Along with his peers, a business-unit president was taking part in a year-long executive development process with LRI. He was building on his strengths, gaining skills to support his personal effectiveness, and better understanding the perceptions of key audiences he wanted to influence.
His leadership task was not small – trying to turn around a low-margin business, rally geographically-dispersed employees around a new model of service delivery and growth, and focus a disparate team of direct reports. To help that process, the leader wanted to introduce his team to the models of leadership to which he’d been introduced through his own work with LRI. He wanted them to share his commitment to improvement, and share a common lexicon and common set of expectations for what being a strong leader means. As a result, he felt the team would more effectively embrace and drive the cultural and organizational changes he needed to see.
At an offsite meeting, LRI provided foundational skill building for the group’s full leadership team. Through interactive sessions and proven assessments, LRI introduced the drivers of leader credibility and provided accessible, high-impact tools and skill-practice sessions to improve each leader’s effectiveness. In the training session, LRI also observed patterns of behaviors and norms that were standing in the way of this leadership team’s effectiveness. By “calling it” as the team of LRI consultants saw it, and being both wiling and able to divert from the set agenda, the LRI team was able to provide not only quality training, but also high-value consulting.
In addition to providing common frameworks, language and tools, LRI pushed the leadership group toward joint operating principles and accountabilities, individual and team commitments, and ongoing ways to improve their communication and collaboration to drive strategic goals for their business. In partnership with the business-unit president, LRI encouraged the team to generate agreement on a set of goal areas to speed their turnaround efforts in the coming months, and to drive those goals to completion. Just six-months later, the leadership team had accomplished their multi-million dollar savings goals. They were generating excitement among front-line employees about the long-term vision for change, as a result of working more effectively and strategically as a team.