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Empower development. Empower people.

Case-Study

Empower development.
Empower people.

Spanning more than 30 countries, Sobi (Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB) is an international biopharmaceutical company dedicated to providing access to innovative treatments that transform life for people with rare diseases.

They know that they need to continuously work on developing the spirit of leadership and entrepreneurship to achieve their vision of being recognised as a global leader in rare diseases. They know that to make this happen, they need to encourage every individual in their organisation to be the driver of their own development.

Their goal: To evolve the mindset in the organisation for how they ‘do development’ in Sobi France. To encourage their employees at all levels to take individual ownership for leading and driving their own development.

Overview

“I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don’t want.” – Stanley Kubrik

In Sobi’s case, they knew exactly what they wanted. The HR Director had also experienced first hand, how our approach can really help to put people into the driving seat of their own development. Naturally, we were delighted when she asked us to help create this same level of understanding and ownership in the organisation.

The first step was to create awareness, which we did with a short key-note, to introduce the idea that development relates more to individual growth rather than being linked to a specific role.

In a second step, we worked with the Leaders and Managers to give them the mindset and the tools necessary to have impactful development conversations with their teams.

The third step was to work with their key talents, to provide a structured approach for them to become ‘creators’ of their own future.

Aligning the Leadership team, all the managers and key talents on development is paramount for me. Everyone now shares the same perspective and language, making development conversations more powerful and ultimately, helping us to be an even higher performing team.

– Sébastien Le Roux, General Manager, Sobi France

Approach

Linking the intervention with the strategy is key:

This ensures that it is given the necessary level of priority and focus, despite people’s ‘busyness’.

Start with the Leaders:

When middle management knows that their bosses at the top of the organisation (including the GM) are going through the same process, it gives the necessary level of coherence and prevents a ‘them and us’ scenario from hampering progress.

Build groups according to seniority:

It’s essential to work with homogenous groups in terms of leadership maturity. This allows the different needs and expectations to be addressed and provides a safe platform for people to express themselves openly and honestly.

Relinking each session to the bigger picture:

Running programms that span over many weeks requires each ‘building block’ to be linked to the next. This creates coherence and builds the interconnections that enable the desired mindset to develop.

Result

Having focused on first developing the necessary mindset with the leaders and managers has elevated the level of leadership across the organisation. A key element for this has been increasing awareness that the role of a leader or manager is not to always have the answer, and that holding development discussions with a coaching approach increases the level of individual engagement and ownership for this in their teams.

Exploring new dimensions of development, such as taking an inside-out rather than an outside-in approach, has opened up the perspective to focus on the development of the individual and their full potential for contribution, rather than just on a person doing a job.

With this approach, their efforts are bearing fruits not only in terms of increased engagement and motivation, but also in supporting each individual’s contribution to the organisation’s strategy and goals, thereby ultimately having the desired impact on helping to transform the lives of people with rare diseases.

Conclusion

For any organization to achieve their vision and strategy, leaders and managers must understand that their role lies not only in ensuring the day-to-day operational activities are well executed. They must also see their role as creating the link for their people between the vision and strategy, and their efforts in the daily operations.

When this is understood, they are able to create a leadership culture that develops and channels the potential of each individual in the organization to contribute to achieving operational excellence and high-performance.

Beyond creating an internal environment, where individuals can flourish and thrive, it creates the organizational stability needed to withstand the everchanging and constant pressures from their external environment.

It allows them to develop the force and power from inside their organisation to foster a culture that is agile and resilient, and in a better position to achieve their long-term vision.

Written by:
Yasmina Sefriou,
Transformation Guide

“As someone who has an appetite to bring strategy to life, I am passionate about leveraging people’s potential to serve a common vision and business objective.

So give me a call and let’s explore how we can take a structured approach to turning your people’s potential into results.”

You can reach me on +41 76 5268920 or at y.sefriou@2leadership.eu

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Grow your leaders. Grow your business.

Case-Study

Grow your leaders.
Grow your business.

