Our aim is to support organisations in their transformation to a more inclusive culture while nurturing and empowering women to contribute fully and authentically. The resulting benefit is the effective harnessing of your people’s diversity, leading to more creativity, innovation, motivation and sustainable success. There are many ways in which we support organisations on their diversity journey, including the following examples:
Culture Assessment:
We were engaged to help identify the real reasons most women don’t progress in their team/organisation beyond a certain level. Our coaches ran a number of exploratory focus groups and yielded some eye-opening insights about the perceived culture of obstacles in this organisation. Equipped with these new insights, the client proceeded to prepare an action plan with the aim of breaking down these obstacles and perceptions, changing culture and behaviours, one team at a time.
Inclusive Teams & Leaders:
A client asked us to help transform its corporate culture which at times failed to value the authentic contribution of its female team members. We designed a programme to be implemented over a course of one year using our behaviour changing model. The model consists of gradual and palatable behaviour changes – depending on the appetite of the relevant participants – including an intensive training programme on building inclusive teams and leaders.
Inclusive Leadership Training:
- A client asked us to design an inclusive leadership training programme for its leaders. This client’s objective was to reinvigorate its company values of collaboration and respect. Mindful of time commitment challenges, we designed a pilot bite-sized leadership programme for managers and team leaders, introducing various aspects of inclusive leadership.
- We were approached by an organisation as they embarked on a journey to evolve their leadership culture to a more inclusive one where everyone’s opinion is valued and heard and people at all levels of the organisation feel empowered to speak up, challenge and offer new ways of thinking. We worked with a cohort of senior managers, exploring different leadership styles and equipped them with some simple but powerful coaching tools they could put into practices with their teams straight away. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Workshop participants felt more confident and capable when it came to adjusting their leadership style to different situations. By adopting a coaching leadership style whenever possible, they let go of control more often, allowing their teams to step up and take ownership of decision making processes. In return, their teams were starting to feel more engaged, trusted and valued.
Inclusive Culture in Meetings and Beyond:
The Legal, Risk and Compliance Global Team of an Investment Bank invited us to help design a new approach to meetings – a way to make the best use of the participant’s time, intelligence and thinking to raise the performance of the Global team and the outcome of each meeting. A more inclusive approach that celebrated the diversity of ideas and appreciated the qualities each participant brought to the meeting. With our facilitator, the Global team transformed their meeting. Our facilitator showed them how to listen without interruption, encourage high quality of thinking, the power of the question. They treated each other as equals in their capacity to think independently. They developed new ideas, learned more from and about each other, and thought more creatively. As a result, ‘People feel valued, respected and heard by colleagues, especially their seniors. This will improve morale and motivation amongst employees in the business.’ The delegates also shared a number of other impactful changes, including improved relationships, better way to manage team with respect and improved listening for the good of the team’s performance.
Unconscious Bias Done Differently:
A client enquired about Unconscious Bias training. We explained that, although we address unconscious bias in our training, our objective is to equip people with tools to break down barriers. Our programme therefore is different: While introducing and explaining the concept of unconscious bias, our training goes beyond this to educate about the underlying assumptions we hold about each other, society and life that we take for granted and of which we are often unaware. Once we uncover our assumption about someone or something, it changes how we perceive that person or thing and gives us an opportunity to challenge the judgment to which we would typically hasten. In this way, the client agreed, we take unconscious bias training a step further to equip people with skills on how to recognise and confront it.
Business about to be sold by Private Equity – Leadership Team (Team Coaching):
Co-designed and co-facilitated a one-day workshop for the Leadership Team to prepare themselves for being sold by their current owners. The day had two parts to it. The first focused on the Leadership Team, how they were feeling, the support they could offer each other and the common position they would take with their staff. During the second part of the day we used exercises which allowed them to put themselves in the shoes of different stakeholders to increase their empathy and understanding of how their staff, customers and others might react to the change of ownership. At the end of the day the team were prepared to lead their business through the forthcoming change.
Serial Entrepreneur and their Management Team (Team Coaching):
The entrepreneur had a number of disparate business (from healthcare to publishing) and the management team were unclear of his vision / strategy and what their shared purpose was. Using visioning exercises and creating an open environment the entrepreneur and the management team were able to articulate a clear vision and then develop action plans to implement it. The vision created alignment with the management team which increased the collaboration between them.
FinTech Investment Advisory Firm – Owners / Management Team (Team Coaching):
The company had a number of business lines and more opportunities than it could focus on. Through a short series of half-day workshops, we identified that each member had a slightly different view as to what the companies vision was. Having established this, we worked on aligning the team around a common purpose and the culture they wanted within the team. The discussions around culture led onto a re-assessment of the roles and responsibilities of the team and ultimately led them to re-organising, recruiting new members to the management team.
Fintech Incubator:
As part of a bank run Fintech Incubator we worked with 6 start-ups to help them understand the importance of their team culture including the expectations and rules of engagement for working with each other. Each team then completed a “Team Canvas” which documented their goals, strategy, roles and culture which they then presented to the Incubator leaders as part of their pitch to obtain further funding.
Head of Deal Execution, ING Bank (own words):
I had been earmarked for promotion and together with my coach we identified the areas that I was keen to work on. My coach immediately understood my needs and working with her has been like a breath of fresh air. Her straightforward no-nonsense approach, honesty and sense of humour have proved to be invaluable. I would recommend my coach without hesitation. She has taken me on a voyage of self-discovery which has been both challenging and enjoyable. Thank you for your patience and perseverance. Working with you has been an absolute pleasure!
James, Lawyer (own words):
…amazing how one afternoon can permanently change the way one presents. Certainly, the most powerful afternoon of change I ever had. Cannot thank you enough. I pass on some of your learnings to my direct reports – and it helps them too.
Core Skills Workshops:
Many of our clients love our 21st century skills training offering which includes: personal communications (in meetings, networking events, in front of an audience, in challenging conversations), how to recgonise and dismantle limiting beliefs, ways in which to make networking more likeable and successful, increasing one’s visibility at work, becoming more resilient, approaching one’s career more strategically. Others prefer our thought leadership talks on the future of leadership, how to build a growth mindset, ways in which Diversity in the business can be used as a strategic strength and building inclusive teams and leaders. These sessions are popular particulary with Employee Resource Groups, as client events and special features, providing stakeholders information, engagement and food for thought.