Green Managers In A Patchwork Culture

Through a strategy of numerous acquisitions, a successful financial services company has experienced rapid growth of market share.
The result was a “patchwork quilt culture” with little or no cohesiveness between major divisions, diverse levels of performance among divisions, and massive confusion about who was doing what.

The leadership lacked depth of management experience. Many managers were very young – in their 20’s and 30’s – having been promoted based on technical expertise with little or no training in leadership and management skills. Employee surveys clearly identified a need was for improved communication and leadership. The company was experiencing excessive EEOC related lawsuits, morale problems, turnover increases, and lost business opportunity due to employee productivity problems.

Improve communication skills – top-down and across – as a critical component of leadership, especially related to building interdependence and relationships between divisions, creating a more cohesive and integrated culture.

Initially, Corporate Culture Pros was hired by the CEO and COO to coach them for the presentation of their corporate-wide video broadcast appearances. The purpose of these broadcasts was to create buy-in for the company vision, strategy and direction. Corporate Culture Pros’ one-on-one coaching focused on improvement in two major areas:

• Build an interactive, more personal connection with the audience, rather than “talking heads”
• Create an aligned set of messages about the future and company direction, rather than just “putting out the numbers.”

Following the presentation coaching, Corporate Culture Pros also designed a customized module on communication for the company’s Leadership Development program, targeted to 3000 directors, managers, and supervisors world-wide. Corporate Culture Pros consultants have delivered the training, and are currently working with the organization to transfer the skill internally. The focus of the one-day program was on actionable “drills” that participants could take forward and apply to their day-to-day management situations. The training module effectively taught the precise skills needed by managers to improve their communication in practical, interesting, and easily learned exercises.

The following comments collected from the organization’s leadership indicate successful in-process measures for the way meetings and team work sessions are conducted:

• The video broadcast gained substantial company popularity, and built an important bridge between top leadership and 30,000+ employees across the entire world, a key element of becoming a more unified company culture.
• Feedback from trainees consistently demonstrates the Corporate Culture Pros Communication program is the best in
  the 14 class series.