Strengthening collective senior leadership team to deliver strategic change

An international professional services firm had introduced a “one firm” strategy and cultural change program designed to improve collaboration and cooperation across teams, functions and its network of international offices.

For those ambitions to translate into meaningful organizational change, the senior leadership team itself needed to model the behaviors and ways of working the firm wanted to encourage more broadly. While many members recognized that change needed to begin with the leadership team, that understanding was not yet consistent across the group.

The challenge was therefore more than improving relationships within the senior team. The organization needed to strengthen trust, collaboration and shared leadership at the top so that its leaders could collectively drive strategic initiatives and support wider cultural change. This final point is an inference from the stated “one firm” objectives and the engagement focus described in the source.

CEC worked with the senior leadership team over a 12-month period using a systemic team coaching approach focused on building trust, developing interdependence and strengthening cohesion and collaboration.

Rather than relying on traditional team-building activity, the engagement used an integrated, evidence-based approach designed to improve the important relationships around the team and strengthen how members worked, related and learned together.

The systemic perspective also recognized that the team’s ability to implement change and improve performance depended on factors beyond its internal dynamics. The work therefore considered the wider internal and external system in which the leadership team operated.