designing and delivering a bespoke retail leadership programme
the challenge
Following a restructure, our retail client’s new operating board was tasked with implementing a new strategy. The ambitious new strategy needed an equally ambitious team to make it happen. Because of the pandemic, this new senior leadership team had never met in person.
We were asked to design and deliver a leadership programme that would enable the team to do several key things. Firstly, create a common purpose and intent. Secondly, define the leadership climate and ‘tone’. Thirdly, deepen understanding of personal styles and relationships within the group. And finally, align on practical steps to cascade a common leadership and management approach throughout the business.
the results
On the back of extremely positive feedback, our client decided to roll the programme out organisation-wide.
We were told that we’d helped ‘turn a disparate group of individuals into a team’ – using a common language and ways of working to enable more focus, collaboration and efficiency. The result: greatly enhanced decision-making, ambition and levels of trust. As one participant said, ‘when you trust the people around you, you get more done.’
how we got there
We designed a bespoke programme structured around our High Performance Team model. This was not a training programme but rather about kick starting new ways of working, setting the climate for a shift in culture. We brought a mix of tools, approaches and working sessions to explore practical and behavioural change.
The group sessions spanned 5.5 days, with space in between to give the team time to try out new techniques and deepen their skills. We also ran 1:1 psychometrics and feedback sessions to explore individual strengths and opportunities, and leadership patterns.
To set the scene, we started by defining the team’s performance challenge, and examined how work flows through the organisation. Practical tools included meeting management, meeting behavioural analysis, decision-making and role accountability. We also developed coaching and feedback skills that would help the leaders reap positive outcomes from difficult conversations.
Using our DNA of Change model, we ran in-depth sessions on how to lead through change. We also helped the team to develop their leadership commitments, aligned to their newly created people vision.
The session with the most profound personal impact was our lifelines exercise, exploring how previous life experiences have shaped each person into the leaders they are today. For many this was pivotal, giving deep insight into themselves and their colleagues.
