Building executive team effectiveness to realise ambitious growth in global marine services
This global marine services company had set ambitious growth goals and needed a robust Global Executive Team (GET) to realise them. The newly appointed CEO wanted to build a strong leadership team which blended existing deep sector experience with broader external expertise. Capitalising on this opportunity would require a significant change in attitude, behaviour, organisation and processes to take forward a business which was perceived as relatively traditional, hierarchical and low on commercial acumen.
We partnered with this organisation to work with the GET on developing a fundamental framework of mutual understanding, laying that crucial foundation of trust and collective agreement. In tandem with this work, we executed a Values Discovery to bring cultural life to the enterprising strategy.
Focus
The CEO had a clear vision, and as the selected partner our brief was to:
Action
Our solution comprised several critical components within an integrated programme of work spanning four months:
Diagnostic interviews with the CEO and the whole GET: identifying points of alignment and future opportunities in relation to team goals, roles, processes and relationships.
A series of three integrated GET off sites: progressively building the team and developing/progressing the strategic agenda. These workshops included:
- Team purpose and collective endeavour; success criteria; working agreements; creating a strong enabling climate.
- Definition of key workstreams; scoping outcomes and delivering against them such as Strategy and Values, Value Propositions, and Transformation priorities.
- Joint sense making and collective agreement of the key workstreams; workstream integration and finalisation; launch, engagement and reinforcement planning.
GET members progressed their respective workstreams between the off sites, which provided key points of focus and the momentum to stay on plan. Sheppard Moscow’s consulting support enabled the account executives to obtain peer input as the work developed and collective sign-off once it was completed.
(Re)discovering, distilling and re-articulating the company’s core values: the new strategy had to work in lockstep with the company’s core values, so we designed and executed a Values Discovery approach in partnership with the Chief HR Officer conducting 21 focus groups and 11 1:1s across eight global locations. The core values came through loud and clear, a powerful articulation of what the company actually is when it’s at its best. We validated these core values further with a survey across the company – altogether 55% of the company engaged in the Values Discovery dialogue.
Impact
This initiative has laid the foundation for a transformative shift in the organisation’s strategic trajectory and leadership culture. In the four months, the GET went from being a disparate collection of individuals with different styles and reference points, to a burgeoning team with a clear collective endeavour and plan to make it a reality.
The team had also fulfilled their key objective of developing the cohesive approach to launch and socialising it with the Board, the business and their customers. The outcomes reflect a comprehensive and integrated approach to preparing the company for a successful IPO and long-term growth.
These outcomes include:
- Strategic clarity and direction: a well-defined vision and strategy providing a clear path toward the preferred IPO timeframe, aligning stakeholders around shared goals and priorities.
- Cultural cohesion and engagement: the energising articulation of company values fostering a sense of purpose and belonging, and a shared ethos.
- Market positioning and differentiation: a solid analysis of market dynamics and customer value proposition equipping the organisation to make progress on its ambitious growth goals.
- Operational alignment: an operating model and unified company framework outlining the high-level approach and KPIs for each strategic pillar, driving accountability and coherence across functions.
- Leadership transformation: the Leadership Expectations Framework provides a common language that defines how leaders should act and aligns behaviours with strategic imperatives.
- Sustainable change: the draft launch and engagement plan focusing on the ‘long game’, moving beyond lip service communications to embed change deeply and authentically.