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HDA OVERVIEW
HDA Case Studies

Executive Teaming and International Collaboration for Growth – International Communications

 

Background

The CEO of an international communications organisation and global leader in progressing government de-regulation in Europe, the USA, Asia and Australasia contacted HDA regarding a high-level executive coaching need, following a web search. The organisation was experiencing a specific problem in one of its regions – it’s largest - and required executive coaching support, linked directly to specific commercial objectives.

HDA was commissioned to work with a key member of the organisation’s Global MD’s team over a limited period, prior to the commencement of the organisation’s business planning process for the next financial year. Specific objectives were as follows:

The executive (who had a record of significant local successes over many years) was expected to develop her management style to support an objective to double regional business turnover from $20 to $40 million over a specified period, in line with a comprehensive global plan. Essentially, failure to adapt from an entrepreneurial but unfocused style which had been successful in the past, to a deliberate corporate approach focused on global growth was likely to lead to a parting of ways – which would have been damaging to the business in the immediate term,

This change in style was expected to cascade to the level of the executive’s local management team, including establishing a business infrastructure which would support the expected growth, and clear accountability for managing this growth,

It was hoped that this change in style would impact on currently poor peer relationships with the MD’s of other global regions, which were currently proving debilitating to the organisation’s objective of developing from being viewed as a local operator, to being viewed as an international operator. (This manifested as failures and delays in global agreements, deregulation lobbying targets, etc, which created significant competitive risk for the organisation)

HDA Intervention

An HDA executive coach worked closely with the executive over a limited period of time (3 months), focused on achieving clear objectives ahead of the key global business planning process, and very positive results were noticeable early on, primarily around the executive’s willingness to make a success of her role under very new, closely managed and tougher circumstances.

HDA was next asked to facilitate a teaming event for the entire Global MD’s team, including representation from European sites, the USA, Singapore, the Philippines, and Australasia.

HDA focused on the team’s commercial objectives in the first instance, and wove these clear commercial objectives into a comprehensive teaming process which was expected to be ‘‘tough’’ at an interpersonal level, given a history of belligerent/partisan relationships and a poor record of shared global successes.

HDA’s experience of teaming engagements at senior level is that they are most effective when directly linked to concrete business objectives, and hard expected commercial outcomes. Our expectation is that our client’s global MD team was well equipped with core professional skills and were all highly experienced general managers. This principle was key in working with this group

We also worked off the assumption that the team was well acquainted, and that there was little ambiguity about differences of opinion, individual approaches to business and management, individual commercial philosophies, etc. This being the case, we assumed that norms of engagement, etc. had already been established within the group – ie. this exercise was largely about making an established team identify what it does well, and what it doesn’t, with a view to obtaining mutual leverage from one-another individually, from the CEO, and from the MD team as a whole.

At the same time, in our experience, it was nevertheless very useful to give team members an insight into what drives their peers and themselves, in order to help them to manage team relationships more effectively, to identify how best to manage their own personal style-constraints and to leverage members of their team to their advantage.

The facilitated process involved a range of team facilitation tools, with areas of focus initially commercially based, but moving quickly from an analysis of broad commercial concerns, constraints, risks and opportunities, to a broad planning structure for thinking about the global organisation, which took into account both individual and organisational interests – with focus on key agreed objectives. Psychometrics were also used to establish a better understanding of varied but complementary styles within this senior international team – including the CEO.

The focus here was on both the ‘’how’’ and the ‘’what’’ – ie. the team was required to work together positively, in order to arrive at team solutions to practical problems identified by the team, and to arrive at practical ideas about leveraging global opportunities for mutual benefit. That is, focus was placed on ‘’how’’ the team would arrive at answers to a range of issues, which would then become clear team objectives (the ‘’what’’); the intention being to put these into action via an agreed team process, despite any personal deviations from the broader team opinion.

 

Results

HDA’s involvement with this client thus far (ie. individual executive coaching and senior team facilitation around core commercial goals) has been viewed as an unqualified success, and HDA’s direct involvement is ongoing, with direct organisational change facilitation support being provided across a number of geographies.

Whilst HDA views the client relationship as ‘’early-stage’’, a strong relationship has been developed on the back of HDA’s executive coaching and senior facilitation work. Our client’s CEO has recently stated:

''Iwas hoping for something (when I engaged HDA), but the change has been phenomenal!''

Other than noticeably improved relationships, (both at the level of the global MD’s team, and locally); from a commercial perspective, the key ‘’belligerents’’ in the global MD’s team followed up from the global MD’s teaming event by co-landing a key and very elusive multinational project. For once, co-operation had been without friction. This was a major commercial success for the organisation, and it is believed that focus by HDA on interpersonal relationships and behaviour have contributed directly to this success.

Commercially, the local MD’s prospects list has improved markedly. Whilst the business is limited by long lead times on deals, progress over the period of HDA’s involvement has been viewed as significant. Opportunities are now on the global prospects list which were previously viewed as very ‘’far off’’.

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