City Link North East RegionPublished 07/09/2015

The North East Regional Director wanted to work with his team of 11 leaders to maximise their results. In a loss making business, he was looking for the difference that could make the difference in their regional scorecard. With numerous organisational priorities, he did not know exactly what team coaching was, however he did believe through his own leadership development that his team performance could develop greater synergies and collaborative working.

Sharon and her team facilitated a series of modules designed to address the key areas for development identified by the team. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected by observing the team and through interviews with each team member, the directors and representative operatives in their stakeholder groups. From the feedback the team identified the lack of trust between each other and the stronger connections to their regional and local business units than to this leadership team as the core areas to work on.

The programme consisted of:

An exploration in to the type of team they aspired to be
What it could give them if they worked as a team and their collective purpose
The foundations for trust, including a deeper understanding of each other, what was important to each person and their motivations
How give each other appreciative and developmental feedback
How to work as a team when they were together in meetings with healthy debate and clear next step agreements
How to work as a team when they were working apart
A collective review process
Listening in to a number of regular team conference calls, also enabled Sharon to give the team leader ‘in real time’, feedback on what she had heard in relation to the way the team was working together

The outcomes

The North East Regional Team became and remained the highest performing of all the regions at City Link. They became a team where the team members mentored each other, asking and giving help to resolve operational challenges in service of the overall team result.

What the Regional Director said:

“The key thing is that you mould yourself around the client, you challenge, you don’t give in, you stick with them. You absolutely work closely with a client to understand what their needs are even when that’s difficult. You’re bespoke rather than a package and have shown you don’t use an off-the-shelf approach.

It’s been a good news story. The team members really came together as a well-oiled machine. It’s been of complete value. Team coaching enhanced the team’s performance. I think the team have come out as better people and better managers for what they’ve gone through. It’s been important, if not more important, doing this in a loss making business to unite the team.

I believe you can work with small and large companies and at different levels. You are making a big difference.

AR, North East Regional Director, City Link