Conquest

Conquest underwent Strategic Specialists Groups Discovery Roadmap process, which assisted in the formulation of a five year strategic plan. This ambitious growth strategy involved doubling the business within five years, which Conquest expected would result in some growing pains.

Following the Roadmap, Strategic Specialists Group continued to be engaged in the business through a Marketing and Sales Specialist that supported the Marketing Manager with implementation of the strategic plan. This Specialist was also a member of the Advisory Board.

Additionally, Strategic Specialists Group were also engaged to provide CFO services to the business. The case study for that engagement can be found here.

The leadership team of Conquest was primarily made up of young and ambitious members, many of whom were new to leadership roles and had been promoted from technical specialist roles. They also had limited exposure to previous professional development, particularly around people management and leadership, key skills required for their roles.

Furthermore, a need was identified to develop the senior members of the leadership team in their role as Conquest leaders. With a particular focus to go beyond their functional leadership roles and lead the business and implement the Conquest vision and strategic plan.

A People and Culture Specialist was engaged to undertake a leadership development program for eight leaders, which included seven leadership team members and one team leader.

The leadership development program was a key enabler for Conquest to build a culture:

• That is high-performing and where all employees contribute to the best of their abilities
• That is driven by results and data
• Where leaders and employees understand the business case for spending money
• That is supportive, celebrates wins and employees want to come to work.

The leadership development program includes three key steps:

• Step 1: Define Leadership Capabilities
  Our Specialist spent time with the Directors to define the key leadership capabilities, both technical and behavioural, required of Conquest leaders now and in the future.
• Step 2: Capability Assessment and Gap Analysis
  Senior leaders were assessed against the technical and behavioural capabilities identified in Step One, including both a self-assessment and an assessment by others in the businesses.
  
  Assessment reports were then formulated for each leader, summarising key strengths and key development areas. The reports and key themes for the leadership team were presented to the Directors, prior to commencement of one-on-one coaching.
• Step 3: One-on-one Coaching and Group Training Sessions
  Our Tailored one-on-one coaching sessions were conducted with all leaders over a 12 month period. These sessions were self-driven and action-oriented to target improvement in key development areas.
  
  The Specialist utilised the 70:20:10 learning approach (70% on-the-job, 20% via coaches, 10% theoretical education). Engaged as the coach, our Specialist played an independent and external trusted advisory role to create a safe and confidential environment, allowing for maximum learning to occur.
  
  For each leader, the following approach was adopted:
  • Kick-off meeting with each leader to discuss assessment report and seek buy-in and agreement on key development areas to focus on for the development program.
  • Seven one-hour action oriented coaching meetings, focusing on activity since the last meeting and actions to address development areas and to keep momentum going.
  • Phone support for leaders outside of formal coaching sessions.
  • Senior leaders were expected to hold regular check-in meetings with their manager.
  
  Group training sessions were also conducted, covering ‘giving and receiving effective feedback’ and ‘leading through change’. Furthermore, the Specialist also held two check-in / review meetings with Directors to discuss how the development program was tracking overall and for each individual leader, focusing on key themes.

Individual Leaders:

• Increased confidence, particularly around people leadership and people management
• Invaluable coaching experience that provided a great understanding of strengths and development areas.
• Leaders have more awareness of the impact they have on others.
• Leaders said it was valuable to have an objective outsider who has broad leadership experience that they could bounce things off of.

Leadership Team:

• The team is now better aligned with one another, and they approach decisions from a collective company perspective, rather than an individual departmental perspective.
• The team has become increasingly open to one another’s ideas. This has made the individual leaders more comfortable and willing to put their opinion forward.
• Overall, the team is stronger, they are functioning better and the engagement from all the leaders in the team has improved.

Wider Organisational Benefits

• The culture of Conquest has changed for the better and the Senior leaders have said that the staff are happier.