New Leader Transition during Business Turn-Around
The Challenge
A new leader was appointed to turn around a floundering business unit of 1,800 employees. At the time, his leadership team was not aligned around a common direction or philosophy and morale was low throughout the organization. The challenge was to persuade leaders and employees that how they had worked together in the past was no longer acceptable if their business unit was to survive--and that it was critical to engage people around critical processes and behavior changes. In addition, this leader had been promoted from within and people were vocally doubting his ability to turn the business around.
Our role
The leader had definite ideas about what needed to happen to improve performance, but he wasn't sure how to connect with his leaders and the general employee base to convince them to move fast and with alignment around a common set of objectives. I wrote his speeches, helped him develop his transition plan, and coached him about how to:
- Connect on intellectual, emotional, and gut levels with his leadership team and employee base to help them gain confidence in his ability to lead them.
- Apply change management techniques to identify change agents and key leaders, engage them around a common purpose, disrupt status quo, and motivate employees by teaching them what made the business successful and how they could personally impact results.
Results
During his first year as their leader, sales increased 7% and earnings increased 14%; during his second year, sales increased 16% and earnings more than 40%. This leader's reputation grew among his leadership team and employee base as someone they could depend upon to hold them to and help them achieve operational excellence.