These case studies have been included to give you a flavour of the work undertaken in recent years. In all cases care has been taken to protect the identity of the client and client organisation to maintain confidentiality. By Its very nature, the work we do is and will always remain highly confidential. One to one coaching formed an integral part of these group and team scenarios.
The Board found a new path ...
The board of directors of a successful and dynamic IT company found that company growth was stagnating, the morale and mood of the company was low and the directors found themselves unable to find out why.
“This situation is common in young and growing organisations as the camaraderie and “family” feel of a small organisation is lost with more and more “outsiders” joining. The key players find they do not know the staff as well as they did, there are feelings of loss of control, frustration as “this is how we do it here” no longer produces results, and often minor differences of opinion get blown up out of all proportion.”
Facilitation of board meetings over a six month period allowed the board to realign their visions, to look at the dynamics of their meetings and, individually, look at both the helpful and unhelpful ways to communicate and the decision making process.
Now, twelve months on, the company has entered a period of exponential growth based on the board taking decisions that have changed the company from a “small” organisation to a “medium” sized enterprise - and they have the plans in place to maintain growth.
Just the support staff?...
The CEO of a very sales oriented high tech. company was becoming increasingly frustrated by the friction between her sales managers and the support functions. She asked for our help to smooth things out.
After exploratory meetings a six month programme was developed that included twice monthly facilitated meetings of all managers, a 360° feedback programme and coaching support.
During the meetings extensive use was made of the fifth chair analogy to help people focus on “what is best for the organisation” and” what does the organisation need to do next”. This helped remove preconceptions about personalities as the managers got to know one another better and were able to communicate more effectively.
Within six weeks the total cost of the programme was recouped by two simple procedural changes which came about by honest dialogue between sales and support.
The major change by the end of the programme was a shift that cascaded throughout the company that all employees were “selling” the company and all employees were “supporting” the company.
We don’t want to do this...
said the newly appointed Director in the public service sector. Major change was being implemented “from above” that would radically change the way that the service was worked. Although the end user clients (members of the public) would probably not notice, far reaching change was going to happen. The team leaders job was to make this happen - against both active and passive resistance from her managers and team leaders.
The initial contact was a request for one to one coaching for the Director, after assessment and discussion this was widened to include the management group - eleven in total.
Firstly individual meetings, allowing everyone a chance to have their say in private and confidentially, then observation (with a little facilitation) of two of their regular meetings.
From this developed a plan for a team away day - not the “outward bound” type of thing but an opportunity to spend some protected time together, undisturbed and without the distractions of “the office”.
The group was able to re-focus on the job and the future and over the next few months, with continued twice monthly facilitated meetings, take a more proactive stance as the imposed changes came about.
Collaborating was the answer ...
Andrew Buckley was asked to help a group of administrators work together on their shared tasks. Individually their responsibility was to the team in which they were embedded, with the team leader as line manager. But, there was a need to collaborate and share certain tasks both regularly and on an ad-hoc basis.
“During two 2-hour group sessions the facilitator was able to highlight the common ground and help the team work out strategies to deal with difficulties, both now and in the future. Telephone support was used to help the team leader keep up the momentum and embed the changes.”
We knew the sessions had been a success when the MD complained about “his secretaries” ganging up on him to ask for changes.
