Case Study

Developing a High-Performance Team (HPT)

Situation

New General Manager arrives in country

  • First time as a country General Manager

The business is a construction site

  • Company has been losing money for the last few years
  • New financial team fixing past irregularities
  • The business is being integrated into a new regional set-up
  • High employee turnover in the senior ranks
  • The company has a history of over promising and under delivering financial results

What needed to be done:

  • Improve business results and return to profitability
  • Restructure the business
  • Close stores
  • Get rid of excess inventory
  • Establish a strategy with clear priorities and realistic goals
  • Develop a culture of accountability
  • Re-energize the management team and the entire organization
  • Get the senior leadership team to work more collaboratively
  • Get team to buy in to new strategy

The Mandate and Approach

  • Help the new General Manager build a High-Performance Team that would drive the business and achieve results

The Approach

  • Hold a series of workshops over time to help the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) work more effectively

High Performance Team (HPT) Meeting 1 – September 2015 (2 days)

  • Understand what is changing in the business
  • Understand how to develop more trust in the team
  • Establish high-performance team criteria and commit to them
  • Establish an operating rhythm for the team
  • Make commitments: team members commit to each other and how to better contribute to the team
  • Team building activities

HPT Meeting 2 – February 16 (1 day)

  • Measure the team against HPT criteria
  • Discuss performance
  • Review Action Plan, take corrective actions
  • Review and renew team members’ commitments
  • Team building activities

The Mandate and Approach

HPT Meeting 3 - September 16 (2 days)

  • Each team member completes a psychometric test
  • Individual and team psychometric tests reviewed to determine areas of strengths and opportunities
  • Second measure of the team against HPT criteria
  • Team members provide 1-on-1 feedback to each other
  • Action Plan on corrective actions
  • Team members review and renew commitments
  • Team building activities

HPT Meeting 4 – March 17 (1.5 days)

  • Discussion on strategic leadership
  • Team conducts a political, economic, social, and technical analysis (PEST)
  • Third measure of the team against HPT criteria, along with corrective actions
  • Action Plan on corrective actions
  • Team members review and renew commitments
  • Team building activities

HPT Meeting 5 – September 17 (1.5 days)

  • Measure the team against HPT criteria and take corrective actions
  • Celebrate success of the past year
  • Develop Action Plan on corrective actions
  • Review and renew team members’ commitments
  • Team building activities

Sample High Performance Team Criteria

Vision & Strategy

  • Vision is defined and clear to everyone
  • Strategies, goals and functional plans support the Vision
  • Strong leadership enables us to realize the Vision

Culture & Working Environment

  • The culture is driven by values which we agreed on as a team
  • Team members trust each other and are reliable
  • Achievements are rewarded; success is celebrated within the team

Structure & Systematic Approach

  • Structure, roles and responsibilities within the team are clear
  • There is a strong focus on execution excellence by following a defined process
  • Measurements and after-action reviews are used consistently in order to improve

Teamwork & Diversity

  • Team encourages and appreciates diversity (people, skills, talent, opinions)
  • Team members collaborate in a mature and altruistic (non-egoistic) way
  • Team members have a passion for their work

Sample HPT Measurement

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Results (2015 - 2018)

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Net sales growth 7.8%

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Profit growth 25.6 %

Earth_globe

Country is changing from a country requiring investment to a net contributor to the region

hand-shake

Members of the executive team are being promoted and moved to other parts of the region

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