What can a Chairman or CEO do if relationships between two or more of their senior team break down? When these situations arise, the damage often extends beyond the individuals involved to the wider team and potentially to the organisation as a whole.
Over the past few months, there have been a number of instances where members of the Spindler consulting team have been asked by clients to apply their coaching/mentoring skills to help them resolve specific, apparently intractable problems between members of the senior management team. Usually the parties involved are highly regarded for their functional or technical expertise and individually are seen as assets to the business. However for various reasons they have reached the point where mutual respect is lost and they are unable to work together effectively.
Taking one recent example, which of course must remain anonymous, we started by meeting the Group CEO to obtain his perspective on the problem, then each of the relevant senior executives separately. We used both psychometrics and structured interviewing to analyse the situation and shed light on the underlying causes of the problems that they were experiencing.
We then organised a structured half-day workshop session, the objective being to enable people to fully recognise each others’ qualities and the value in diversity, and to find ways whereby they could work together more effectively.
At the beginning of the session, we examined their respective personalities, highlighting areas of difference and similarity and the likely consequences of these. This led to an energetic discussion between the parties involved, facilitated and chaired by the Spindler consultant. It quickly became very clear that they were talking candidly and constructively together for the first time about the problems that they had been experiencing, and how they felt about these.
Before closing, we introduced some simple tools and mechanisms for them to use and agreed a set of clear action points. The participants each fed back that they thought big steps forward had been achieved. The plan is that we will shortly lead a three months review session to check on progress and ensure that these actions are being carried out.
If you would like to discuss this aspect of our coaching/mentoring service further, please contact Nigel Bates on 0118 939 4506.
