Yankee Candle
Creating more top performers
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Michael Kittredge created his first scented candle by melting crayons to make a gift for his mother — and went on to create the Yankee Candle Company with a few high school friends. Today, Yankee Candle is the largest candle manufacturer in the U.S., but it needed help digging into behavioral and work style differences between top and bottom performers.
The Challenge
There was a clear difference between Yankee Candle’s top-performing store managers and the rest of the pack. But leaders couldn’t figure out what was different — or how to coach, motivate and develop underperformers.
The Solution
Yankee Candle used Predictive Index (PI) to identify behavioral and work style differences between the top 25% of its sales performers and the bottom 25%. Leaders used the results to coach employees who didn’t have the natural behaviors of top performers but could be moved in that direction.
Predictive Index is a critical tool. It makes such a practical and personal difference to companies and their people, one individual at a time.
The results
When Yankee Candle used behavioral insights to design sales training and workshops, performance increased 40%. PI gave the team a common language to discuss individual and team performance, so they could play to each other’s strengths. PI was also applied to the hiring process to predict whether candidates would be successful. It became a standard tool for recruitment, coaching and performance measurement across the entire business — in manufacturing, distribution, sales, retail stores and with the senior leadership team.
