Situation: A UK services business needed to know whether its leadership team could lead the next phase of its strategy before that phase began. The next phase was innovation-led and commercially disciplined, and it sat on top of a long-standing core service. The team was strong on ideas and on opening doors. Whether it could execute a step change of this kind had not been tested.
Intervention: The work ran in four parts. We framed the question with the operating executive first, prepared the team for the process, and assembled a pre-read: the strategy, recent management accounts, job descriptions, status reports, the organisation chart and the executive’s own read of each leader. Each leader completed a Belbin Self Perception Inventory with four to six observer assessments. We then held a confidential one-to-one with each leader, of one to two hours and recorded with consent, on their own role, their view of the company and the strategy, and their read of the rest of the team and of the operating executive. Finally we analysed team roles for each leader and for the team as a whole, read across the strategic, commercial and enabling functions, and measured the gap against the operating model the strategy actually required.
Outcome: The operating executive received a confidential written report: the team-level findings, the gap against the operating model, a sequenced recommendation and the business issues that surfaced in the interviews. The team-role map showed where the team had strong examples of a role and where it had none. Its make-up leaned towards ideas and external focus and away from delivery, the shape that sets direction and opens doors but struggles to turn either into executed change. The full assessment went only to the chief executive and the chair, and each leader saw only their own profile. The operating executive went into the next planning cycle with a clear read of the team and a sequenced plan. The client then made the changes itself and revised its leadership team. The work also surfaced operating model issues beyond the team, which led to a separate review of the organisation.