"I'm definitely seeing the team making better decisions. I'm seeing [the financials] coming through in terms of people's commitment to being able to hit objectives and understand what we're trying to do.”
When Gavin Exon stepped into his role as President of the Canadian division of Exchanger Industries, he inherited a leadership team marked by long tenure, siloed thinking, and low trust. Some team members had been with the company for over three decades, while others were new and struggling to find footing. There was no shared definition of leadership, psychological safety was low, and internal efforts to fix the dysfunction had failed. The culture was stagnant, and high-potential leaders were losing patience.
"We weren’t high-performing," Gavin recalled. "We were dysfunctional, and we weren’t even hitting the basics."
Exchanger partnered with Unicorn Labs to roll out a structured leadership development program across three cohorts, involving 20 leaders from different levels. Over six months, the Unicorn Labs team delivered a mix of DISC assessments, live group training, executive coaching, and strategic offsites. Fahd's facilitation created space for honest conversations, surfaced blind spots, and introduced shared language and tools for collaboration. This wasn’t just training, it was a full culture reset.
From structured modules to custom facilitation, Unicorn Labs gave Exchanger's leaders the space, tools, and trust to grow together.
The outcomes were immediate and lasting. Teams began leading their own cross-functional check-ins. Leaders made difficult decisions with more clarity and confidence, and company-wide metrics showed measurable progress in culture and communication.
Six months after completing the Unicorn Labs program, Gavin's middle management team continues to meet weekly on their own initiative, building on the 93% program completion rate that shows their genuine commitment from day one.
The program's psychological safety training manifested in high-stakes moments, with team members now delivering challenging but necessary feedback directly to leadership, transforming decision-making quality throughout the organization.
Gavin can now step back and trust his team to collaborate and deliver, knowing the foundation is rock solid, evidenced by measurable improvements across all six leadership areas, including a 7.14% increase in Sense of Purpose and 6.53% boost in Culture of Leadership.
When Gavin Exon stepped into his role as President of Exchanger Industries, a 64-year-old heat exchanger manufacturing company with 500+ employees and 9-figures in revenue, he inherited more than just a business he inherited a leadership challenge that threatened the company's future growth and sustainability.
Despite having incredible tenure within the organization, the leadership team was fragmented, dysfunctional with a fractured structure, spanning new hires and 30+ year veterans. Even with some impressive technical excellence, team dynamics were holding the company back.
Beneath the surface of this established company lay significant leadership challenges that would soon demand immediate attention and strategic intervention.
When asked to describe the chemistry between leadership teams prior to engaging with Unicorn Labs, Gavin's response was immediate and telling: "Disparate, fragmented."
He elaborated on the root of these challenges, explaining how the company's incredible tenure, while valuable, had created limitations.
"We have something that’s incredible: many of our people have been here for decades, some nearly half a century. But the flip side is that such long tenure can sometimes limit exposure to different perspectives and alternative ways of approaching business and leadership.”
Gavin's business acumen helped him identify the specific nature of their dysfunction:
“What resonated with me was that the team was dysfunctional. I’ve studied a lot of business frameworks, and Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team really stood out. I could point to examples of each dysfunction playing out within our team.”
The situation was so concerning that Gavin had already attempted intervention: "I even went to the point of assigning a couple of our managers to read five dysfunctions of a team trying to get them to see it."
This dysfunction wasn't limited to just his direct team; it cascaded throughout the organization, creating a leadership crisis that demanded immediate and comprehensive attention.
For Gavin, the dysfunction wasn't just a performance issue, it was an existential threat to the company. "Ultimately in business, it all boils down to the results. I just knew that we weren't going to be able to achieve the growth results that we were looking for without change, and I was actually concerned that we weren't even able to achieve basic results to sustain the company."
Perhaps more concerning was the impact on their best people: "The other part of that risk is I was noticing that the right people… the ones you want on the proverbial bus… were getting frustrated, seeing them in despair, not able to make things move the way they needed to. You risk losing those key people and then that sets you back even further."
This talent retention risk created urgency around finding a solution that could not only address the immediate dysfunction but also re-engage and retain their most valuable team members.
