Cases

Our mission: To design and facilitate workshops for all leaders to introduce them to the new way of working. Our focus was on the underlying values and principles of the company’s culture, as well as and the quality of conversations (avoiding a ‘ticking the box’ implementation).

Results: After the training the leaders felt ready to start implementing the new way of working with their people. They told us they had gained insight in how to guarantee valuable, constructive and effective conversations, which they saw were at the heart of the supporting staff performance and personal development.

 

Safety Leadership

Context: In response to research indicating accidents happen when people lose their ‘safety focus’, the client company wanted to maximise safety processes through creating a change in mindset. Instead of simply relying on safety checks and controls, the company wanted to build and count on the safety focus of their people at all times.  

Our mission: To build a safety-focused leadership approach that enabled leaders to influence the mindset and behaviour of their people. Working in an area outside of the comfort zone of most supervisors, we coached people on mindset and showed leaders how this is not so much about correcting people’s behaviour, but is essentially about stimulating people to correct their own behaviour based on a continuous safety awareness and self reflection.

Results: After our safety leadership coaching, the company reported a higher commitment and self-confidence among their managers to apply the new safety leadership approach.  This, in turn, has led to more and better safety-focused conversations in the field, resulting in better safety records. 

 

Culture Transition Support

Context: The recent expansion of the client company created new leadership positions for the next generation of local leaders in South East Asia. The company was seeking to promote its corporate culture of two-way communication, while remaining sensitive to local manners and expectations. It was important for the company that people dared to speak up and voice their ideas within the leadership chain and in the operational teams. The expansion provided the right opportunity to develop a leadership support programme.

Our mission: To design and facilitate a leadership support programme for all leadership layers of the company. We provided every leader with a six-day programme over the course of one year, with self managed action-learning sessions in between. Our programme helped leaders to build awareness and ownership for enhancing two-way communication throughout the company, and their role as a leader in nurturing that.

Results: The programme helped local leaders find their own solutions and ways of working, enabling them to realise more two-way conversations in day-to-day interactions and meetings. It also created a common language (derived from the concepts and principles underpinning the programme), which helped them to lead an evolution in their corporate leadership culture.  

 

Leadership Development Programme

Context: The client company wanted to include a Leadership Development Programme as part of their professional development curriculum for Business Management and Leadership. The Programme is offered by the company’s internal Academy to an international group of 20 managers every year.

Our mission: To create and deliver a programme that instils fundamental leadership practices and further develops a leadership mindset. In a programme format of three modules over four days we supported managers in developing skills to:

• Lead individuals and teams effectively
• Manage relationships across the organisation, both horizontally and vertically
• Support behavioural change in line with the desired organisational culture

Results: Through the mix of theory, sharing experiences and exercises the participants practised and developed tools for leading and influencing day to day situations. The sessions were seen as an opportunity by the participants to take time out to reflect on their practice, as well as chance to boost their leadership development. One participant shared: “Very intensive intellectual work and reflection on my current and desired role as a leader.” The journey also created an international network among the participants. 

 

To-Be Managers - preparing to the leadership challenge

Context: Over a period of years, the first line supervisor’s role in the client company has been evolving away from “the supervisor being the best technician” towards “the supervisor being the knowledgeable coach”.  However, the company’s management team observed that the new promotions often faced challenges including:

• hesitation in taking the step, doubting if they would fit the supervisory role
• a challenging and often lonely transition, despite the general supervisory training

Our mission: To develop a programme providing support to the company’s talented operations and maintenance technicians. Our intention was to help them make the transition to a supervisory role and to explore their personal competency and motivation for that role. 

The objectives of the programme included:

• Understanding the basics of leadership and the related leadership behaviours
• Experiencing the distinction between managing and leading people
• Providing a forum for questions, doubts and fears about the leadership role
• Building strong and trustful relationships between the candidates (and future colleague supervisors)
• Focusing on mindset, more than on skills.

Results: The results of the programme were tangible. Participants became supervisors and openly shared the benefits of their journey with peers and colleagues. After an initial programme aimed only at operations technicians we now provide annual courses for a mixture of technicians with potential for coordination and leadership roles.