Founded in 2002 and employing over 500 people worldwide, Kornit Digital develops, manufactures and markets industrial digital printing technologies for the garment, apparel, and textile industries.

Having hit hypergrowth, the time had come to pivot their strategic direction. Subsequently Kornit’s Regions needed to become the business drivers, with HQ transitioning to the role of enabler.

Their goal: To stabilize the newly configured EMEA Leadership Team and transform their leadership capabilities to achieve their challenging business growth objectives.

Overview

Each leader has their own style. When a new leader with a new style, comes onboard, the whole team can be left playing a guessing game when expectations aren’t made clear on both sides from the outset.

This is exactly the situation the EMEA leadership team found themselves in when they contacted us. The 64 billion-dollar question was, how can we work with them to create an autonomous strategic leadership team to meet the growth plans?

The first challenge to address was the overall ‘busyness’ of the team and getting them to focus on priorities and impact rather than the ‘daily tornado’. Using the approach of strategic navigation we created the space for each individual to understand and assume their role as leaders in planning first, and then moving to execution.

To strengthen their ability to sustain this new approach we supported key individuals with Executive Coaching.

By doing so the foundation has been laid for each individual to improve leading themselves, which directly impacts their ability to lead others.

We need to ensure that we are perceived as the leaders we want to be.

— Chris Govier, President Kornit Digital Europe GmbH

Approach

Creating a platform for the senior leader:

We see our role as co-creators. We provide the structure and the process but we will always ensure that the senior leader can assume their role in leading the way foward.

Self-leadership is the basis for all leadership:

When people realize that they alone are accountable for what happens in their day-to-day, they have the choice to step up and not fall in to the trap of playing the blame-game.

Getting expectations clear:

We’re not robots. We don’t all work in the same way. When a new team forms we provide a structured process for them to understand what’s expected on all sides to remove frustration and disappoint­ment from the playing field.

Transformation requires everyone to be engaged and committed:

And the leaders are responsible for making sure it doesn’t get stuck at the top. So our work doesn’t stop with aligning the senior team.

Result

The team has moved from being ‘busy’ to being focused. Their improved ability to plan means they are now delivering what is expected with considerably less resources. Through this structured approach they can monitor progress and course correct when necessary.

Having grown together as a team, they have achieved a level of strategic autonomy for their respective areas. They have realized that they are responsible for and empowered to drive the changes in the organization.

This has helped them to become a great team. The process has also helped them to recognize that there is more untapped potential within the organization.

The next step is now in the planning phase: To build the capabilities of the next level leaders and identify and develop their future leaders.

Conclusion

When a leadership team is put in place without fully understanding their role as leaders, they risk to burn time in meetings reporting facts and figures.

It is only at the point where they recognize their true role that individual team members move to a position of being able to make good independent operational decisions linked to the strategy.

Their leadership team meetings become more focused on strategic, cultural or visionary aspects and their focus shifts as they develop an understanding of the value and the need for leadership development further in the organization.

When teams achieve this level of leadership, they are in a much better position to release the necessary leadership resources to lead the strategic development of the organization.

Not only this, they create the basis to develop an agile organization, where decisions can be made at the lowest possible level, where capabilities and potential are identified and fostered, and where a culture of excellence can flourish and thrive.

Written by:
Ferdinand Lucke,
Transformation Guide

“I have a preference for profound, courageous and methodical change processes. My passion is the transformation of dysfunctional teams into great teams that are successful and fulfilled.

So give me a call and let’s explore how we can innovate your business.”

You can reach me on +351 960 471902 or at f.lucke@2leadership.eu

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Transform your culture. Transform your business.

Case-Study

Transform your culture.
Transform your business.

Sattler & Partner, an internationally operating management consulting boutique, has been supporting family owned SME’s in all phases of M&A since 1983.

As experts in succession planning, they too understand the importance of preparing the path for Andreas Sattler, Founder and CEO, to take a less prominent role in the acquisition of new customers.

