Unlocking the true potential of Our Client’s leadership team and leaving a global legacy
Our key stakeholder, Senior HR Business Partner for our Healthcare Client, shares his experience of working with ASCEND+ on an initial programme that turned into an ongoing partnership supporting leaders right across the business.
Industry: Healthcare
Number of employees: 10,000+
Location: Multinational
The brief
Our Client employs approximately 10,000 people across four operating divisions around the world. For over 100 years, the company has designed and manufactured systems and solutions for the global healthcare industry, supporting both the containment and delivery of drugs to patients.
In 2010, our key stakeholder was responsible for managing the HR across a manufacturing operation in Dublin, Ireland. Our Client had recently acquired the business, and it was negotiating a significant period of change including a new Managing Director, a change in senior leadership, and an entirely new strategy.
To solidify the company’s future and better align with the vision of our Client’s global organisation, the Dublin-based business set out to reangle its approach to become a bigger player in the healthcare space. But with so much change and such a big challenge ahead, work was needed to unite the leadership team and ensure they were all pulling in the same direction. Relations had been strained, and the team needed to gel together more effectively to enable them to successfully lead through the new strategy.
“We knew where we wanted to go, but we also knew we had to invest in ourselves as a relatively new leadership team. We needed to make sure we were all aligned on the strategy, and we were all aligned as a team.”
The Senior HR Business Partner wanted to create a bespoke, niche development programme with a partner that really cared about the success of the business and would support him in preparing the leadership team for the new strategy. He needed a partner that fit with the company’s culture and working style and could help them get where they needed to go.
The solution
Our key stakeholder brought in ASCEND+ to create a programme that would transform the way the leadership team worked – looking at the team dynamics, establishing key behaviours and norms, and mapping out the desired culture. The initial scope of work involved resolving the dysfunctionality amongst the leadership team, and fast.
Through a combination of individual coaching, strategic workshops, psychometric testing and observing behaviours in leadership meetings, ASCEND+ set out to unlock the potential of each leader and unite them as one high-performing team. They supported the team in finding a new niche in the market, and finding their relevance within the global organisation.
“The beauty of ASCEND’s approach was that they were adaptable and flexible. Sometimes the workshops would end up going in a totally different direction, and they were quite happy to adapt their style to meet ours. They were focused on enabling and empowering us to be a much more cohesive leadership team."
He continued to partner with ASCEND+ and expand the impact by delivering successive programmes year-on-year, moving from the initial work with the leadership team out to the next level of leadership. Building on the solid foundation that had been established, ASCEND+ designed programmes and initiatives that built the skillset and capabilities of teams right across the business.
The results
The results of our Client’s partnership with ASCEND+ was nothing short of transformational. “The programmes and initiatives that ASCEND+ designed for us really worked. They helped us to gel together and stand on our own two feet as a leadership team”, he explained. The team began to thrive, and the new strategy came to fruition as the business transitioned into its new market. The Dublin location grew from strength to strength, with the team becoming more pioneering and innovative based on the energy and fluidity that was introduced.
Over the following years, many of the team progressed into global leadership positions within the Organisation’s broader business, with the location’s leader eventually becoming one of the Presidents. The company’s presence in Dublin grew from a small operation of a couple of hundred people to multiple sites employing more than 1,200 people in the community.
“ASCEND+ was pivotal in helping us to realise our strategy, realise our culture, and realise the potential of our people. We built talent, and that talent has truly exploded across the Organisation. The programme has left a real legacy."
Since the initial programme almost 15 years ago, our key stakeholder has also progressed through various senior HR roles within the Organisation. He is now the Senior HR Business Partner for one of its four operating divisions, supporting a team of over 1,000 employees around the world.
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