The client
Alten
Industry:
Automotive
Background:
Founded in 1988 in France, ALTEN group, world leader in Engineering and Technical Consultancy is active today in more than 20 countries, with over 1,54 billions euros fiscal value and over 20.000 specialists.
ALTEN Romania was founded in 2006 in Bucharest and offers consultancy in software development, business analysis, business intelligence, project management, testing, technical support, auto &aero engineering, hardware design and engine calibration.In Iasi Alten is represented by ATEXIS and most recently by Alten Delivery Center Iasi. Both companies are solutions created by the Alten group in order to respond to their client’s needs.
The Context:
On a larger context view, we found an organization in transition, in a period of fast management changes in terms of: structure, policy and procedures, business objectives, KPI’s & evaluation system, key people, and so on.
On a management level, we met a very mature and ambitious operational manager, with high standards and powerful vision, very experienced in guiding teams through success.
The executive team had been around for little time in that formula, so they were still in the start-up phase, not very homogeneous, but working hard to move to steady-state team.We met some very good technical specialists, quite new in management position and we immediately identified some leadership potential indicators.
The Challenge:
The transition, both restructuring and expansion, came with several challenges:
- Lost of strategic focus in the process, in many situations seems that every team member had become focused on just doing what they believe they need to do, in a very short-time perspective.
- Uncertainty about roles, who was accountable for what, “how do we organize for both efficiency and effectiveness”, how can the team serve a common purpose not only some individual objectives.
- Unclear decision-making process, how decisions needed to be made, who was responsible for making those decisions, whether it was a team decision or was a decision who just needed to be implemented.
Our approach:
We setup a learning environment to align all 3 layers to work collectively as a team:
- Top management
- Executive team
- Back-up leaders – High potentials key people
We worked to put together all the potential and energy, so gradually, the organization will successfully shift through a coaching culture, which implies:
- increase initiative and ownership
- implement bottom-up delegation process
- facilitate solution-oriented approach
- business-results driven
So, the coaching process was developed on 4 steps:
Individual Executive Coaching session
We accompany the Operational Manager in 1:1 executive coaching, a preparation work to focusing on priorities, identifying the challenges and expected results.
Executive Team Coaching
Based on Delegated Process coaching tool, the 20 managers worked intenselyon common operational issues in the framework of coached management meetings.
This business-centered approachhelped managersfocused on developing performing cross-team strategies to better achieve collective goals.
The other dimension of the work was on interfaces between team members, a systemic approach to reveal the quality of the relationships.
Individual & Team Diagnosis, a practical and interactive coaching workshop
The management team worked around an individual and team diagnosis tool, and gained a clear understanding of their own profile(personal potential and challenges) andof the team as performance achievers. We worked also on the organizational dimension, what are the competencies they need to develop so the team took the central place of the company evolution.
Individual Executive Coaching session
Again, we accompany the Operational Manager, this time to find solutions for guiding the team to continue moving in the right direction and achieve better results.This follow up executive coaching was focused on reinforce team improved behaviorsand what is important to do differently in the future.
The Results:
The results from the coaching program delivered over 4 months included:
- Clear structure about management & operational meetings
- 40% more specific decisions in the same time frame
- More commitment on action and implementing the solutions
- An easy flow delegation process
- Collaboration and circularity in the management team
- Raised competencies in leadership skills: deep listening, delegation, decision driving, people development, time management
- More trust and the ability to be open with each other about what was working and what was not, working effectively together.
References:
“For me the collaboration that I started with Felicia and Mihai was my first experience with a Romanian entity specialized on coaching. I was pleased to see that a model that have been developed and tested across the world was able to respond to our needs. Since I started this program my team understood why is important to have an order on their daily routine. We are using with success the tool that Felicia helped us to implement and me, as manager, I have a better vision on what is going on my organization. It is not easy to face a change and to work on implementing a change management process by yourself, especially when your organization is very young. I consider that this program gave us the opportunity to know each other’s and to understand that sometimes is better to go on step back and take a look on what you have accomplished. If you want to challenge your team I think that Humans Academy it’s a good solution for you.”
Delia Orhei
Operational Manager
Alten
“Being part of the team coachingproject was, for me, an exercise in identifying the strong points and the weak ones in my professional attitude. I was made aware of weaknesses that need improvement and strong points that can be further developed, skills long forgotten that could be successfully employed and even identifying subconscious stumbling blocks that needed to be cleared. In essence, to grow in a company and to have a positive impact on the overall process, one must know one self, be firm in his decision and make a conscious commitment.
That is what the coaching sessions did for me- helped me decide if I wish to commit, if I have the skills of if I must acquire some and how to use my skills to achieve the desired target.
Once the decision made, it became easy to focus, to become part of the team and to do my job as assigned by my team members. It was an interesting experience with the added benefit of an operational tool for managing my team.”
Ana Croiala
Senior Referent
Alten