Case Study 3.

The Company: A main subsidiary of a UK Bank which operated autonomously and generated significant profits.

The Issue: The Board had undergone a few major changes in the last six months and the ‘new’ team were, by their own admission, not working well together. The problems were beginning to have an impact on morale and, importantly, those working in the Business were reporting a lack of clarity and direction from above.

The Solution: Initial discussions were held with the Board to identify the problems manifesting themselves as a result of the team not working well together. It was proposed that every Board member would go through a WSA feedback process to identify their own unique styles and to collect information on where they felt the Board was going wrong. This was followed up with two team sessions with the aim of the first one being to use the WSA to outline what makes a team effective and to briefly cover the styles of each individual involved. Everyone was sent away to work with the WSA Analyst to identify what they needed to change and put in place a specific and pragmatic action plan. The second team meeting was held two months later to judge the results to date and to critically examine current working processes that the Board used. 

The Outcome: The second meeting reported a reasonable movement towards better working relationships with the main protagonists having taken the initiative to meet jointly with the WSA Analyst to explore their relative styles.  More importantly, the decision making processes that the Board had been using, were identified as being, in themselves, likely to promote conflict.  A number of changes were consequently made with the aim of improving communication and debate prior to formal meetings.  Indeed, pre-Board meetings were utilised when real and genuine differences of opinion existed.  The aim of these was to present at Board meetings a way forward rather than using the time to simply debate the issues from opposing viewpoints. The success of the intervention was examined after a further six months and the Board reported enormous improvements in their working relationships to the extent that they were currently using the WSA to draw up a specification to present to the Main Board for the replacement of the Managing Director which was planned in one year’s time.