Gavin brought significant experience with leadership development programs to his search for the right solution. "I used to work for General Motors for a period of time, and their training regimen was exceptionally strong in terms of their leadership program. So I've been through a fair bit of that.”
However, those previous experiences highlighted a key difference:
"Now, in that particular company, I was already part of a high-functioning team, so we had super high engagement, high performance, high focus on results, whereas that fundamental alignment just didn't exist at Exchanger."
The path to Unicorn Labs came through a trusted referral of Gavin’s:
"I was introduced to Unicorn Labs through another one of their clients and [I am] good friends with the CEO there. I was asking him for some advice on leadership training and what they've done, and so he introduced me to Unicorn Labs."
This referral approach proved crucial in establishing initial credibility and openness to the process.
Gavin's first interactions with the Unicorn Labs team, particularly Abigail (Account Executive), set a professional tone: "When I started meeting with Abigail, it was absolute professionalism, with a great work package that they'd put together…it seemed like a comprehensive overview."
What particularly impressed Gavin was the academic rigor behind the program:
"I immediately recognized elements from Patrick Lencioni and Jim Collins’ work embedded in the program. What struck me was, ‘wow, here’s somebody who’s taken a decade of reading that I’ve also done and distilled it into a practical, accessible package. It resonated even with leaders who haven’t had formal business training.’"."
This recognition of solid academic foundations within an accessible framework became a key differentiator in his decision-making process.
Beyond branding, Gavin had practical concerns about the investment:
"...there’s always a financial component when you’re bringing 20 people into a program. Beyond the investment in Unicorn Labs’ services, I had to weigh the opportunity cost of taking leaders away from their day-to-day work. But in the end, the return, both in team development and business impact, far outweighed those concerns."
The strategic concerns were equally important:
"There's always that doubt of bringing in somebody else. What are they going to say? Is that going to be aligned with my values and what I'm trying to teach in the leadership [team]? Is it going to contradict? Is it going to set us back?"
These concerns demonstrate the thorough due diligence process that led to his eventual decision to move forward.
Gavin's assessment of Fahd was immediately positive:
"...he's incredibly engaging right from day one…that's the key word. I'd listened to a few of his podcasts to try and get an understanding of who he is and what his teaching is. He's got a lot of great energy and I could see that resonating with the team."
Gavin approached the evaluation systematically:
"I treated it as a bit of an interview. When I'm interviewing candidates, I look for how the person is going to fit into the team. With Fahd, it was immediately apparent that he would fit into the team, the team would fit with him and there would be that fundamental trust."
However, Gavin had some concerns about generational fit. With a team spanning from leaders older than him to those more than a decade younger, he questioned whether Fahd’s style would resonate across the board:
"At first, I wondered if Fahd’s millennial style would resonate across our wide age range of leaders. But he has the tenacity to break through those barriers quickly, and it was clear he could connect and resonate with every generation in the room."
It raises a powerful question for any leader: how often do we underestimate whether new approaches will connect? Exchanger’s experience shows that with the right facilitator, style becomes less of a barrier and more of a bridge across generations.
"The program absolutely met expectations on multiple levels. It gave us the foundation to work better together as a team, and it gave me the confidence to step back, knowing they can collaborate effectively and deliver without me needing to oversee every detail."
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When Gavin Exon inherited a fragmented leadership team at Exchanger Industries, a 64-year-old manufacturing company, he could identify dysfunction at every level that threatened both growth and basic operational sustainability.
Through Unicorn Labs' comprehensive six-month program involving 20 leaders across three cohorts, the company achieved remarkable transformation with 93% completion rates and measurable improvements across all six leadership dimensions, including a 7.14% increase in Sense of Purpose and 6.53% boost in Culture of Leadership.
The true validation came six months later: middle management teams continue meeting weekly without external prompting, psychological safety enables courageous conversations in critical business moments, and Gavin now leads with complete confidence in his team's autonomous capabilities.
For CEOs seeking measurable, sustainable leadership transformation that extends far beyond traditional training, Exchanger Industries' journey demonstrates how the right program design, expert facilitation, and genuine commitment can turn organizational dysfunction into a foundation for lasting excellence and business results.
Tablz Case Study
