How long is the tail?

Posted on February 01, 2021 by Jacqueline McCartney, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.

With a background in strategy execution and change management, a regular aspect of my work focuses on the relationship between strategy and day-to-day operational activity, with the challenge residing in the integration of the two. To achieve this I work with senior leaders to define the organisation’s direction, exploring the underlying assumptions influencing the strategic ambitions for the organisation and the associated implications for business operations whilst considering the implications for day-to-day delivery.
This case outlines my work with a global logistics company in the Middle East, operating in an environment of dynamic business growth, emergent competition and a buoyant, ever-expanding market with double digit growth. My initial contact with the company was a request for individual and team development for senior executives, each operating as a ‘Head of …’ to come together as a team, working with a newly appointed CEO, to optimise experience for collective benefit and to ensure continued country success.
For this work, we applied our ‘Triple 8’ system which offers a framework to influence alignment, learning and sustainability in a fast-moving environment at the organisational, team and individual level. The ‘Triple 8’ system locates the purpose and focus of the organisation, team and individual within the context of the dynamic and evolving needs of the wider environment, ensuring context is consistently informing and driving the organisational strategic agenda. Embracing a systemic perspective to our work ensures an ongoing focus upon connections and relationships, testing assumptions and beliefs, generating feedback and learning as to how to align external opportunity with internal capability to deliver strategic ambitions.

Against this backdrop of thinking, a customised intervention led to a programme called ‘Me, Me & You and Us’. In specific terms, ‘Me, Me & You and Us’ starts by building awareness and insight into personal style and approach to leadership. This programme was designed to offer a platform for awareness and choice alongside an appreciation as to how to manage conflict to best effect, coupled with a broader and deeper appreciation as to how to make the most of the people who work directly for those attending. The programme revolves around three workshops plus six months of 1:1 executive coaching, ensuring that the development of individual members of the Senior Team took place within the context of the development of the business. This programme was subsequently extended by twelve months of 1:1 coaching as members of the original senior team embraced new career opportunities and organisational structures evolved in the region. My role was to design and implement the programme and also provide coaching to executives in order to enhance internal capability to optimise market opportunity.
The workshops of the ‘Me, Me & You and Us’ with their focus upon developing personal insight and awareness supported by feedback, whether through self- assessment questionnaires or feedback from colleagues, meant that people were challenged and uncomfortable at times, especially as it encourage individuals to reflect on themselves and how others perceived them. The workshop design was experiential in nature – unpredictable and dynamic, an awakening for many. This unpredictability and dynamism was testing for workshop participants and for my business partner and myself as facilitators. We all had to be open to embracing an experiential approach which offered multiple emergent issues and experiences to consider. For example, the giving and receiving of direct feedback was a new experience for many within the team, occasionally uncomfortable, often rewarding and for many, the start of a more meaningful working relationship. Equally, the concept of formulating a vision with a plan of action as to how to get there, with performance measures as feedback on progress, capability and contribution, which in turn afforded opportunity and choice, presented a new way of looking at measures and targets. As an OD intervention, the workshops embraced a systemic perspective, highlighting cause and effect relationships, creating options and choices and inviting fresh ways of thinking, of decision-making and of leadership and management.
The coaching element of the ‘Me, Me & You and Us’ focused upon offering direct support to individuals within the context of the business strategy and its specific goals. Data from the workshops offered a starting point for the coaching discussions and for many, the coaching resulted in significant personal development and associated career and personal success. For a small number, it did not resonate at all and perhaps notably their career progression has not been as remarkable as those who committed to and invested in their own development. For an even smaller number, the work was transformative.
For those for whom coaching as a process did not resonate it is important to acknowledge that the 6-month coaching intervention was specifically positioned as developmental. Coaching was not specifically presented as a voluntary option rather as part of available organisational support in terms of capability development. For the small number for whom coaching did not resonate, the various reasons for this were cited as: timing, that is, the coachee was not ‘ready’; the coachee was not inclined to invest in their development; or there was a lack of connection between the coachee and the coach. For the majority, the coaching was a success and afforded the developmental support the individual required within the context of the strategy. For those for whom the experience was transformative, coaching touched both their personal and professional lives as they redefined themselves in accordance with their deeper, underlying selves. Their efforts required great courage, trust and commitment and were rewarded with personal and professional success.
One of my coachees was promoted to the role of Country Manager in an adjacent Middle East country which involved direct responsibility for the strategic development of country operations in support of strengthening the corporate brand, market share and customer satisfaction. The new Country Manager invited myself and my business partner to support the development of his new team with a focus on enhancing individual capabilities and building team capacity. With a relatively ‘young’ team in an emerging market, the Country Manager sensed that based upon his previous experience of working with us in a different market, we could replicate the experience of we had applied in the other Middle East country to help facilitate business growth and expansion through development of the capabilities of the senior team.
The Country Manager was keen to coalesce his top team around the principle of ‘Outstanding Customer Service’ as a key market differentiator in order to drive business growth. To help achieve this my business partner and I developed and delivered a three-day workshop which was designed around a modified version of the original ‘Me, Me & You and Us’ development programme, focusing on the development of people and teams as well as enhancing management and leadership capabilities in support of the business agenda. As a result of the development programme there was an increase in market share from 25% to 70%. Within two years, the Country Manager was promoted to a regional role, with a disparate group of senior managers dispersed across the region, working to different local customs and regulations. With an international team of eight, the country manager felt individual and collective contributions to the growth and expansion of the business could be enriched through greater personal insight and the development of existing capabilities and talents.
As the Country Manager assumed his role, the time was right to invest in the development of the senior team in terms of improved awareness of personal style in order to secure a deeper understanding as to how to work more effectively individually and collectively with the goal of delivering enhanced organisational performance. In this instance, the programme was designed around a three-day residential workshop plus six months of 1:1 coaching for each member of the team as they attended to the fulfilment of their personal career ambitions in alignment with strategy and opportunity. Within two years, revenue had increased by almost 45% and three members of the senior team had been promoted in line with their personal strategic ambitions.
How long is the tail? Well seven years after this intervention, the success of it continues for many participants of the original ‘Me, Me & You and Us’ cohort and for many who took part in the subsequent programmes that emerged from it.
As an OD consultant, this project was one of the most rewarding in which I have been involved. Bringing together individual and team development within the context of the business agenda, strategic and tactical, speaks to my systemic, transformative interests as a practitioner and my personal commitment to making a sustainable difference. It reinforced my belief that making a sustainable difference requires a coaching partnership rooted in courage, trust, talent and commitment, especially since there are no quick results and personal growth can be challenging. The relationship within the coaching process between the coach and coachee is vital, with the ongoing bond between coach and coachee informing the depth of the coaching relationship and influencing the approach to risk-taking by both parties. This relationship needs to be genuine and real which means that creating a collaborative coaching partnership is not simply a technique, a set of tools nor a process.
The work described above took place over a four-year period. During that time the primary client has remained enthusiastic about the commercial, professional and personal successes which have been achieved in the short, medium and long term.
Being able to draw upon extensive knowledge and experience of the Balanced Scorecard methodology, leveraging team development processes and subsequently supporting this work and experience through individual coaching, has proved to be invaluable in optimising synergies and the investment of time and money to deliver enduring results for clients and coaches alike.