Their goal: strengthen the network and ability of the Senior Partners to acquire new customers so that Andreas could take a less active role in daily operations and focus more on his role as main shareholder.

Overview

Siteco began their transformation process by appointing a new CEO. Having previously worked together and understanding our methods, the CEO knew that we would first look at what already existed and use this as a basis for the next steps. Together we created a 3-phase roadmap.

Phase 1: To identify the key stakeholders of the business areas with the most potential impact on the transformation process and get them aligned as a team and prepared for their role as leaders of the transformation process.

Phase 2: To cascade the strategic steps and cultural expectations for the next phase to the next level of the organisation. In parallel, a focus was placed on developing the leadership mindset and skills of key individuals at different levels of the organisation. In this way they could address the needs for 1:1 and 1:team leadership to create sufficient momentum to get the transformation into execution.

Phase 3: To maintain focus on the strategic initiatives and multiplying the new culture by the senior leaders driving the transformation themselves.

With this approach Siteco is focusing on developing it’s leaders in parallel with the new culture and so managing the risk of overheating their organisation as it transitions from the past to the future.

In the last months we’ve already succeeded in creating a more entrepreneurial culture throughout the whole organisation.

I’m thrilled to see how the mindset has changed from thinking in responsibilities to thinking in outcomes, and how our leaders are role-modelling this in their teams.

I’m even more thrilled to see how this is really helping us to speed up our delivery of customer projects.

— Mark Henrik Körner, CEO

Approach

Build on what already exists:

This allows the organisation to move to execution and get them fit for market rapidly.

Transformation starts at the top:

If you want the culture to change, you have to start with creating role-models at the top. It is only when the leaders change and rolemodel the expected behaviours that a clear signal for change is sent through all levels of the organisation.

Connect key stakeholders from the beginning:

This is the most effective way to break-up existing norms and implant a new culture in the organisation.

Transformation happens when it’s led from within:

Our job is to help organisations to make transformation happen. We act as catalysts and enablers. Then we step back so that the leaders have the necessary room to create and lead a sustainable transformation.

Result

In less than one year Siteco has sown the seeds to create a new culture and is today beginning to reap the rewards, which is already positively impacting their business results.

Their people are living the culture they designed. Their leaders are able to create the necessary frame so that unexpected projects needed for the continuing development of the business are brought into execution faster. And there is more ownership throughout the organisation to move things forward.

Through the systematic cascade and by enabling their leaders, they are in a position to focus the organisation on the necessary strategic imperatives and culture needed for the long-term transformation of their business.

They have created the conditions to continue to foster and defend the culture they want and need to assure their own light for the future.

Conclusion

If an organization wants to transform their culture to deliver a new strategy, then the leadership team must role-model the expected behaviour.

The only way to create this new culture and the necessary leadership is to identify senior leaders who feel responsible for developing the whole organisation beyond their own area or department.

When an organization wants to develop itself strategically then it must be in a position to release leadership resources to lead these efforts.

These leaders must understand their role in the process; to transmit the vision, strategy and culture into the organisation. At the same time they must also be able to translate this into focused planning and disciplined execution in their teams to achieve the necessary operational excellence to turn strategy into action.

Only by doing both are they in a position to make progress measurable and visible to the organisation, and to maintain their focus on the key success factors to ensure they are able to lead their organisation through the transformation.

Written by:
Andreas Geh,
Managing Partner

“I build structures to enable strategic freedom and creational power in others. This is not just a slogan. I call it my direction of greatness.

So give me a call and let’s explore how we can build structures together to boost your transformation.”

You can reach me on +49 175 4372859 or at a.geh@2leadership.eu

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Create empowerment. Create leaders.

Case-Study

Create empowerment.
Create leaders.

WIKA is a renowned specialist in the field of measurement technology.

In the context of digitalization, increasing internationalization and changing market needs, WIKA knew significant strategic developments needed to be made to assure an equally successful future for their 10,200 employees worldwide.

