Case Studies
Bravura: Leadership Team Coaching delivers Transformational Impact on People and Business
Key facts and figures
The work Antoinette has done with the leadership team gives us exactly what we need - a focus on developing the business rather than working in the business.
Business priorities:
Develop the effectiveness of his leadership team to deliver ambitious growth targets
Sector:
Information Technology and Services
Lead contact:
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Employees:
Leadership team – 10 Division – 500+
Locations:
HQ in UK Operations across 12 offices in 8 countries
Our client’s challenge
The Chief Operating Officer of the EMEA Wealth Management division asked for our help. With ambitious growth targets, he wanted to develop the effectiveness of his leadership team. There were three specific challenges he wanted to address.
1. For team members to gain greater clarity around their individual responsibilities
2. To improve the team’s problem-solving and decision making on management matters
3. To encourage greater collaborative working and to develop the team’s influencing skills
The team agreed. They had done no work as a team on their own development or individual development and felt this was an area they needed to address.
Our solution and results
We used our PRIDE High Performing Team Questionnaire to provide a benchmark of team performance. One to one interviews with each team member drilled into the insights provided by the questionnaire. In summary, the key themes were:
PRIDE Questionnaire
Purpose. The team felt they needed to spend more time discussing strategy and developing a shared purpose. They spent a lot of time on tactical issues and it felt like people were sometimes pulling in different directions.
Rules of Operation. The team felt they did not create enough time to work on the business rather than in the business. They felt there wasn’t enough collective responsibility and shared accountability.
Interactions. The team felt they didn’t collaborate enough. They worked independently and came together when necessary. When they did get together they felt they worked well sharing opinions, generating ideas and airing conflicts. But in the absence of those opportunities, communication was poor, inconsistent and inefficient.
Delivering. The team felt they were very responsive to stakeholders and had a high focus on delivery. But, lack of collaboration and strategy meant this was always reactive and led to conflicting priorities.
Enrichment. The team felt this was their weakest area and one they hadn’t focussed on until this programme.
Co-Design of the Development Programme
During a half-day launch event we reviewed the data, identified the key themes and co-designed the coaching programme with the team.
Coaching of the Team and Individuals
Over the next 12 months, we held four team coaching sessions with the team as a whole. We designed these to encourage more focus, accountability and collaborative working.
In the intervening months, we held one-to-one coaching sessions with individual team members. We designed these to raise their self-awareness and develop their leadership capability.
Review of Progress
At the end of the twelve months, we revisited the agreed outcomes and measures to determine progress and achievements. They included among others:
- Leadership Team Progress. The team felt they had a shared mind-set and goals, clearer roles and responsibilities and more structure around their approach. This led to greater discussion and collaboration which resulted in improved delivery.
- Impact on their People. They now had a better understanding of who fits the culture which meant they had hired a lot of good people and built new teams in new geographies. By involving staff in improvements and better cascading of objectives, they had improved the running of projects.
- Impact on the Business. All this led to the successful launch of new projects and greater respect from clients and partners. They had retained 100% of their customers, opened up a new geographical market and seen massive increases in revenue. The greatest achievement was that they had floated the company!
