The Dysfunctional Leadership Team - Financial Turnaround
Industry: Mining Services
The Problem: A new CEO was appointed to a national mining services business in a financial turnaround situation. The once successful company had failed to manage the risk of loss of IP and subsequent cheaper imports and loss of market share. Turnaround efforts were hampered by a lack of genuine team-work across the senior leadership team and despite restructuring efforts, questions about the capability of current team members to deliver a changed business strategy remained.
Background: Initially, the HR manager and then the client CEO briefed 2Learn MD Michael Taggart and Sharon Howes of AblesonHowes and Associates about the observed dysfunctional senior leadership team dynamics, sub optimal senior leadership team performance and risks to the future viability of the business from failure to deliver a new business strategy.
The Project: AblesonHowes working with its associated consultancy partner, 2Learn, were asked to identify and assess leadership talent and set out a plan for improving senior leadership team effectiveness. An in-depth assessment of the leadership capabilities and potential of the senior team was undertaken using Saville Holdings Leadership Styles and Myers Briggs tools and each senior leadership team member also participated in a Wave 360 Expert assessment. Sharon Howes from AblesonHowes conducted a series of interviews with senior leaders to understand the barriers to effective team-work and collated material regarding business strategy impacts for further discussion by the team. Sharon also conducted the 360 degree feedback debriefs and leadership capability self-assessments, gaining valuable insights into the preferred styles and ‘rub points’ between team members.
Outcomes: Working with the OD experts at 2Learn, AblesonHowes provided data to the CEO and Board regarding individual development needs, barriers to change, team dynamics, team strengths and weaknesses and a plans to optimise the effectiveness of the senior leadership team. The data demonstrated wide cognitive diversity and thinking styles – which needed to be better understood amongst team members to harness the potential competitive advantage. The collated data was shared with the team and workshopped as a step toward understanding each members motivations and drivers and strengths – to build trust and improve collaboration amongst team members. Radical candour was introduced as a tool to improve feedback and the quality of dialogue amongst the team. A report on the overall observations, key issues to resolve, strengths and weaknesses of individual senior leadership team personnel, development opportunities and strategies to improve team effectiveness and cohesion was provided to the Board.
Feedback: “This final report will assist us greatly in building a high performing team and delivering the business strategy. And what I like is I got the quality and outcome of using a big 4 consultancy – at a quarter of the cost!” , Client CEO.