Their goal: to transform the EMEA & India Sales organisation from a product centric to a customer centric approach.

Overview

WIKA began their transformation process in spring 2020, in the middle of the Corona crisis. With the new EVP Andreas Keiger and his positive experience from previous projects with 2Leadership, we conceived a road map to tackle the transformation in 3 distinct phases.

Phase 1: To create alignment of the senior leadership team across the region behind the new direction and to prepare them to lead the transformation in their teams.

Phase 2: To engage the organization by cascading the process to the next level of leaders across the region. Key stakeholders from the other business areas outside of Sales were included at this point to ensure their alignment and buyin to the new customer centric approach.

Phase 3: To manage long-term efforts by enabling all leaders to drive and embed the transformation across their teams.

With this approach WIKA is enabling their leaders to manage the potential risk of uncertainty and unrest in their teams, to focus attention on the constant progress being made towards the new direction, and to minimize the negative impact on operational performance.

I was a bit skeptical at the beginning how 2Leadership can support and guide us ‘practically’ in this transformation process.

Following the workshops we had I can say it was a GREAT decision to have 2Leadership on board since it’s brought us to the next level as a team and has given us real practical tools to use to make this transformation successful.

— Tino Reppe – General Manager MENAT

Approach

Getting the senior team onboard
first:

Making sure that the senior leadership team were all onboard to work with us from the outset ensures the necessary energy and enthusiasm for the long journey ahead.

Integrating key stakeholders into the process:

Transformation doesn’t happen in a cocoon. By integrating key stakeholders from business areas beyond the immediate team they become part of the journey and supporters of the process.

Preparing the senior leaders for the ‘big bang’ kick-off:

We believe leaders must be able to lead their transformation themselves. So we work with them individually and as a team from day 1 to ensure that they know exactly what they need to do and more importantly how to go about it.

Building close connections with the whole senior team:

Only a close relationship with the sponsor is not enough. We build strong relationships with the entire leadership team and ensure that everyone feels supported during the transformation process.

Result

After only 9 short months of leading their transformation process, and despite the added complexity of doing so during a global pandemic, the Sales EMEA & India senior leadership team have made great progress.

They are fully aligned as one team, which has ensured that progress towards the new ways of working is visible and tangible across the whole region.

As a great team, they have engaged their key stakeholders from other business areas and so have secured the necessary support to ensure long-term success.

Their unified, structured and pragmatic approach has helped to convince the once critical voices. Through their determined and participative leadership approach they have not only won support for the transformation. They have also succeeded in becoming a role model within their organisation for how to lead and make transformation happen.

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Conclusion

Every organization must continuously evolve from its current state to a future state in order to remain relevant and successful in a world that is constantly changing. Commercial organizations who need to transform, cannot afford to put operations on hold. Leaders must simultaneously manage the external reality of operations and the internal reality of transformation.

Often such efforts are likened to the metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly, however, this does not truly reflect reality. Remaining fully operational does not allow for an organisation to build a cocoon or to disconnect from reality to focus on the inner transformation. Nor can it remain hidden during the process while it gets its ‘new form’ in place.

In reality it is much more akin to the metamorphosis from a tadpole to a frog, which must transform while growing, eating and being hunted.

This reality necessitates strong leaders, who create the conditions for the new ways of working to spread and grow within the organisation. Leaders who have the mindset, skillset and tools to lead the transformation process while managing daily operations and steady progress towards the future state.

Written by:
Rainer Müller,
Partner

“As an analytically-oriented engineer, I like to deploy a systematic approach to both strategic and operational activities.

So give me a call and let’s explore how we can turn your transformation ideas into a structured approach.”

You can reach me on +49 172 2359 764 or at r.mueller@2leadership.eu

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Focus on the outcome. Not the program.

Case-Study

Focus on the outcome.
Not the program.

Sattler & Partner, an internationally operating management consulting boutique, has been supporting family owned SME’s in all phases of M&A since 1983.

