scind4: culture changes in management

Background:

This European blue-chip technology business wished to develop its management teams at UK locations.

Challenge:

A political, siloed structure (technology, regional & cultural) highly focussed on project management by results with varied committments to developing people and often poorly prioritizing strategic advantages to productivity in favour of top-down over-management.

Solution:

A five year integrated training package was created with the L&D team. Key emphases included manager learning & increased resilience in:

  • People similarities and difference
  • Understanding individal and team motivations
  • Coaching skills as part of a practice of management behaviours to develop others in ALL conversations at work
  • 1-2-1 half-day awareness and three month 1-2-1 individual coaching for main board directors and all senior project directors
  • Three day coaching skills course for HR teams including regional support front-facing HR staff
  • Three day management development course for middle-excutives and junior project leaders (with staff) with emphasis on applied learning for working smarter, and
  • Available 1-2-1 coaching for course members on a need basis during the trainings.

Outcomes:

Course feedback for all trainings were extremely favourable. Internal 1-2-1 coaching resource was started at a basic level by HR across the organisation. One Project Director claimed that his 1-2-1 coaching had saved the business over £20 Million (during two sessions (210 minutes) due to meeting an ‘impossible’ milestone and hence not having to pay default penalties (that had been certain at the beginning of the coaching assignment). Several key learnings became culture-acceptable including the wheel-of-work in performance 1-2-1 sessions and a proprietary model for not over- or under-managing.