Case Study
Context
From Dependent and Time-Sucking to Self-Reliant and Autonomous – How One Medium-sized, Union-Environment Organisation Upskilled their People
Approached by the MD to develop more of a coaching and feedback culture in their organisation with the target of training 20 middle and senior leaders.
Presenting Problems
- Staff were overly-reliant on the executive team to help them find solutions and make decisions
- Staff were issue-oriented, seeing obstacles, and feeling uncertain
- Staff were silo’d in their problem-solving and impact across the organisation
Specific Goals Included
- To develop their own solutions and be less reliant on the executive team.
- To practice more coaching behaviours such as listening and asking questions and “tell” or give advice less.
- To realise the benefits of working collaboratively and become less silo’d in their thinking and behaviour.
Solution
Through the lens of our proven EQ Leadership Formula Model, we did a needs assessment to determine the impact and outcome they wanted. We then designed the interventions that would be best suited to achieve those outcomes as development was needed across all four quadrants of our EQ model.
The needs assessment determined the following highly experiential interventions were necessary:
- Workshops on how to Coach in the workplace
- Workshops on how to Give Feedback – both constructive and confidence-building
- Observations of executive leaders coaching with each other with full debriefings
This last invention of training, observing and supervising key executive team leaders had two benefits:
- For the executives to role model the ideal coaching behaviours and growth mindset to the middle and senior leaders.
- To have the executive leaders realise their role in creating the ‘reliance’ of the senior leaders on coming to them for solutions and decisions.
Results
90% of participants felt the training was relevant to their needs. The key decision maker said they want Sue and Anne to continue working with them to further embed the learning, and to support the culture change.
Feedback Included
“Really useful skills that can benefit work and home life”
“Clear explanations, with great practical activities”
“Engaging, interactive, interesting and useful”
“It was more relevant to my role than I initially thought”
Our programme sponsor said this at the end of the programme:
“The feedback I have received has been really positive, and they have got a lot out of the sessions. We have noticed them using the methods shared in your sessions and I know for sure that they have started using the feedback during professional growth and monitoring sessions”.
Testimonials
Anne coached me and group of colleagues at Lloyds. She challenged me to challenge how I thought about situations, myself, my work, my team, always in a positive and constructive way. She is personable, positive and incredibly insightful with it comes to team and group dynamics
Sue and Anne gave informative sessions for myself and the TA team at Visual Concepts. It was really insightful to learn of different behaviours and to be aware and use new techniques when working human to human. The information has been impactful and as a team, incorporate the new learnings into our everyday work.
Sue and Anne’s proposal was really clear and did what it said on the tin. They really listened to what our specific business needs were and came up with something perfect for our people. Having seen them both in action, what they promise is trued to what they deliver.
Provides constructive conversation with each individual’s responses
Great information and training for people personally and professionally – key learnings everyone can take away and implement in their lives to help them become more aware of themselves and others.
Great insight into the human behaviours and possibility to increase awareness. I learned a lot and the training had a positive impact on me professionally and personally.
Sue has always delivered exceptional coaching engagements for senior staff. She was ahead of the trend for a focus on neurology and wellbeing and continues strongly in the area. I’ve worked with Sue in two very different sectors and she has delivered good work.
