Housing Association/ Social Investment Agency
This client is a social enterprise which grew out of a merger of
housing associations and training/employment organisations. Over recent
years, it has grown, both organically and by acquisition, to become
a major provider of social housing and a key contributor to broader
community regeneration. The organization has ambitious plans to provide
ever more effective service to its customers and stakeholders, while
maintaining and building its cost efficiency. This will require major
change in the organization on every front – a new organisation
structure, new IT systems, new and more flexible ways of working and
managing, a different psychological contract with employees and, for
the majority of employees, a physical move from their current location
to a new purpose-built open plan office. While such a move will bring
with it numerous benefits, it will also, inevitably, bring challenges
for everybody in the organisation.
The Development Alliance has worked with the organisation’s
Senior Management Team (SMT) to identify key challenges which must
be tackled if the organization is to achieve its targets and to have
a seamlessly successful transfer of operations. Through a series of
one-day workshops facilitated by the Development Alliance, the SMT
was able to identify and prioritise key issues. As a result, members
of the SMT have identified and actioned several “quick wins”,
while also identifying the longer term implications for the organization
and its people – and not least for the how the members of the
SMT themselves operate in their managerial roles. The Development
Alliance continues to work with the organisation as the change goes
ahead.
Health Trust
Radical and continuous change has been as much a feature for this
Trust as for any other. As well as the structural changes associated
with a merger with another Trust, there are all the ongoing challenges
of multidisciplinary clinical team-working and staff shortages. The
need to ensure that every manager across the Trust has the skills
and confidence to lead a team through such upheaval and uncertainty
(and keep patient services on track come what may) has been the priority.
Having supported the Trust five years previously when it was navigating
its way through an earlier merger, the Development Alliance was happy
to be asked to support the Trust with this current challenge as part
of a multiple provider intervention. We provided a range of stand-alone
but integrated leadership skills workshops touching well over 200
clinical team leaders and managers of varying levels of seniority
and experience. The programmes were designed in such a way as to generate
learning between colleagues as well as from Development Alliance consultants
and from the frameworks we provided. Throughout the process, we collaborated
with other providers to ensure overall integrity of design.
We have also provided expertise in the area of Diversity, a priority
for the Trust. We provided input to the recruitment and selection
training, as well as working with the HR team on the design of their
own working practices.
Review meetings have confirmed that the programmes were well received
and that they made a practical difference in the workplace. Our down-to-earth
pragmatic approach was appreciated by professionals who must lead
others while carrying heavy clinical caseloads themselves.
Pan European Software House
Aggressive recruitment strategies and fierce competition for talent
among high-tech firms put this highly successful and growing business
at risk of losing key staff. In particular, the business needed to
retain and further develop this group of highly skilled managers who
were both technically able and strong managerially. In order to retain
and grow these highly marketable managers, a broad-ranging individual
development programme was set up, to run over a period of 6-8 months.
Early stages helped participants to increase their self-awareness
through one to one coaching, individually designed on-line 360 feedback
and the use of selected psychometric questionnaires. Thereafter, each
participant created a learning contract with personal learning goals,
and then worked towards these over several months. Throughout this
process, an experienced Development Alliance coach met regularly with
each participant, providing support and challenge to aid learning.
A year on, and with work ongoing, all participants had stayed with
the organisation, with several promoted to more senior positions.
Individuals increased their self-awareness and made huge strides in
their learning – for example, in their ability to manage themselves
and others, to balance their working and non-working lives, to manage
the performance of the people in their teams, to deal with conflict
within the organisation and with external partners, to lead others,
to raise their visibility within the organisation, and to create and
maintain a strong strategic focus.
Leading Computer Games Studio and Publisher
The organisation had grown at an exceptional rate and was highly
successful. This growth inevitably led to the appearance of middle
management and the need to establish some larger business ways of
operating. The organisation was entering its first commercially difficult
period as the market matured. While the organisation was still number
one in its market, it realised that to stay that way, it needed to
change the way it operated and that, for managers, a whole new set
of skills needed to be learned.
The Development Alliance first undertook a detailed diagnostic based
on conversations with key players across the whole business, and established
a relationship with the HR Director which built trust and enabled
us to work as genuine partners rather than as external suppliers.
This joint approach led to the development of a programme of larger
group and small cohort learning events for the top 50 leaders in the
business across Europe. Over a period of four months, the programme
covered areas such as change management, coaching and leadership.
The co-ordination of the project meant that the leaders were learning
together in a collegiate way, and that the nature of the relationships
and conversations between key players in the business improved not
only during the workshops, but also between sessions. As a result,
the whole was truly more than the sum of the parts. The Development
Alliance continued to work with the organisation to help steer it
through growing pains, and this initial programme is still remembered
as the start of a new way of working.
Household name FMCG business
This client, with a well-established household name, has a track
record for recruiting high calibre graduates, and a reputation for
retaining and developing that talent into business leaders. We were
asked to assist in the development of the graduate population that
had been recently promoted into line management positions with increased
responsibility for coaching and development.
We undertook a 2-part leadership skills programme with the emphasis
on the leader as coach and developer of talent. The programme provided
an interactive workbook to ensure consistency across the cohorts,
without getting in the way of lively debate, and the energy and pace
that the group wanted.
The programme was well-received and delivered to a number of cohorts.
Building on the success of this, we were asked to work with the UK
Board as an intact team. Through building their dialogue skills, we
were able to improve team effectiveness and Board members’ ability
to support each other through peer coaching and feedback.
Prestigious UK publishing house
This is a publishing house with a reputation for caring passionately
about the quality of its “lists” in a highly competitive
business market that demands an equal passion for performance and
talent management.
The newly established CEO recognised the strategic importance of
developing a learning culture at the most senior levels of the business,
to ensure that the requisite culture shift could be cascaded throughout
the business.
We designed and delivered a 3-day programme covering the scope and
skills of effective leadership for the most senior managers in the
business. The use of real “live” work issues, peer coaching
and feedback, and opportunities for self assessment, all ensured that
the level of challenge and reflection remained high. The initial programme
was followed by a series of facilitated learning sets. These maximised
the transfer of learning from the structured programme, encouraged
active learning and engendered openness to sharing work issues.
The result was an enhanced sense of a leadership community that can
challenge and support each other, where knowledge and learning are
shared, and where the business itself benefits.
Leading UK Brewery
This is a highly successful and thriving business with the wisdom
to know that now is the time to grow the business leaders of the future.
There is a pool of talent within the business with the potential to
grow into more senior executive positions. These high potential individuals
are typically leaders within their own functions or technical areas.
The Development Alliance was called on to support the business in
its development of these high potential individuals. This was done
by providing a balance of support and challenge which built their
capacity within their current roles, and enabled them to step up to
broader business leadership.
The business’ competency framework provided the foundation
for a bespoke development centre. Participants were matched with trained
and experienced observers and coaches throughout. Following the centre,
each participant received a comprehensive report and had a 1:1 coaching
conversation with a Development Alliance coach. The aim was to use
the in-depth observation of the centre to identify participants’ capabilities
against the business competencies, and, from there, to highlight priorities
for their individual leadership learning.
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