‘So long silo (mentality), Hello joined-up teams’
Challenge
We were asked to support a department within a successful business to work more closely together as a team and with other departments. Customer communication and internal meetings highlighted issues around roles and responsibilities and concerns that customer issues were being handled reactively.
Approach
The first-line supervisory team we supported were one element of a large global company operating on every continent, with responsibility for customer service and budget control. They were one of five departments, which had little regard for each other, and this was causing problems within their department and across the organisation
Step 1 – Held individual workshops and one-to one sessions with all stakeholders and teams to gain a true understanding of the root cause and dig deeper into the grass roots viewpoint.
Step 2 – All directors and first line supervisors completed the Alisar “Everything Work Place” DiSC® profiling questionnaire. Their replies provided insights into the entire management team as DiSC® generates reports that enables individuals to see their profile against other team members.
Step 3 – Working with individual management teams, we combined our one-to-one coaching sessions with individual DiSC® profiles and reviewed what makes them tick. Most importantly we looked at how they could flex their style to optimise working relationships with their line manager, peers and team.
All the information gathered from these exercises enabled us to build team and management workshops around the styles and strengths of individuals and maximise overall business effectiveness.
Impact
The profiling, workshops and coaching sessions had a big effect on organisational culture:
- Communications improved across all departments
- Everyone’s roles and responsibilities were better defined
- The teams reshaped how they worked
- Daily briefings and monthly reviews were introduced to look at how the business worked together
- Ongoing coaching sessions with senior managers kept the focus on adjusting styles and reducing the silo mentality.