Organisations

1. Rapidly growing food manufacturer lacking connection with shop floor and finance departments

The owner-run start-up organisation had experienced rapid and enormous growth, with turnover moving into the hundreds of millions within a decade of launch. But as the organisation had grown rapidly, the family-orientated leadership team had lost contact with the shop floor, and with control over operational performance and quality control. In addition, the finance department had grown in size and complexity, and there were suspicions that funds had been mislaid. The family, whose success had been founded on their ability to develop food products that resonated with consumer demand, began to lose focus in product development, becoming increasingly distracted by firefighting activity around the organisation.

We worked with a number of different levels and areas of the organisation to develop a management control system that kept a daily finger on the pulse of the organisation, and a system of meetings that monitored and reviewed performance and managed action to control quality and quantity of output.

We carried out training with managers and directors throughout the organisation to foster new attitudes to working in teams, and motivate the workforce for improved commitment to the organisation’s aims. We followed up the training with one-on-one coaching to support the changes.

Working with the senior management team, we were able to expose shortfalls in the process that had been used to recruit and select for key positions, and a lack of performance management that had allowed departments to become disparate, protective and isolated in their approach. Indeed, some unethical accounting practices were exposed while the project was taking place.

We were able to help the owners of the business develop understanding of their senior management team, and develop systems to promote efficient and effective functioning of their management team.

Our work helped to secure control over output to meet demand, operational performance and quality control. We were able to help engineer a more balanced management team and foster knowledge, understanding and attitudes that helped to implement more progressive working attitudes for sustained improvements across the organisation.

2. Law firm where promotion had failed to take into account psychological and emotional styles and capabilities

We worked with a large law firm that had possibly taken a slightly shallow or hasty approach in recruiting and promoting for key positions. Recruitment had been very much aware of legal capabilities, but possibly less aware of team-working capabilities and emotional suitability for increased responsibility. As a result, key teams became dispirited and performance was adversely influenced. Relationships with key clients became strained and some key contracts were lost. The impeccable reputation of the firm became threatened. On top of all of this, levels of stress rose so that a number of long-term employees and others, upon whom the firm relied for dependable income generation, became unhappy and talked of leaving the company.

We reviewed the situation with the senior management team and then sensitively spoke with with other concerned parties, in order to register the nature and depth of the issue. We were able to coach and train some individuals so that the issues receded, and work with others to engineer more suitable roles. We worked with the firm to develop elements of the recruitment and promotion processes so that team leadership and emotional capabilities may be assessed for suitability for roles.

In addition, we were able to carry out training and coaching with the senior management team to develop an improved understanding of aspects of team-leadership and emotional capabilities, and how these might influence the function and performance of the organisation. 

The outcome of the project was that the company was seen to be “more empathetic, with a better capability for listening to clients. This especially impacted upon the family law department, and on corporate clients who might feel dispirited by the legal process. We have found that we are better able to pick up on the psychological and emotional needs of our clients, and tailor the way we work so that we can support them through the legal process and better ensure an optimal output for them.”

We have entered into a longer-term developmental partnership with this client.

3. Expanding sports goods company with successful but manipulative sales director

The success of the company had been founded on great product development and an innovative approach to marketing. Despite the company’s rapid growth and penetration into a highly competitive field, the senior management team spent much of their time arguing, unable to reach consensus. This began to impact the strategic direction and development of the company. Dissatisfaction amongst staff grew, and coordination and cooperation between departments became strained. Production could not be relied upon to meet growing demand and product development became mired in argument and counter argument.

The two founders of the organisation found it increasingly difficult to agree with each other over key decisions. The sales director, who had been instrumental in growing the distribution network and taking the product portfolio into high-margin segments of the market, became manipulative and divisive within the senior management team. It got to the point where all decisions had to be signed off by the sales director rather than the co-owners.

We worked with the owners to develop a vision and understanding of what was happening at the organisation – both functionally within and between the departments, and psychologically within the senior management team.

We were able to help each member of the senior management team develop a better understanding of who they were and how they were functioning, what motivated them and what attitudes might be helpful, and what less helpful. Crucially, we were able to work with the two co-owners to develop an understanding of the strengths and gaps in capabilities and attitudes of each member of the senior management team. This exercise included the two of them.

At this point, they were able to develop realistic expectations for behaviours and adapt working practices and roles in line with this new understanding. They were able to develop new systems for managing and directing the business and new processes and teams for an inclusive but well-managed approach to development programmes.

The company continued to grow, doubling in turnover and quadrupling in net profit in three years.

4. Supplier to oil extraction and refining sector going though global supply chain changes

The company, which manufactured large pieces of plant for use in the extraction and distillation of oil, had suffered loss of sales owing to opening up of global competition.

We worked with the company on a strategic restructuring based around high-value and complex technologies, and the outsourcing of other manufacturing around the world. The change necessitated a drastic cut to the workforce.

We strongly suggested that the unions be involved from the outset, that discussions be transparent and data shared with the unions, and the the unions would be part of the decision-making process. As restructuring took place, we also implemented management training based around inclusive management practices, and invited union leaders into all management training.

