The Challenge
A relatively new executive team of a PE owned entity that provide services throughout the PE portfolio was under significant pressure to scale and improve performance. This services-based business was quickly established as a vehicle to serve the PE company, its other portfolio companies and third part customers. A significant part of the team was new and the pressure to perform was significant from ownership. The team had yet to fully form and conflicts were already showing up along with significant siloed behavior.
The ExCo Group Support
The ExCo Group was engaged to facilitate a three-day offsite that was intended to address team dynamics and performance. In advance of this offsite, The ExCo Group conducted a detailed set of interviews along with the utilization of a team cultural assessment tool to provide detailed data around their team dynamics and culture.
Impact
Over the course of three days, the team engaged in a number of activities that helped them better get to know each other, including their respective working styles and tools to engage with each other based on those styles. In addition, the team:
- Redeveloped a new vision that better fit its ambition
- Developed a revised strategic framework and simple plan
- Aligned around a clear communication plan for their vision and strategy
- Agreed to a set of behaviors and norms on how they would work together
- Developed an approach on how to prioritize collectively and work through conflicts
- Set a clear set of priorities for the upcoming year which deprioritize non-relevant items
In follow up sessions and interviews, the team agreed they are working better together and are making a much bigger impact as a team than ever before. The timing of COVID added a new dimension, and they used their new foundation to work better in a virtual environment and have been excelling from a performance perspective.