As experts in succession planning, they too understand the importance of preparing the path for Andreas Sattler, Founder and CEO, to take a less prominent role in the acquisition of new customers.

Their goal: strengthen the network and ability of the Senior Partners to acquire new customers so that Andreas could take a less active role in daily operations and focus more on his role as main shareholder.

Overview

“Sometimes problems don’t require a solution to solve them, instead they require maturity to outgrow them.” – Steve Maraboli

That’s exactly what we found when we began our work with Sattler & Partner. It very quickly became apparent that the Senior Partners didn’t need to learn more sales skills. What they needed was help to overcome their mental barriers to ‘selling’.

That’s why, after running a workshop focusing on how to structure sales conversations, they agreed to change the strategy and instead to invest in Executive Coaching.

As a first step this quickly showed tangible results, which opened the door to the second step in the succession plan, creating new perspectives for the future.

To do this we began the process of strategic navigation. This has allowed the Senior Partners to take an active role not only in the acquisition of new customers but also in actively creating the future direction of the business.

By doing so, Andreas has not only invested in developing the next generation of his business but also in creating the engagement and commitment of his people, who are the key to that future.

One is often not a good advisor on one’s own behalf, sometimes unable to assess the facts objectively. Quite different from what one does for third parties.

— Andreas Sattler – Founder and Owner Sattler & Partner

Approach

Focusing on the outcome:

Keeping our focus on the desired outcome rather than the solution allowed us to really get to the heart of the problem. The initial impulse workshop helped to shed light on what was really holding the team back.

Investing in the long-term:

That means taking one step at a time, which is what we’ve been doing with Sattler & Partner. Concretely that means we always agree on the best next step. That way we can constantly adapt what we’re doing to make sure we’re working on the right things to keep them moving forward.

Adapting the approach:

Our aim is always to create tangible impact for our customers. When we believe a different approach would be better to solve their problem, we say so. Though met with a litte scepticism to begin with, this soon proved to be more effective than the initial plan.

Taking the role of co-creators:

We want our customers to be able to lead their process themselves. That’s why we see our role as cocreators; on hand to support if things get stuck but never as the ‘leader’ of the process.

Result

Both Senior Partners, by working on their mindset and not just their skill set, have now taken on very active roles in developing new customer relationships.

This initial breakthrough has also led them to develop new and innovative ideas in terms of their marketing and business development activities.

Following up this step with the strategic navigation process has enabled Sattler & Partner to get clarity and focus for the future.

Having a clear picture and the concrete steps towards it defined and agreed, the succession plan is back on track and both Senior Partners are now in a position to lead the organisation forward.

Beyond autonomously leading the business, both are also forging ahead to lead their re-navigation processes with light support from us at key milestones.

Conclusion

All transformation efforts require the organisation’s leaders to generate the engagement of their people for the new direction.

If people engage and agree to something, it does not automatically guarantee that they will actively contribute.

Significant contribution to a new direction is only possible if both the hearts and hands of the people are fully engaged and committed.

People must understand the reason for the transformation in the context of the organisation. They must be able to personally connect with that reason. And they must be able to understand what they can contribute, for them to be able to agree and decide to actively do so.

When people decide to actively contribute, leaders then need to support them by helping to remove any barriers and obstacles in their path. Sometimes that requires new skills, sometimes that requires new tools, and sometimes that requires a new mindset to outgrow the things that are holding them back.

Written by:
Andreas Geh,
Managing Partner

“I build structures to enable strategic freedom and creational power in others. This is not just a slogan. I call it my direction of greatness. 

So give me a call and let’s explore how we can build structures together to boost your transformation.” 

You can reach me on +49 175 4372 859 or at a.geh@2leadership.eu

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Invest in your leaders. Invest in your future.

Case-Study

Invest in your leaders.
Invest in your future.

