Case Study 4.

The Company: A successful and ambitious City Trading Firm.

The Issue: A new Chief Executive had been appointed. This individual had impeccable credentials and was considered to be a real ‘catch’ by the Company.  However, after just three months in role, it was becoming increasingly obvious that he had failed to establish good working relationships with his team - to the extent that communications had almost come to a standstill.  There was real concern over the impact on performance that this would have in the not-too-distant future.

The Solution: The traditional approach in such a situation would have been to get the whole team together and use the WSA to highlight differences in style and where changes in approach were needed.  However, this proved to be impossible in this situation because the new Chief Executive felt too threatened by such an approach and could not be persuaded otherwise.  An alternative approach was devised whereby the WSA profiles were used to ‘map’ the styles and behaviours of the individuals within the team as perceived by him.  This involved challenging the Chief Executive to give behavioural evidence for his assumptions.  He then went through a WSA feedback himself to identify his own motivations and behaviours.  Once his profile was agreed, it was possible to map it against each other individual to identify not only the likely cause of conflict but also what approach could be taken to resolve it.  Plans were drawn up to address his relationship issues with each individual and fortnightly meetings were arranged with the WSA Analyst to monitor progress and decide on corrective actions.

The Outcome: The Chief Executive reported that he found the process incredibly difficult at the beginning but that being able to ‘visibly see the differences on a WSA profile’ had enabled him to remain logical and objective about the problems and solutions required.  Six months after the initial meeting, the Chief Executive reported that the situation had greatly improved and had requested, with the agreement of his team, that a WSA session be held for the whole team!  After this event took place the Board then requested using the WSA to examine their corporate culture and tease out the commercial weaknesses which this exposed them to – an event which challenged the WSA not to mention the WSA Analyst, but which nevertheless took place and proved to be a great success leading to some significant changes in the way in which the business dealt with its people.  The Chief Executive, after a very shaky start, is now highly regarded within the business and perceived to be someone who will be moving upwards in due course.