Not perceiving a role within the Holding but ultimately launching 4 successful projects
Client Request
A prominent Holding acquired a thriving IT company, RED (names altered). The aspiration was to achieve a 15-fold growth for RED within 10 years. However, RED proved unprepared for our client’s ambitions.
- The RED management believed their employees were overburdened, with insufficient resources for advancement.
- The growth plans of a 15-fold increase within a decade lacked inspiration and caused apprehension.
- The company vehemently resisted the implementation of the Holding’s initiatives.
It became evident that the previous success was predicated on team enthusiasm and expertise, yet lacked proficient management practices for monumental undertakings.
With our guidance, the RED team needed to transition from resistance to resolute execution of the Holding’s plans.
Objectives
After scrutinizing the issue, we proposed that the client engage in two sessions:
- During the first session, the aim was to discern the impediments hindering RED’s transition to the new scale: identifying the challenges and outlining pathways for their resolution.
- In the second session (scheduled six months later, once the solutions had been implemented), the focus was on delineating tasks within the client’s plan and embarking on their execution.
Outcomes
This case underscored once again that when a task appears insurmountable, it necessitates novel approaches for resolution. With the aid of our consultant, the client gained a fresh perspective on the problem and discovered solutions that proved significantly more effective than anticipated.
Steps
Integrating RED into the Holding’s Plans: From Problems to Tasks in 2 Days
We began with a retrospective approach: under the guidance of consultant Marina Arnoldi, the team analyzed the outcomes of the previous years.
The RED team became convinced that ambitious plans were within their reach.
To their surprise, during the session, many team members realized that they had achieved a fivefold growth in the past year compared to the previous period. This instilled confidence in their own abilities.
We identified the competencies of RED that contributed to their high performance…
Recognizing the importance of personal connections, Marina invited the director of the parent company. Together with the RED team, they determined which experiences and practices from the Holding could be utilized to implement RED’s plans.
…and also identified the shortcomings that hindered progress.
The session revealed several pain points in management. The RED leadership simply lacked the management and staff motivation practices successfully employed in the parent Holding, which led to a lack of belief in future prospects.
For example, the issue of “We lack personnel.” Previously, RED made do with existing resources due to a lack of resources for training new staff. The session helped them understand that the reason was not resource scarcity but rather process inefficiencies. Notably, the team immediately found interested employees willing to take on the implementation of effective staff training practices.
Following the first session, RED confidently saw itself as part of our client’s plans:
- “Unsolvable” problems transformed into concrete tasks.
- Each task had a dedicated leader invested in its success.
- There was a focus on personnel rotation and resource optimization.
Several months later, none of the four assigned tasks were overlooked: two were completed, one became irrelevant, and one expanded into a larger-scale endeavor.
As the second session approached, RED company embraced it with new team members, partially optimized resources, and a newfound belief in the feasibility of the Holding’s plans.
Recognizing the value of the first session’s outcomes, our client set a task: to identify and develop projects that the RED team could realistically implement in the near future.
Multiplying ideas by two…
While RED already had some ideas, we understood that the most valuable discoveries often lie beneath the surface. By employing specialized methodologies, the team was able to generate ideas in unprecedented ways: tapping into intuition, fostering creativity, and reaching new levels of imaginative energy. Marina led a brainstorming session that resulted in the team presenting an additional set of equally promising ideas.
…and discarding the unnecessary.
With the guidance of the consultant, the team applied two filters:
- Personal interest: Ideas that held promise but failed to personally inspire any of the participants were discarded.
- Effort and outcome: Each project’s resource requirements were evaluated, along with its potential to advance RED towards the client’s ambitious goal of 15x growth. The focus was on selecting projects that could deliver maximum results with minimal resource investment.
The outcome of the second session was a pool of 15 inspiring projects spanning three areas: business processes, technology and innovation, and learning. From this pool, the team prioritized four projects for the upcoming months and defined the key steps required for their execution. The remaining projects were subjected to evaluation and data gathering.
After reviewing the results, the client…
- Expressed readiness to invest in any of the proposed projects.
- Acknowledged that many ideas could be successfully implemented in other companies within the group.
We consistently emphasize the importance of considering any question from three perspectives: the level of personal interest for employees, the impact on the team, and the benefits it brings to the company as a whole.
Results
RED company confidently embarked on the implementation of the Holding's plans. They identified obstacles, formulated clear tasks, and began executing them.
The team proposed 15 promising projects, four of which were immediately set in motion.
The client approved all projects and demonstrated a willingness to invest.
The Holding effectively leveraged the solutions for the development of the entire group of companies.
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