3D - Demonstrating Business Impact

Case Study 1

Mark is a Director of a Public Sector organisation, with a very successful history but was 4 months behind schedule on a major, high profile programme. The key measures we agreed for our work were set around improvement in delivery of the project timescales.

The 1D Diagnosing Leadership Capacity stage consisted of a 360^o Survey on his Leadership Style and behaviours, coupled with a MBTI Step II personality profile and a feedback session. Theses instruments and Feedback session revealed two key areas to focus on:

• Lack of clarity by Mark and consequently by the team on his vision and the measurable outcomes of the project for them as individuals
• A lack of influencing by Mark with his peer group and other key stakeholders in the project.

2D Developing Leadership Capability: Through a total of four Executive Coaching sessions we worked with Mark so that he was able to develop and clearly articulate his vision, translate this into demonstrable individual actions for his team and communicate this to them in a positive way. He also became aware that this lack of clarity was at the root of his difficulty in influencing key stakeholders on the programme – especially as he realised that in previous roles he had always been a strong and persuasive influencer. We ended Marks four sessions with Performance Coaching in Influencing Skills so that he could hone his technique further.

3D Demonstrating Business Impact: We wanted to measure the impact of this work and kept in contact with Mark; Some 8 weeks later we asked him to report on what skills he had used and his assessment of their impact. He said that he had:

• o Communicated his vision to all and developed individual goals and that at least 60 % of his team were contributing more creatively to the project. One person had confided in him that she had been thinking of leaving but had changed her mind. He had managed to win a joint sponsorship deal from a key stakeholder that he felt he would not have achieved without the coaching and had also used his influencing skills to gain a higher profile for his project within the Department – a key aspect of securing funding. He had also gained 4 weeks of lost time on the project – a 30% increase.

After a total of 3 months we repeated the 360^o Survey and found that both the key areas were rated as having either improved or significantly improved by those rating him.