Environment:
Large Division of a Fortune 100 Global Manufacturing Company that was historically focused on performance and execution. They inherited a new leader whose challenge was to grow and “globalize” the Division. The Management Team traditionally operated from a “command and control” culture, focusing deeply on the success of each of their functions and quarterly goals.
Goal:
The goal of the new leader was to grow volume, provide a wider range of products across a more global marketplace, to integrate and optimize the businesses across 3 continents, and to build a management team that could collectively “think together” and operate across geographies, operating units and functions.
Hurdles to Goal:
The goal included reshaping a historic command and control culture and build a leadership team that could use its’ collective intellect and experience to grow, reshape its’ business model, and change its’ leadership approach. One hurdle was the history of success and profitability of this culture —never having missed a promise to the company or to stockholders. The team was smart, hard-working, and proud of their operational excellence.
Challenges:
One of the main challenges was “How can a team like this get even better?
How can they begin to think more strategically, more globally and really “raise the bar” of their and their teams’ performance? Additionally, the market was in tremendous flux at the time, commodity prices were at an all time high, and sales to their largest market were in jeopardy. There was enormous pressure to go “back to basics” and not look forward. The challenge was how to do both at the same time.
Solutions:
We facilitated a series of 2-3 day Management Team “Advances” focusing on the external environment and the going-forward strategic vision for the team. We explored what kind of team this needed to be to achieve this strategy and looked closely at how the team was presently constituted and what kind of dynamics were needed to achieve this future state. We created measurements of success, a new operating structure for the team, and, most importantly, a culture of dialogue in which leaders and managers operated laterally to address the daily challenges and future-oriented goals.
The Levin Group worked closely with this team and its mission-critical leaders for 2 years as an external partner, supporting this cultural, behavioral, and market-facing change with quarterly off-site meetings and intense coaching.
Results:
This team met their initial growth goals in 18 months while not missing a promise to the organization or stakeholders. They have engaged employees around these goals to more closely knit together and optimize their global capabilities. They remain execution-focused with a continuing view of their future goals.
