Antoinette Oglethorpe talks to Nick Pope of Unilever about developing high-performance executive teams
In the latest episode of the Talent Development Mastery Podcast, I’m talking to Nick Pope, the Global Learning Director at Unilever about how to develop high-performance executive teams.
As well as being globally responsible for learning, Nick has specific expertise in the area of High Performing Teams. He is completing a Doctorate at Ashridge Business School carrying out research into the conditions that create and sustain high-performance Executive Teams.
Top team development is critical to the success of any organisation. But what are the components of a high performing Executive Team and how can you develop those capabilities in a dynamic organisation?
In this interview, Nick shares what he has learnt from his research and how he has applied that in Unilever to unlock collaboration and build capability at the most senior levels of the organisation.
Listen to the podcast to learn more about:
- The importance of top team development at Unilever
- The case for developing collective leadership in an organisation
- The components of a high performing Executive Team
- Unlocking collaboration and building resilience as a core capability for the most senior ranks of an organisation
Nick is a member of the British Psychological Society and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. And he is qualified in several tools that help individuals and teams deepen their self-awareness and effectiveness. He also holds an NLP Business Practitioner License.
Nick has held senior roles for Bausch and Lomb, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as working as a training consultant to other blue chip companies including Coca-Cola, Nike and Channel 4.
We hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions or comments, Nick and I would love to hear them. Please share any questions or thoughts in the comments box below.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Click here to subscribe to the Talent Development Mastery Podcast in iTunes >>
1 thought on “Developing High Performance Executive Teams”
I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that leadership teams need to learn collective leadership in order to tackle the issues facing them in an increasingly complex world. And it struck me that, as you say, we groom leaders for individual brilliance which means that they are not ready for this kind of collective leadership when they first step into that top team. I’m thinking that we need to start grooming that collective leadership capacity much earlier on in their careers, so it’s not such a jolt to the system when they arrive in that senior-most position. That means changing everything talent related, to be sure we are recruiting, developing, managing, and rewarding people for the right behaviours, particularly around collaboration. We won’t get the depth of collaboration we need for the future unless we change that focus all the way through the organisation.