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Justine. McGuire
Performance Strategies Group of Holland has made a name for itself during the past 25 years, gaining customers across the U.S. and Canada.
The company, better known as PSG, celebrated its 25-year anniversary in December 2015. It was founded in 1990 by Mari Martin, president. The team-building consulting firm has three employees: Mari Martin, Chris Martin and Monica Gravenhof.
PSG uses The Kolbe System to assess how people work, and how they can work together effectively within an organization, including businesses, churches, nonprofits and municipalities.
“It is a big milestone,” Mari Martin said. “It gave us a chance to talk about the lives that have been impacted over the years. Our work has helped improve relationships, not only in business, but also in families — with couples, with parents and their children — to really foster greater understanding.”
PSG helps organizations develop a healthy team in which people recognize and understand their strengths, can play to those strengths, and then put their combined energies into practice to solve problems, make decisions and work together. The PSG processes help people understand why they get into conflict with team members, and understand how to work together.
“In those 25 years, we’ve probably worked with and helped about 25,000 people,” Mari Martin said.
PSG clients include Audi of Canada, Bethany Christian Services, Community Foundation of Holland/Zeeland Area, Davenport University, Elzinga & Volkers, Geneva Camp and Conference Center, Habitat for Humanity, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle Nutrition, Ottawa County, PNC Bank and Volkswagen.
For Ottawa County, PSG used the Kolbe RightFit tool to help the county government in their hiring process.
“Knowing how we are ‘hardwired’ takes a lot of the subjectivity out of the hiring process, and Kolbe provides a better tool to determine fit than the many psychological testing methods that I have used,” said Al Vanderberg, Ottawa County administrator, in a case study published on the PSG website.
The county contracted with PSG for its professional development plan, which was approved by the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners in 2013.
“We are now using the services of PSG for our hiring process, professional development, team building, project assignments and team compositions, and are having success on all fronts,” Vanderberg said, in the study.
Mari Martin has a background in communication. She worked in advertising for a number of years with newspapers, magazines and radio, and then began working in professional development and training.
While working for a consulting firm in Grand Rapids, she read an article in the Wall Street Journal about The Kolbe Index that changed her life.
“As I read the article, I thought, ‘This is new, this different, this is something that can really make a difference,’” Mari Martin said.
Soon after, she went to Phoenix, Ariz., to get certified in Kolbe, left her job, and started PSG.
“It was a whirlwind decision,” Mari Martin said. “It made a lot of sense to me, and it was something that aligned with my passion.”
Business has been steady over the years, she said.
“We’re the kind of business that’s the first to go and the last to come back,” Mari Martin said. “When we were in some of our recessions over the years, organizations cut almost immediately on training … We’ve weathered some really incredible scale backs for some years, especially during 2008-2010.”
But 2015 was a “banner year,” she said.
Despite her company’s steady success, Mari Martin said she’s a little surprised to be doing the same thing after 25 years.
“My previous history has been that I found something I liked, and then I would work in that field,” she said. “I would really get excited about it, but then four or five years later, I’d get into another field.”
She’s maintained a passion for her work because each engagement is unique.
PSG has taken Mari Martin and her team all over the U.S., Canada and even to Europe.
“A lot of it is born out of relationships that we’ve made in Michigan,” she said.
Many times, people PSG has worked with move on to different jobs, end up in a position of power, and then call upon PSG for services, Mari Martin said.
“You just simply never know where they’re going to have influence, and how that might relate back to a need,” she said.
— Follow this reporter on Twitter @SentinelJustine and @BizHolland.
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