LEAG (Lausitz Energie AG) supplies electricity and heat to millions of households, industry and public spaces. Legislatory changes in Germany require that LEAG, a mining and power plant operator employing 7.400 people, reimagines their business and their technology to continue to deliver clean and reliable energy to their customers in the future. Their goal: transform their business to become a versatile company for energy, infrastructure and service that contributes equally to security of supply in Germany and to structural change in the region.

Overview

It’s perhaps unsurprising that shouting ‘all change’ at the top of the organisation and expecting it just to happen isn’t the most successful strategy for a transformation.

It affects everyone in the organisation and so each individual needs to be able to understand the implications of success or failure for themselves. They need to be able to agree that it makes sense for them and to engage and commit to taking an active role in contributing to the future.

That’s why LEAG decided to work with us to try something different to help them to achieve their goal. Together we conceived a development program to enable their senior managers to support and engage their people in the transformation process.

The result is a 12-week program which conveys the mindset, the skills and the tools to selectively rise above short-term daily operational needs. They learn the benefits of changing perspective to focus on the longer-term benefits of coaching those employees who are struggling with the change.

With this bifocal approach they not only meet the immediate operational needs but also the longer-term strategic vision of the organisation.

As a company we are undergoing the most significant transformation imaginable; from a very traditional core business to a completely new business model.

We know that the success of our transformation relies entirely on our people being able to understand the need for change and on them buying-in to it.

We have found exactly what we need to support our Managers in our Development Program with 2Leadership. It enables them to identify the barriers to change in their teams and to support them to take simple, small steps to overcome them by applying the pragmatic and practical tools and solutions proposed.

— Katja Müller, Head of Strategic HR Management & Executives

Approach

Validation was essential:

Running 3 pilot programs allowed us to test acceptance levels and remove road blocks for the target population.

Group size matters:

We decided to limit group size to a maximum of 6 participants. This ensures very intensive and personal learning experiences for each manager based on their individual needs.

Design needs to be adaptive:

We used the pilot feedback to redesign the program format. Delivering it as a blend of self-study videos, webinars and practise days has 2 major benefits. Firstly it helps managers to better integrate the training into their schedules. Secondly it makes putting theory into practise between sessions possible.

Making it stick is key:

Training is good. Transferring it into daily business is better. A 12-week knowledge transfer process with 1:1 follow-up has supported the managers to embed the new mindset, skills and tools into their leadership roles.

Result

Managers who attended the program consistently reported an improvement in their ability to deal with resistance to change on a 1:1 basis.

More significantly, the program helped the managers to realize that coaching is a leadership tool in their toolbox, and that taking a coaching approach does not mean removing their management hat.

Their feedback consistently showed an increased awareness of their true value as leader to the organisation. That their role is to develop their people for the future, and not just to ensure that operational tasks are done.

After 3 years of working with the senior managers, the program will now be cascaded further into the organisation to the population of future leaders. This will ensure they too are able to play their role in supporting their people through the many changes to come.

Conclusion

Every transformation encounters a natural resistance from people inside the organisation who feel concern for an uncertain future. Managers play a key role in coaching their people through this uncertainty and engaging their hearts and hands for the transformation.

Significant contribution to the transformation is only possible if both the hearts and hands of the people are fully engaged and committed.

People perceive the things that don’t work 10 times more strongly than the things that do, which can cause resistance to the transformation. Managers who know how to coach their people to understand this as a perception and not a reality will shift the focus to the progress being made, thereby helping people to move forward again.

Commercial organizations who need to transform, cannot afford to put operations on hold. Managers must simultaneously manage the external reality of operations and the internal reality of the transformation. By maintaing a bifocal perspective and coaching their people, managers are able to deal more effectively with the tension of simultaneously managing daily business and progress towards the future state.

Written by:
Kirsten Watson,
Managing Partner

“As a what if thinker I love combining my experience from industry and my expertise in leadership development to open up new paths to explore.

So give me a call and let’s explore the what if’s of your transformation and take it to the next level together.”

You can reach me on +41 78 723 28 54 or at k.watson@2leadership.eu

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