Steve Thomas, Managing Director of Inspire Integrated, had a common but difficult situation to solve – a collection of very talented and highly experienced heads of department who were not working as effectively together as he believed they could. He wanted to draw on their experience, innovation, passion and drive.
Steve knew that they performed well within their roles, but they now needed to work better together to stabilise the business and ensure it was ready to grow. Through our Breakthrough Leadership Programme, not only did the senior leadership team become more cohesive and effective, Steve is now exploring and securing new business opportunities with more focus.
TWI's Role
TWI put together a bespoke programme involving both one-to-one coaching and group sessions to facilitate better relationships and stronger leadership. The aims of the programme included:
As is common in an organisation of Inspire Integrated’s size, Steve identified that there was a lot of ‘silo working’. Talented individuals were working effectively towards their own team goals. However, Steve wanted to drive more cohesion and commitment to common business goals, which would positively impact the growth of the business.
As managing director, Steve found himself offering solutions to internal difficulties rather than having the freedom to set up new service offerings and building new strategic client relationships, which he knew should be his priority.
Steve could see that common thinking on how to mobilise the overall business goals would lead to a huge impact on Inspire Integrated’s success but, unfortunately, departmental priorities and individual motivations were getting in the way and halting developments from coming to fruition, as swiftly as he had hoped.
Steve really connected with TWI’s method of training, based on ‘how the brain works’. He identified that TWI quickly understood the challenges he was facing, and following an initial training on mindset, Steve immediately saw the potential that long-term, intensive training could offer.
“The success of the training has given us a platform and we can share this as a case study for future business growth.”
Steve reported many highlights following the completion of the group training and individual coaching within the Breakthrough Leadership Programme. He told us:
“It’s given us a common language. We keep each other in check when we see old traits and we are thinking differently. In short, I am leading more effectively.”
One of the biggest changes is the approach to differences of opinion. Steve and his senior leaders now use coaching techniques to solve the problem rather than jumping in with a solution. They understand the advantage of letting staff offer their own ideas, realising that in the long term, telling people what to do is less effective. Coaching has had an incredibly powerful effect with staff routinely approaching managers with recommendations, instead of bringing only problems.
This empowerment filtered through to a significant increase in engagement scores, whilst Steve’s own engagement score leapt from 52% to 94%!
There is now:
New closeness in the team has led to the launch of newly integrated service streams and delivery. These have come to fruition in an extraordinarily short time thanks to TWI’s training.
Steve reported that he now has more time to focus on growing the business rather than focussing on problems. He can be a better leader by being more ‘present’ for his team, as well as his clients and stakeholders.
The company needed to focus internally to ensure all departments were working well together, particularly following a large increase in staff members. However, now Steve is looking externally and confidently to confirm the business’ reputation within their markets. They are moving forward at pace.
Steve has committed the organisation to a culture of praise – recognising people’s abilities and achievements; no longer focussing on issues but focussing more on what is going well.
With a cohesive team, so much more is already being achieved.
``The team are closer and I feel that they are now more empathetic to each others’ drivers``
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