Refreshing Strategy, Team Development and Team Coaching and Individual Mentoring
The Challenge
March 2020 and with the UK at the start of the three-month COVID-19 lockdown, we could not see a way of meeting new potential clients in person!
So we met by Zoom the two most senior leaders of EA-RS/Circum, Alan Wheal (Chairman and CEO) and Mark Wheeler (MD), who are hard-wired “to do things you didn’t think you could do before”.
Our conversation started around the opportunity to grow recurring revenues, a topic of key interest for our Founding Partner and MD, Jim Rathbone, and the subject of a white paper that we had emailed to Alan. Quickly we broadened out to strategy, team development and support for the implementation of change. Two weeks following the initial call, with references taken, contracts were signed, and key dates agreed upon for a rich collaboration that is yielding significant results despite COVID.
How we helped address the challenge:
Over a series of several non-consecutive Zoom-days, leveraging our proprietary Strategic Scroll process, EA-RS/Circum’s senior leadership team (SLT) of 9, including Alan and Mark, worked with us to draft their unique strategy – which we facilitated and documented within a four-week period. The full plan includes:
- A unique shared purpose statement and a suite of coherent straplines for different applications
- Ten SMART objectives with trackable KPIs and named accountable individuals
- Nine strategies with clear alignment to the objectives they serve, each strategy with a detailed and time-lined action plan, clear single-point ownership, named supporters and identified additional required resources
Through the six months that followed and a series of scheduled monthly Zoom meetings, we team-coached action plan owners and contributors to support implementation and adjust action plans in light of emerging reality.
Through those same six months, we rolled out a customised, co-designed, action-learning team development programme for the executive SLT – to equip them to scale-up to greater leadership responsibilities and perspective. The programme included a series of three one-day workshops, 1:1 Zoom mentoring calls and executive coaching for the CEO and MD. Our aim: to challenge them as a team to think more strategically and to support them as individuals to embrace and role-model new ways of thinking and working.
The Results - quotes from Alan Wheal CEO and Mark Wheeler MD
One month into the assignment, at the end of the strategy sessions:
“Our team has changed over the four weeks of engagement with you both and I can feel a razor-sharp focus and direction coming. The constant feeling of 2 steps forward 3 back and the grind of building our beautiful business has just turned a corner in my mind and I no longer fear breaking at the next level. The strategy is extraordinary. I know we just need the focus - to enjoy the extra work and see and feel the results as quickly as we can. I do believe success will drive further success!! I cannot describe in one word the feeling this evening, so here are a few... Inspirational, Depth, Organised, Structured, Powerful, Deliverable, Empowered, Enlightened, Aligned, Scalable. Thank you both.”
Eight months after commencing our collaboration:
“We have just finished our financial year, achieving ambitious net profit targets and greatly exceeding cash targets – despite COVID. We calculate at least a 400% return on investment on your fees in just the first 7 months given the focus that you at Rathbone Results have provided.”
Conclusion
The team is energised and focused. Leaders are thinking beyond their remits and scaling up to add greater value to the Group as a whole. The business is poised for new levels of growth. Unlocking business potential in action!
