Case Study — TrueScripts
ABOUT
TrueScripts, a growing Midwest enterprise, stepped into the Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) industry in 2013 with a mission to not do business as usual. Founded by three pharmacists whose friendships went back to their days at Purdue University, TrueScripts serves members directly by negotiating the lowest drug costs possible. In an industry unregulated for pricing, the company brings transparency and competition, focused on serving the very real needs of its customers, one claim at a time.
Thanks to innovative and flexible infrastructure, a unique business model, and values that connect to felt needs, TrueScripts has saved their customers more than $200 million, launched their ONE RING RESPONSETM service with a 95% success rate (a customer gets a live representative on the first ring), and are strategically positioned for even greater growth.
Coming out of our CHORUS assessment and development, the entire leadership team is functioning as a cohesive unit. We’re on the same path. We’re strategically aligned. We’re in a different place than we were three years ago.
Dean Merder
President & CEO, TrueScripts
Challenge
In 2020, TrueScripts’ founders, Nathan Gabhart, Kevin Messmer and John Bell, recognized the need to develop existing and new leaders, shape an executive team that could lead TrueScripts to their next level of best and create a sustainable leadership development pipeline. CHORUS was tapped to address these needs and to help the company align their leaders and teams with the company’s strategic plan. Alignment for the core team was particularly critical as TrueScripts’ employee base grew another 50 percent in three years.
Solution
CHORUS engaged TrueScripts’ leadership team in its Hallmarks® senior leadership assessment and development experience, which features in-depth individual and team analysis, facilitated group experiences, self-paced learning, and one-on-one executive coaching.
Experiencing the CHORUS sessions with my talented colleagues – learning more about them, their styles, what resonates with them, how they’re motivated, what’s their ‘why,’ has been invaluable.
Nick Rasche
CFO/COO, TrueScripts
Experiencing the CHORUS sessions with my talented colleagues – learning more about them, their styles, what resonates with them, how they’re motivated, what’s their ‘why,’ has been invaluable.
Nick Rasche
CFO/COO, TrueScripts
Over an 18-month engagement, the company’s core leaders grew individually and as a group. The experience helped clarify individual and team gaps, advancing each leader’s ability to tap into others’ strengths to address the complicated business of the industry and steward amazing growth. During this time, key executives stepped into new positions, like Dean Merder who was promoted to president and chief executive officer, and Nick Rasche, who stepped in as chief financial officer.
Rasche, now chief operating officer in addition to his CFO title, says developing top leaders within the organization has been a win-win for the fast-growing company, an investment that has, and will continue, to pay big dividends.
We were able to take what we learned through CHORUS and implement it at TrueScripts globally. From the operations level, all the way up to the ownership level, there was a huge difference in the culture for us to be able to place first in the Indiana Chamber’s ‘Best Places to Work’ program two years in a row.
Joel Thompson, PharmD
Clinical Pharmacist, TrueScripts
Highlights of the Engagement Included:
- A strategically-aligned and tightly-knit leadership team successfully leveraging strengths
- Leaders equipped to lead people and manage results, think strategically, mobilize quickly, and create a culture of accountability
- Increased emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and strategic dialogue — qualities critical for leading a fast and high-growth company
- Time for senior leadership to train and bond amid significant growth and the disruption of a pandemic
- Successful hand-off by founders to new executive leadership
- The trickle-down effect: an award-winning, loyal workforce aligned behind leadership and company strategy
CHORUS Services:
- Leadership Assessments
- Leadership Development
- Team Development
- Strategic Alignment
- Executive Coaching
Results
TrueScripts has added almost 40 employees since the engagement with CHORUS began. Leadership and executive team development are paying dividends as the team becomes larger while maintaining company core values. With client and employee retention rates above 90%, the company jumped from 6th in Indiana’s “Best Places to Work” small business category, to winning first place in the medium-sized category two years in a row. (https://www.bizvoicemagazine.com/interactive/2023/05/).
Really diving in and learning more about each other has helped us to become closer, and that impacts the whole organization. When the leadership team is collaborative, trusts each other, and cares about each other, our whole workforce is watching and following.
Hannah Wiscaver PHR, SHRM-CP
Director of TrueLife & Human Resources
Really diving in and learning more about each other has helped us to become closer, and that impacts the whole organization. When the leadership team is collaborative, trusts each other, and cares about each other, our whole workforce is watching and following.
Hannah Wiscaver PHR, SHRM-CP
Director of TrueLife & Human Resources
Next Steps
CHORUS Director of Leadership Development Ron Stohler said the relationship with TrueScripts has been like having a front-row seat to change. “They are a team so eager to grow and learn, and that translates into these huge successes.”
Merder is excited by TrueScripts’ progress, and knows that as the team continues to expand, executive leadership training and development must too. “I just see the confidence rising every time we get together in a retreat. It’s not over with CHORUS long term, because we’ve got to keep this momentum going.”
