walk with Wickland Westcott
Talent
Team and Board Development
There are occasions where external, impartial and skilled facilitation helps a team come to grips with challenging issues. Team leaders often feel preoccupied with managing the process of a meeting rather than feeling they can fully contribute to the discussion themselves. A trained facilitator can firmly yet sensitively ensure the agenda is realised, injecting pace, managing conflict and ensuring tangible outputs. Senior teams use external facilitation when tackling subjects such as strategy, cultural change, succession planning or other distinct organisational issues.
Wickland Westcott has researched the development of high performance in teams and understands the components, climate and leadership required to achieve excellence. We have developed diagnostic tools to identify where a team is in its development cycle, and can compare this data with other high performance teams to identify particular areas for improvement. We also provide thorough and objective board performance reviews, producing a developmental action plan for the board. With our background in occupational psychology, there is always a sound academic foundation to our interventions, and the flavour is very much practical, concrete and action-oriented.
Case Studies
Board Evaluation
When looking to do their first external board evaluation, Diageo wanted a partner that would combine a light touch with an understanding of behavioural dynamics at senior level. They retained Wickland Westcott because of our credibility, sensitivity and commercial experience. The evaluation process involved face-to-face meetings with board members, and questionnaires to key stakeholders underpinned by desk-based research exploring board papers and other relevant documentation. The results - which covered important areas such as board intent, behaviour, values and unity - were presented initially to the Chairman, and then to the board
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Reviewing Board Effectiveness
Whilst public companies, in line with the Combined Code recommendations, are expected to evaluate the effectiveness of their Board, other firms are increasingly alive to the benefits offered by an independent, external analysis of the leadership team. The more progressive professional service firms (eg. financial services, PE houses, hedge funds, law firms) in particular are embracing such initiatives. Why? These firms typically operate a Partnership structure, where the leadership team governs a population of bright, opinionated characters who are also co-owners of the enterprise.
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Hanson - Helping Boards Deliver High Performance
Hanson, one of the world's largest suppliers of aggregates and heavy building materials and a FTSE 100 plc, retained Wickland Westcott to help carry out a robust, rigorous, objective review of the performance of its Board. The approach adopted focused not just on the structure and processes of the Board but also on the behavioural and team dynamics that are critical for high performance. The evaluation process started with a tailored questionnaire taking into account work undertaken by the Board in previous years.
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