In a world of increasing uncertainty and complexity, where there is ever-increasing pressure to deliver great results for investors, we provide value by supporting teams in achieving extraordinary results. Fast.
Well-crafted strategies often fall short of the hoped-for outcomes due to difficulties in the execution phase. With failure rates estimated between 50% to 70% - it translates into an enormous loss of value. Team Excelerator’s sole focus and expertise is in helping organisations address this execution gap.
The recurring causes of execution failure are well documented but not widely understood or proactively resolved within organisations. And it’s rare to find all of the knowledge and skills needed to anticipate and deal with the failure modes in-house.
Team Excelerator’s integrated approach gives your business the support and insight it needs to achieve its strategic intent quickly and efficiently.
By generating a sense of common purpose, cultivating high levels of energy and proactively reducing organisational friction - we increase the probability of your success significantly - and get results fast.
Based on validated research (and lessons from our own historical successes and failures) we’ve developed a unique approach to overcome the most frequent challenges encountered in implementing strategy - a map for unchartered waters, so you can navigate the hidden hazards.
Our approach addresses three key aspects simultaneously, dramatically improving your chances of success.
As human beings we find meaning through stories. So we’ll work with you to create a powerful narrative about your strategy so that every employee can find meaning in its delivery, understand the destination and challenges, become emotionally engaged, and be a true advocate.
Why?In a 21st century workplace, the success of leaders is entirely dependent on the contributions of their followers. Leaders can change people’s mental representations – giving them a sense of hope and direction. Creating and embodying powerful narratives is fundamental in achieving this.
Studies have found that even when employees are consistently briefed on strategic priorities, they often can’t recall them when asked. They may not understand the part they have to play, or see their role as meaningful, which directly impacts the energy they put in and in turn, your success.
So time invested at this stage is vital in creating genuine ‘go through walls’ commitment across your business – and a cornerstone of your strategy execution.
We’ll help identify and shape the individual projects, that together, will achieve your objectives and build the mechanisms you’ll need to stay on track. These projects are the essential story lines in the chapters that deliver your envisioned future. Often details emerge at this stage that will inform the strategy execution and test the strategic intent.
Why?There are many common, yet avoidable risks in this area. They include a lack of alignment across the business, too many splintered activities, unrealistic targets, under-resourcing, no progress reviews, and results that don’t translate to the bottom line. This stage of the process must be data-driven as it is pivotal in translating desire into real actions and creating the basis of a learning organisation.
Strategy execution is defined by how resource is allocated and requires an incredible amount of discipline. Choosing the right high-impact projects, ensuring they are validated, properly resourced and followed through is crucial. Successful projects, milestones and expected results generated, is key for ongoing motivation in the organisation.
From the very beginning of our engagement we’ll strive to identify issues that hinder team progress so that they can be resolved constructively. By focussing on team dynamics, we can quickly pinpoint and eliminate these limiting factors, while nurturing highly productive and trusting intra-team relationships.
Why?Having the right technical mix of skills in a team is critical, but it’s not a guarantee for success. The leadership capability and drive of individuals in the team and the quality of interaction between them is also vital. Creating an environment where trust in colleagues is high, and team members feel safe sharing issues and concerns, will encourage real commitment, decisive action and positive course-correction when circumstances change. Failure to create and nurture this type of environment will impede progress, results and ultimately success. What’s more, it can make the workplace a pretty miserable place to be.
Renowned leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith was once asked “Does anyone who attends these leadership events, ever really change?”
Apart from stopping Marshall in his tracks that day, it prompted a follow-up study with 86,000 professionals responding, and a database that has now grown to over 250,000. And the conclusion?
“Very few people achieve positive and lasting change without ongoing follow up”.
This is a compelling reason for having an ongoing relationship with Team Excelerator, but far from the only one. We will work with you to embed change, ensure new execution disciplines are adhered to, and that inevitable deviations from the plan are promptly recognised and dealt with.
In short, we’ll keep your plans on track and get you to where you need to be. Fast.
Trust is the key foundation on which we build relationships with clients – and we aim to establish trust quickly.
In the foundation phase, our focus is to quickly understand your organisation and its key individuals. We’ll gain insight through immersion in your organisation, observation and dialogue. This allows us to establish a strong working relationship based on a shared understanding of the workings of your organisational system. From this we build you the detail of the activities to be undertaken in the Building Phase.
This is where the initial heavy lifting happens. By working closely through the activities defined in the foundation phase, together we construct the narrative around your future vision, the plans needed to achieve it, the infrastructure, and the team environment essential for success. This phase is demanding, as it requires considerable commitment from all business stakeholders. But we’re by your side at every step, tailoring our approach to the specific characteristics of your organisation to make your journey as efficient as possible.
In this phase we support your organisation to embed practices and behaviours, expanding them across your business to encourage individuals to embrace your vision and grow their capacity. We don’t believe that change can be implemented successfully through occasional engagement and workshops. Constant and consistent reinforcement is required to gain momentum and belief.
This phase overlaps the Stretch Phase to hold a mirror up to your organisation to ensure any changes in the external environment or to internal progress are identified and any necessary action is carried out promptly
How long each phase lasts, will depend on the complexity of your organisation, the scale of transformation required, and the capacity of your business to engage actively in the transformation disciplines, particularly in the Building Phase.
With a rich mix of multi-cultural and cross-industry experience that’s seen relationships develop from the UK to Holland, France and Japan, John Griffiths has held key roles within Nissan, Rolls-Royce, Pattonair and Aston Martin. He is also a Masters graduate of Insead where he studied Coaching and Consulting for Change.
John’s passion and focus has always been achieving results by providing clear structure and direction, while creating an environment which allows every team member to contribute to the limit of their capabilities.
Today that same drive, focus and passion is shared by Team Excelerator and captured in a simple phrase that drives us every day;
Your future is our focus.
Victoria Ward’s 15 years of leading product R&D in finance, and as a chief operating officer, and chief knowledge officer, in an investment bank division equipped her to build a radical multi-disciplinary change network in the late 1990’s. Since then she has explored the forward edges of what is possible in co-created strategy & cultural transformation in teams, varied programmes of work and whole organisations. Settings range from primary schools to business schools, investment banks to development banks and agencies, global pharmaceutical and manufacturing groups to regulators, cultural institutions to small and large not for profit entities.
Her focus is always the same: how to take strategy out of the stratosphere and into the everyday, and make relevant to, and doable by, everyone - that NASA story of the sweeper who, when asked what they were doing, said ‘I’m putting a man on the moon.’
She holds a degree in languages from Cambridge University, a Post Graduate Diploma in Working Groups from the Tavistock Institute, is an accredited ICF coach, and is currently studying for a Diploma in Sociocracy.
Photo by Andreea Tufescu Photography
Chris helps people and teams discover new possibilities as communicators. Over the last 15 years, he has designed leadership-, communication- and team development programmes for organisations including Airbus, Coca-Cola, FC Bayern Munich, Bayer Schering Pharma, King, Tata Consulting Services and the United Nations.
Chris’s background is in theatre: he has directed award-winning theatre productions and led the Improvisation curriculum at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London since 2005. A dual British-German citizen and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Chris is also the Founder of Spacecraft Ltd (www.spacecraft.london). He is currently enjoying his doctoral research exploring the intersection between art, business and communication.
