Enabling a new Executive Team to form and perform
CLIENT
Meli
SECTOR
Human Services
DATE
July 2023 – Feb 2024
Challenge
Meli is a new $85M organisation formed by the merger of two very long-standing Geelong based community service organisations operating across southwestern Victora. Meli provides a wide range of community services in the areas of child and family, out of home care, disability, youth, housing, counselling and family violence. Meli also operates 30 kindergartens via its subsidiary – Meli Kindergarten Services.
A fresh Executive drawing from both prior organisations sought support to come together as a team: identity, common goals, values-driven behaviours and productive conflict.
Response
Phase 1: methodology alternated 1:1 meetings with group workshops. The 1:1 meetings with each executive gave insights for the workshop, offered direct mentoring support to the individuals, and later formed a ‘debrief and apply my learning’ on the workshop outcomes.
Workshop 1: Values and behaviours, norms and accountabilities
Workshop 2: Team dynamics, productive conflict, decision-making and solo vs team accountabilities
Phase 2: 4x workshops with all ‘Senior Leaders’ to gather information on their experience of the Executive Team’s leadership, then an Executive awayday to discuss and develop concrete actions to address Leaders’ thoughts. This awayday was preceded and followed by 1:1s for each Executive
Results
Conveying theory and practical applications of management thinking such as Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions and the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument offered a common framing and language for Executive behaviours.
Executive Team gained a greater understanding of team dynamics as applied to their specific situation
There have been multiple instances of personal leadership development and performance improvement over the period
Open, safe conversations around personal alignment to the organisation and team
Facilitated the prioritisation of projects, in response to the feedback raised by the Senior Leadership, by deprioritising around 30% of project work, aligning better resources, strategy and dependencies.
The insights I obtained allowed for private advice to Director People and Culture and the CEO on matters such as:
How to better support individuals to perform and thrive within the desired culture
Considerations of project delivery frameworks and program management within the context of transformation and strategic refreshment
