Imagine you’re the CEO of a tightly regulated, phenomenally fast-growing business, attracting some of the best international talent in your field, when the rules under which you operate suddenly change.
Imagine this happens just as you are emerging from the COVID years, while significant external events are creating further uncertainty for your international team.
Any one of these things would count as a significant challenge for a leader. Together? I’d call that existential. And with important contracts to deliver, they could afford neither to lose key people nor to drop balls.
We worked together to reframe their Essential Truths, because what they had in place simply wasn’t up to the job in hand.
Like many organisations, they’d been working with a fairly standard set of corporate values: collaboration, integrity, and so on. It didn’t really matter in the good times, but under new circumstances it mattered enormously. They needed a framework that would enable trustworthy decisions to be made across the business, and at pace.
Their vision and purpose were no longer fit for purpose either, and at a time when they needed to rebuild confidence this was a problem.
I immersed myself in the organisation, getting to know its people and context, both with them and at my own desk. Two months later I returned with a challenging recommendation to stop making growth the story. Instead, put the people who would make that growth possible at the heart of it.
It was a significant shift, but one rooted firmly in the realities we had uncovered. If they could continue to attract exceptional people, then develop and retain them, the stability they needed would be secured and further growth supported.
Accompanied by clear behavioural principles, actively phrased in the language of their people, and a renewed sense of purpose, this underpinned a new story that spoke to hearts, not just minds. It brought the new way to life, built a sense of belonging and embedded the Essential Truths into everyday decisions.
The organisation has continued to grow, adapting nimbly as circumstances change. It’s in safe leadership hands, with a strong team and a phenomenal reputation in its field. The work we did together has acted as both a platform and a playbook for that stability.