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FROM COMPETITION TO COLLABORATION
HIGH PERFORMING TEAMS
THE OPPORTUNITY
Over the past several years, a top financial services firm had grown rapidly and was poised for continued strong growth going forward given entry into new markets with new product offerings. The long-tenured CEO was very hands-on and, while there was baseline trust in the team, the leaders were often jockeying for position which was creating more of a competitive environment. To continue to fuel and sustain this growth trajectory, it was increasingly critical for the firm’s senior leadership team to operate as a cohesive, collaborative, and high-trust team.
OUR APPROAch
We adopted a whole-part-whole approach to helping the team reach their potential, specifically…
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Grounded on Future State: The senior team gathered for an executive retreat where they explored what it meant to have a common purpose and what the team jointly believed in and could stand behind to ensure the business would continue to win and grow in the future.
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Assessed Team Leadership Culture Readiness: Used qualitative and quantitative data gathering methods. In addition to collecting select organization performance metrics, the senior leaders participated in interviews and psychometric personality and working style assessments. The data was aggregated and analyzed to gauge where each team member was personally on the path to adopt the mindset and behaviors needed to transform their ways of working
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Confirmed Path Forward: Team reconvened for two-day workshop to receive and process the diagnosis (interviews and assessment), resolve key business issues as a team, measure team dimensions and address key gaps (eg shared goals and ground rules). The team rallied around a collective development plan with individualized elements differentiated to meet each leader where they are relative to the needed mindsets and behaviors to operate as an interdependent, collective.
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Sustained Momentum: Over next six months, the team activated development plans with individual coaching for leadership team members and team ‘health check’ workshops addressing key business issues.
THE IMPACT
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Established a team-based performance mindset to support long term success.
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Increased open, direct communication in the team.
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Promoted cross-functional collaboration.
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Benchmarked and leveraged existing high-functioning characteristics of the team.
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Demonstrated increased self-awareness related to each executive’s leadership ‘brand’.
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Built on and expanded a strong foundation of mutual trust in the team.