• United States

case study

From Artificial Harmony to High-Performance Trust:
Sintrex’s Leadership Transformation

In a world where data is power, Sintrex empowers businesses to transform information into actionable insights. As trusted advisors, they guide clients toward smarter decisions, improved operations, and continuous growth. Sintrex’s leadership team needed to shift from operational firefighting to building scalable high-performance teams and maintaining a ruly high-performing culture.

The Challenge

When Credo Growth partnered with Sintrex, the company had grown rapidly over the last few years, bringing both exciting opportunities and new complexities.

A refreshed leadership structure and the promotion of engineers into management positions without sufficient leadership development, created challenges that highlighted the need for consistency in management practices and the building of high-performing teams across the company.

Challenges identified:

  • Leadership Gaps – Many new leaders had technical brilliance but no grounding in people leadership, with some defaulting to an “old school” command-and-control style.
  • Communication Breakdowns – With teams spread across locations and some leaders avoiding difficult conversations, communication was a pain point.
  • Cultural Friction – Shyness in larger groups, fear of speaking up, and the formation of cliques and friendship circles erodes trust and accountability.
  • Fear and Avoidance – A reluctance to challenge, debate, or hold people accountable meant that poor performance was tolerated, and progress risked stalling.

The result? A leadership team at risk of fragmentation, resulting in them being unable to fully unlock their people’s potential or sustain their ambitious growth trajectory.

How Credo Growth Ensured Impact

Credo Growth designed a 7-month leadership journey tailored specifically to Sintrex’s needs. Using Patrick Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team as the foundation and layering in Credo Growth’s practical coaching and leadership development tools:

  • Kick-off & Baseline Assessment – Measuring Sintrex’s team health across trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results.

    At the beginning and end of the journey, leaders completed the Lencioni team dysfunction survey to track their development across five key dimensions of team performance. The scale used is:

    • 3–5 = Needs to be addressed
    • 6–7 = Could be an issue and needs to be unpacked
    • 8–9 = Seems stable, maintain
Score movement across the journey:

 

 

  • Focused on what a feedback culture truly means and created the space for the EXCO and management team to re-design the culture they wanted.

  • Established shared commitments to openness, honesty, listening to understand, and assuming good intent – principles that began to influence the organisation at every level.

  • Equipped leaders to handle tough conversations with clarity and empathy, while building awareness of their own communication behaviours and those of the people they lead.

  • Helped the team break cycles of blame and replace them with accountability, fostering deeper trust and stronger working relationships.

  • Embedded coaching and feedback as part of everyday leadership practice, making it a habit rather than a one-off event.

The Result

A Culture Shift

The transformation was evident within months:

  • Leaders leaned into passionate dialogue instead of gossip or avoidance.
  • A Sintrex-first mindset emerged, driving unified, results-focused goals.
  • Accountability strengthened – poor performers, even high-output but toxic individuals, were confronted and, where necessary, exited.
  • The leadership team built a foundation of vulnerability-based trust – enabling them to solve problems faster and collaborate more effectively across locations.
  • A new language of performance – Credo became a verb in the Sintrex world. “We are going to have a Credo conversation” focussing in implementing the skills learnt in these sessions and using the language as context for how things are perceived.

 

The Client’s Voice – Emile’s Reflections

Emile, Sintrex’s CEO, summed up the impact of the journey:

  • Greater Trust and Communication
    “The management team shifted toward more open and trusting communication. Difficult conversations are now being held instead of avoided, with people assuming good intent rather than bad. This change reduced gossip and helped problems get solved faster.”
  • Stronger Professional Intimacy
    “My own growth came from focusing less on operations and deadlines and more on building professional intimacy, taking time to get to know people as humans. Simple acts like asking about kids or personal interests created stronger bonds, which in turn made business conversations easier and more productive.”
  • Cultural Language Shift
    “I noticed a different language across the company compared to six months prior. Words like coaching, feedback, passionate dialogue, and trust had become part of everyday conversations. The tools weren’t just discussed in workshops; they were embedded in how people now interact.”
  • Accountability and Tough Calls
    “The team grew more willing to confront poor performers, even high output but toxic individuals. This led to the exit of people who weren’t aligned, creating space for healthier dynamics and improved team accountability.”

 

Conclusion

Today, Sintrex’s leadership team operates with greater trust, accountability, and alignment, positioning them to deliver on their bold vision of transforming data into actionable insights. By embracing vulnerability, dialogue, and ownership, Sintrex has laid the cultural foundation to scale its impact and growth.

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Partnering with Credo Growth has been one of the best skill investments we’ve made at Sintrex. Our leadership team shifted from avoiding tough conversations to embracing open dialogue and accountability. Gossip gave way to trust, and collaboration improved across the business.

What stands out is that this hasn’t just been a sort-term workshop, it’s been a long-term investment into toolsets and knowledge that our leadership team can use within Sintrex. It’s changed our everyday language and behaviours. Coaching, feedback, and trust are now part of how we work together, giving us the foundation to scale with confidence.

Emile BiagioCEO of Sintrex