Produce Department inside of a Farm Boy grocery store. | Photo by Farm Boy
The Challenge
Farm Boy, a premium grocery retailer, experienced explosive growth from 21 stores to 51 stores in just five years while expanding across Ontario. As the company scaled beyond its original Ottawa region, leadership identified a critical execution gap at the director and manager levels within their business services division.
Traditional leadership development programs had failed to create lasting change or provide the holistic view needed to connect daily priorities with strategic goals. Leaders were promoted based on technical expertise but lacked the foundational business acumen required to think strategically, understand financial impacts, and execute effectively at scale. With rapid expansion threatening to dilute the culture that made Farm Boy successful, the organization needed a standardized approach to develop leaders who could champion strategy and drive performance across all locations.
The Work
I.Liv Performance implemented a comprehensive leadership development program targeting 13 directors and managers across multiple business service areas including IT, project delivery, occupational health and safety, and building services.
- Strategic Foundation Building: Delivered modules in strategic acumen and finance using plain language accessible to leaders from diverse backgrounds
- Positional Purpose Clarity: Established clear understanding of each leader’s role in executing company strategy rather than creating it
- Business Language Standardization: Equipped all participants with consistent business terminology and frameworks for decision-making
- Goal Alignment Framework: Connected individual and departmental objectives directly to organizational strategy
- Community-Supported Learning: Leveraged peer learning and ongoing support to reinforce concepts beyond formal training sessions
The program focused on giving leaders the practical tools to understand business fundamentals, communicate strategically, and approach challenges with a structured framework that considers all key business areas.
The Outcome
Within six months, Farm Boy observed measurable improvements in leadership effectiveness and strategic thinking. Leaders began presenting opportunities and challenges with significantly more strategic structure, incorporating financial considerations and business impact analysis into their recommendations.
One director independently cascaded the goal-setting framework to her team during performance reviews, demonstrating organic adoption of the methodologies. The standardized business language created fairness in leadership opportunities, as all participants now operated with equivalent foundational skills regardless of their technical background. Most significantly, leaders shifted from task-focused thinking to strategic questioning, asking “why” and understanding their positional purpose within the broader organizational mission.
What It Means
Farm Boy is successfully addressing the leadership execution gaps that threaten their rapid expansion, working to avoid the common pitfalls of promoting technical experts into leadership roles without proper business foundations. The standardized approach eliminates the previous bias toward leaders with finance or business backgrounds, creating equitable development opportunities across all service areas.
By establishing a common business language and strategic framework, Farm Boy is building a scalable leadership infrastructure necessary to maintain their unique culture while continuing aggressive growth.
The program is transforming leaders from task executors into strategic champions who understand not just what to do, but why they’re doing it and how it drives organizational success.