Lead | Growing a Winning Mindset
Client
A UK premium automotive company
Focus
The company was facing increasing competition in the premier car market. They wanted to work with their leadership population to develop a more challenging and innovative mindset in their approach to problem solving and developing the workforce. An extensive programme was developed jointly with the company to realise these aims. The programme was named “The Winning Mindset”
Formulation
The company had completed comprehensive research before we began planning the intervention. Surveys, 360 reports and focus groups indicated that any development needed to address:
- Inconsistency of the messages going out through the organisation
- Inconsistency of application of decisions made at senior level
- Process quality issues on cross functional work
- Poor performance management in a number of areas
- Approaches to working with unions
- Lack of creative thinking in addressing problems
- Lack of constructive challenge across the organisation
The Intervention
Joint planning resulted in a staged approach with a roll-out evaluated at each stage. The final programme involved a series of programmes run over two years:
- Individual development workshops for senior leaders
- Team development sessions with senior leaders and their reports
- A second tranche of individual development workshops for the middle tiers
- In-house facilitator training
- A third tranche of individual leadership development workshops run by in-house facilitators together with continued team workshops
All phases of the programme were based around leaders gaining individual insight into human behaviour and growing a win/win mindset. In-house facilitation continues with minimal coaching from our company.
Each stage of the programme was independently evaluated by Warwick University. Our consultants worked directly with participants for the first three stages of the programme after which internal facilitators were developed and licensed to run the programme.
Outcomes
The evaluation by Warwick University reported highly favourable results and that leaders had developed ways of working that promoted team working and better communication. They commented that leaders had used the learning in the workplace and believed a “Winning Mindset” had been established. The programme has won national awards for innovative HR practice.