Team Coaching Case Study by Executive Coach Gregor Findlay

Background

The client was one of the largest local and regional print and online media companies in the UK, employing 3000 staff and with a turnover of £250m. This is an industry under extreme pressure as people move away from printed media to digital. These pressures have caused all publishers to radically reduce costs and drive for much greater efficiencies. This must be achieved while working to rapidly grow the digital elements of their business.

Knowing his editorial leadership team needed support in developing their change leadership, the group’s Editor in Chief reached out for support from Gregor Findlay of Courageous Development.

Key Issues
The company had a long history of independent publishing units who were in an unrelenting pattern of competing against each other. For the company to survive and thrive, they had to a) implement significant changes, b) slow print declines and c) grow digital audience. This required both innovation and collaboration across all twelve publishing units.

The Brief
• Develop the capacity for the Editorial Board of 12 members to lead change.
• Significantly increase collaboration and communication across organisational boundaries.
• Increase collaboration and innovation across the Editorial Board and editorial community.
• Increased management / leadership impact across progressively distributed teams.

Intervention
An investigative phase of telephone interviews was undertaken which informed programme design.  The intervention can be divided into coaching and non-coaching approaches supported by some survey and psychometric data.

Coaching Interventions
• Specific coaching for the Editorial Director.
• Four x 1 day team coaching events.
• Three team ‘shadowing’ sessions where the coach provided on the spot feedback and coaching.
• Monthly 1:1 coaching for all team members, and Group Coaching (where team members coached each other) via Google Hangout.

Non-coaching Interventions
• Webinars covering Change Leadership, Leadership in times of change and Motivating for Change.
• Workshops developing inspirational communication.
• Coaching skills workshop.
• 360° feedback (ESCI360).
• MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator).

Results

The team were asked to judge a before and after picture as to their capabilities at the start of the project and after 9 months. This data is shown here:

From a corporate perspective, the most important measures were
1 The team’s ability to affect change, and
2 Collaboration within the Editorial Board and across business units.
The team deemed that they made significant progress across all areas during the program.
Conversations with the executive team showed that a significant difference was perceived in the team’s cohesiveness and their ability to deliver change together. The team also started to drive change outside of their own function, becoming key players in driving strategy across the business.

Group HR Director:
“I truly believe that without the work that Gregor did with the team we wouldn’t have made anywhere near the progress that we did as an organisation.”