Extraordinary economic circumstances call for extraordinary action, and we have been working with some of the world's largest and most complex organisations to accelerate business transformation and help them achieve urgent business change.

We had been working with one of the world's great automobile companies in Europe and had begun leadership development programmes for the Americas on a medium to long-term time frame. At this stage the company was already in the midst of a turnaround situation, however as the economic crisis hit and with the global car market near collapse, the situation became a very different one and delivery of results in the short-term became the priority.

Focusing on helping senior leaders react with urgency and immediacy in the current situation, the resulting leadership development workshops homed in on three core issues:

- What it means to lead in a crisis
- The role of creativity in managing through crisis
- Achieving cross-functional and cross-country synergies to effect rapid change

We keep the business and its strategic objectives at the centre of all our leadership work. However, given the current pressure within the organisation, we focused even more on the immediate business challenges and worked with senior leaders on what they could do to positively influence the situation, while remaining strategically aligned. We also worked with them to find new ways to execute strategy in a more focused and urgent manner than they would traditionally adopt.

The workshops in action

Working with a mix of small and larger groups, the aim was to help the senior leaders achieve an immediate and cumulative positive impact for the organisation, as well as to develop the new skills, capabilities and orientations needed to continue to do so. We addressed the charismatic role of leadership in chaotic times and the kind of leadership presence that generates confidence and trust so that the people they are responsible for take action and do not become immobilised.

The creativity element focused on what can be achieved by reframing issues and looking at them from different angles and in different combinations, and from this we helped them surface cross-functional and cross-country synergies that would simultaneously grow revenues and reduce costs.

Throughout the workshops, and with considerable involvement from the top leaders in the business, we worked with live issues and the most urgent and strategic challenges, and constantly redesigned and refocused the workshops to reflect up to the minute realities for the organisation and the participants. Most importantly, after each workshop, participants were able to go back into the fray and make major positive changes to how they performed their role and the value they added to the business.

Outcomes

We have now run two programmes of workshops in the Americas, with the company's own internal impact evaluations confirming significant business benefits as a result of participants now leading differently. Further programmes are now being designed and will run on into next year.

Feedback from participants includes commenting that this was by far the most important and practical professional development they had ever had, and that relationships forged at the workshops have enabled them to subsequently get together and deliver major business benefits.

The will and confidence to work with the bigger company picture in mind also emerged, with several people commenting that they now feel right about making major sacrifices in their own business area in order to make new things possible in another – such as cross-providing key personnel even when it results in considerable difficulties for the area they have moved from, or forming quick informal task forces to creatively transform troubled sub-systems of the business.

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