The result was that, not only did the unions come on-board, seeing the change as necessary to avoid further job cuts, they supported the project from start to finish and ensured that all change ran smoothly. The venture capital organisation behind the company remarked that they had never known such a change programme go so smoothly.

5. Retail group going through uncertain times

We carried out a series of projects across a multinational supermarket chain. Changes at board level had led to some levels of dysfunction within the team, and knock-on issues across the organisations chains of stores.

We worked with the CEO and the heads of HR and operations in particular, to engineer better attitudes of coordination and cooperation within the senior management team, and engender a more unified approach across stores. We used a programme to reengineer waste management as an opportunity for disparate leaders to work together.

The senior management team were able to honestly discuss their issues, including anxiety over new roles and responsibilities and territorial disputes, to move towards a more cooperative attitude. Waste performance improved, as did operational efficiencies, but possibly most valuable was the renewed ability of the SMT to communicate effectively and direct the business.     

Teams

6. Sports team with great history but then period of lower achievement

We worked with a celebrated sports team that had, in the not-too-distant past, won the national league and regularly been positioned within the best four teams in the country. The leadership team of senior players and coaches had changed, however, and performances had tailed off, to the point that the club had been demoted to a lower league.

The old leadership team had put in place a new leadership team, in which they had faith, but it was envisaged that this new team needed the investment of time and energy to promote their own development.

We drew together members of the old and new teams and carried out leadership training exercises, involving group training and leadership coaching, and placed each new leader with a mature mentor to support them through the programme. In this way, the mature leaders were able to ask new leaders how they felt about the changes and the programme, and help them to debate and adopt the new material, see how appropriate it might be for them, and begin to practice new leadership methods and styles.

We also worked on recruitment and selection strategies and processes.

The club achieved promotion back into the senior league that year and were placed sixth in the senior league the following season.

Individuals

7. Executive suffering from insomnia

We worked with an executive whose performance had suffered, over the years, from tiredness related to insomnia.

As with many ambitious individuals, the executive possibly derived some level of motivation from her background, the tribulations she had been through in her childhood. With careful, supported examination, our therapists, working in tandem with our coach and consultant, were able to help her bring to the surface feelings related to her background, process them and emotionally come to terms with them, accept them. The symptoms of insomnia, that had dogged her for decades, began to gradually subside, and new patterns of sleep and behaviour were learned.

The executive was, within a few months, able to bring more vigour and energy to her role. Her staff noticed the change, and the executive reported her home life, too, improved as a result of the changes.

8. CEO who needed listening to and supporting with the reflective process

We have many long-standing relationships with leaders who value our ability to listen and, while avoiding providing advice, enable them, through careful questioning, to develop a greater clarity of themselves and their situation.

We frequently carry out coaching work with such individuals on a once-a-month basis, unless additional time is required.

This individual had been called upon to direct a crucial project on top of his normal responsibilities, and felt that he needed a listening ear to help cope with the increased workplace burden. We were able to provide a coach with enormous experience in both leading senior teams and projects, but who had been trained in coaching so could avoid becoming too invasive over the man’s roles and functioning.

A long-term relationship has been built up so that the CEO has been using our coach for two years.

9. Stressed media executive

A senior executive within a media company had experienced dramatic changes in his career over the past decade. The trajectory of his career had slipped. He had had to relocate across the globe. Levels of anxiety, that had possibly helped to motivate him at earlier stages of his career, were now sapping his energy, affecting his health and his ability to network within the company and with clients. He had noticed that he had become increasingly reliant on alcohol to aid his relaxation outside of work.  

We were able to carry out some training in key psychological concepts related to leadership with him, and work with one of our workplace therapists as well as his coach.

We examined with him his motivation and his feelings towards success. We discussed with him what might be particular drivers of his personality, and what were key experiences in his past might be shaping how he feels, thinks and behaves, within the corporate world.

He was able to examine the influence of his parents on him and a key experience of his childhood that had caused significant  emotional trauma. After some time working on these themes, the individual was able to come to terms with and accept these aspects of his narrative, and think about himself and the working environment around him with fresh clarity of thought. He reported that his self-esteem became greatly improved, as well as the focus and clear-headedness he was able to bring to his role. Those around him reported that he seemed to have become a very ‘authentic, intelligent, and clear-thinking and communicating individual’.

We were able to remap his career with him, and he returned to senior management within the sector.

10. Help with recruitment

The film director Robert Altman once said: “When casting’s done, 90 percent of my creative work is done”.

We have worked with a wide variety of teams and organisations to ensure that individuals have the requisite knowledge, skills, attitudes and habits for their role.

For example, we have worked with an engineering consultancy with the strategic intent of improving the empathetic capability of their consultants – their ability to pick up on the wishes and needs of their clients, possibly before their clients have become fully conscious of them, and then to communicate effectively with their clients to ensure that projects are delivered satisfactorily.

We have worked with investment companies who seek clarity over the people in whom they seek to invest, and a wealth of other companies on recruitment and selection strategies and processes.