Responsive Menu
Responsive Menu
The bank had been through a period of change led by the Executive team and needed to involve the wider senior team, their reports, in developing and executing the strategy. Although not a large organisation, the bank had become very functionally orientated with people less aware of what was going on outside their own area.
We kicked off with an online orientation briefing, hosted by the business, which introduced us and provided an opportunity to share the programme aims, outline and get some responses from them. Importantly, this was also the first occasion that the group met together and started to form a sense of identity.
We also set the twelve individuals up with a behavioural 360 feedback report, encouraging them to choose a wide range of stakeholders and stressing that they got the only copy of the report (it didn’t go anywhere else internally). This gave them a good idea of their impact and created a baseline for their leadership capability.
This was followed by an in-depth and experiential three-day workshop on crucial conversations – how to engage constructively with others and develop their own personal impact. Because this related directly back to the 360 and the business context, the perceived need for personal development felt high for each of them.
The workshop culminated with some personal goals which they took into the rest of the programme, principally to explore and discuss as part of monthly learning set meetings with three or four others from the group, and one of us facilitating. These sessions helped bridge the gap between the theory and them leading in practice, and fast-tracked the relationships between them. It also ensured that the learning related closely to what was happening in the rest of the business.
Two other elements made up the programme, a session on the business balanced scorecard, and shadow Exec meetings.
For the balanced scorecard session the participants, working in small groups, were given one element of the business scorecard and asked to present to the whole group and the Exec on what that part of the scorecard indicated, what their assessment of the business was against the measures, and any suggestions for improvements, either to the performance or to the measures themselves. The aim was to ensure a deeper understanding and connection to the scorecard, and to develop some new thinking on something that previously only a small handful of people had developed. The session where groups played back their assessment was rich with insights and new ideas – highlighting both where the groups had made errors in their understanding (and so understand more), and where the Exec had overlooked or underestimated elements of the model.
For the Shadow Exec meetings a group of around six or seven participants met together the morning of the Exec meeting with the same agenda, and ran the meeting as if they were the Exec. They then met with the Exec team for a debrief session. Once again, this session highlighted on both sides awareness gaps and new insights. Both the Scorecard and the Shadow sessions also provided opportunities for individual feedback on how people performed.
The learning experiences were relevant. There was no activities away from work or any traditional team building. The learning happened whilst doing genuine work, which whilst not always their day job, was work that they aspired to be involved with and felt meaningful.
The duration of the programme allowed time for the learning and relationships to form. The three-day workshop at the start built trust across the group which sustained them through some very difficult organisational moments later in the programme. This kind of work takes time, and the organisation recognised the need for this level of investment.
