Business Case Studies

Case Study 1

The Business Unit was set up following an international merger and comprised 3 formerly autonomous units. Creating a team spirit and set of common processes (as opposed to three different ways of doing everything) was a top priority and one of the things which worked well in support of this objective was a programme of personal coaching throughout the entire BU, both with the Leadership Team and staff - both staff and contractor personnel. The company is, like many other companies, very male dominated and Marianne had to work hard to gain the confidence of many male supervisors and team leaders. She worked hard to be successful in this area, overcoming the predictable obstacles, and Marianne's company, "It's Personal" was extremely helpful in stimulating our reputation for doing things differently and in developing a track record of successful delivery and contribution to the international group.

Their strengths are in inspiring trust, personal confidence and prudent risk-taking, and in coaching the right behaviours of team leaders and staff alike to ensure that business goals and objectives are successfully met. They also have great strengths in transitional situations and they have a proven record in continually adapting and providing flexibility in changing work situations to the benefit of the BU. We called the It's Personal programme the "Proposition for the People" and some of the aspects were as follows:

• working with the various teams as a business partner "on site", with It's Personal resources working alongside.
• leadership and staff teams providing personal coaching and top-flight facilitation while work was in progress.
• a great ability to instil creativity and a different approach, borrowing successful methods from other businesses and other organisations, often outside of the Oil and Gas Industry
• a programme of "de-cluttering" whereby the highest priorities for an individual were identified, the lowest priority items discarded (or delegated elsewhere) and plans to meet the key objectives were rigorously monitored for implementation
• working with an innovative process called the Enneagram which enabled inviduals to align their work and personal goals to the benefit of the BU
• by offering this approach to the entire Business Unit (as opposed to just the managers) the staff were able to better align behind business goals and objectives and the results included steadily improving behaviours, a greater team spirit and visibly improved business results.

My own experience with It's Personal included all of the above plus personal shadowing and immediate coaching, a very valuable de-cluttering experience and personal behaviour changes which helped me to lead and role-model the changes I was trying to implement across the Business Unit.

I have no doubt that the involvement of It's Personal was a key factor in the success achieved by the West of Shetland over a 21/2 year period. Marianne's company provided a source of creativity, challenge and valuable behaviour change role-modelling at a critical time and did a great job for us. I would be happy to recommend them as a potential future business partner for your organisation. Please do not hesitate to get back to me if I can provide any further information or clarification.

With kind regards,

Business Unit Leader 1999 - 2001.

To add on to this, I can confirm some of the more detailed aspects of what this project achieved.

• In the Business Unit Leader's case, 40 days were cleared from his diary in the decluttering process, taking out the activities that were not aligned to the business drivers.
• Meeting times were reduced by up to 50% by means of being aware of the behaviours impeding on their efficiency. As duplication became apparent, many meetings were taken out altogether, and again up to 40% removed in cases where the coaching was intense.
• There had been a requirement in the last year to get the ESI (employment satisfaction index) up from the previous year. The request was to improve the Index by more than 3%. At the end of our Proposition to the People Programme, lasting one year, we surveyed the people, and the increase was 7%. One month after this, the company announced a major reorganisation, and following that, their own survey showed the ESI lower than a 3% improvement - to be expected.

Again, shown below are some of the things our company did for this organisation:

• Merger, the consolidation of 3 assets into a new identity! A lot to do at that time. (Old company handled outplacement project - 98% resettled)
• Putting together a vision for the BU, strategic objectives (a challenging moment), and tactics, timelines to achieve those.
• Out of the strategic objective matrix, the logo emerged and people began to take ownership of this new dynamic BU.
• Finding different ways to communicate, specifically through more innovative townhalls. Engaging the workforce in different ways.
• Shadowing, coaching and mentoring the individuals in the leadership team, including yourself.

Again, an unusual approach for the organisation.

• Working with the team in meetings, facilitating and keeping behaviours appropriate to achieve the desired outcomes.
• Experiential learning for LT. A contrived 3 day event to give insight into how it really felt to feel demotivated!!
• Creating trust and innovation in the LT - the away day in the new year with the actors showed how far they had come.
• Enneagram training - to further the individual's insights into their motivation and behaviour to further enhance their performance.
• Decluttering of diaries and sometimes minds, to focus on the business drivers and ensure the daily activities stay as close to that as possible.
• Recent townhall involved some very strange dressing up for 4th July, a sight I thought I would never see with some people!!!
• Facilitation of several oil partners in getting the Clair Oil Field sanctioned, after a 25 year haitus.
• In between all this, I got involved in the Brand Launch for Aberdeen, which was viewed as a great success!

The organisation had a mainly male culture, a very long history of success, and an open attitude to change, with a multitude of learning tools available to them. What became clear, was that it is BEHAVIOURS that underpin any change, and all the learning and initiatives in the world will not be sustained without an understanding of the individual's impact on another.