise their true self-worth and see themselves as the leaders of tomorrow. This awareness has changed their overall behaviour and performance, which has ultimately translated to lifting the overall company performance of the Usher Group and seeing the Founder, Theodore, to transition to Chairman of the Board.
“The reason I brought Peter into the Usher Group specifically was to bring us an expert leadership development program to mentor and lead myself and my key leaders to ensure that our people run, build, and grow our businesses without me needing to be there 24/7.
The goal was to bring our high-performance team spirit with our family vibe culture, and majorly underpin that by an expert leadership framework, and the results have been outstanding.
We’ve produced a really high level of accountability.
We’ve got people with passion but they deliver the right actions and they’ve built us a management and employee team now that inspects themselves and they rapidly grow themselves with expert practices.
No one mentors like Coxey because he teaches a real world set of behaviours that our people now continue to cultivate. When Coxey mentors my people, and when my people do his program, it stays with them for life. They’ve always got it in the back of their mind.
That’s why I know there’s no other mentor like Coxey out there.
Coxey says, people grow our businesses- the product is not the product – the product is your people and Peter is the expert in growing people and teams.”
Theodore Vairaktaris
Founder and Director, The Usher Group
