Business case
Human Capital Advisory – Executive Team Assessment
food & Beverage
SCENARIO
An Italian mid cap, operating in the Food & Bev space, backed by an international Private Equity specialized in Special Situations.
The company was bought to run a restructuring, that affected the governance in general, as well as each and every function and processes. The Company CEO was a Senior Partner of the PE Fund; once the burning emergencies were resolved, he decided to launch a Team Assessment, to instil new awareness in the Executive leaders, in the light of further steps.
CHALLENGE
The team was involved in the process yet showed some initial scepticism; the involvement of the CEO who challenged himself along with others created a fruitful dynamic that brought to a general openness to explore new, less known ideas and to actively participate to all sessions.
APPROACH
We designed the process to execute: 1) the individual assessments and 2) the team assessment.
The combination of these multiple observations, all consistently based on Hogan reports complemented by individual structured interviews, enabled a comprehensive overview of group dynamics, based on one side on individual assessments of team members, and on the other on four additional elements, i.e.:
▪ INFORMAL or natural ROLES that members tend to play within the team.
▪ SCORES, i.e. the balance and distribution of roles within the team.
▪ RISK FACTORS or derailers, i.e. potential dysfunctional behaviours or shared risks that may emerge in stressful situations and compromise collective performance.
▪ TEAM CULTURE, the shared values and motivations that guide the behaviour of members, influencing cohesion and alignment with the company strategy
RESULTS
The team evidenced a high percentage of members who hold the informal role “Results”, indicating a natural tendency towards competitiveness and ambition: the group appeared to be goal-oriented, tackled challenges with energy and worked with determination.
As an area for attention: a strong focus on results, definitely consistent with a restructuring scenario, lead on the other hand to neglecting internal team relationships and those with external stakeholders; moreover, it also generated a prevailing focus on the short-term vision.
All participants ended up recognising a value in the process much higher than originally expected and stated that it ultimately turned out to be the very first moment of team building.
