Client: Security Technologies Firm

The context

A new CEO was appointed to lead a $2 billion spin-off of a 100-year-old organization. Although this new CEO was extremely qualified for the job (having previously held three CEO positions), the CHRO approached ZRG to facilitate a new leader and team acceleration program immediately. Despite the experience level of the CEO, the organization felt it was vital to accelerate and integrate the new leader by uncovering both the personal and professional concerns of the team and removing any anxieties to ensure a smooth transition.

Our approach

When a new leader is tasked with leading a new team, understanding the team’s issues and concerns is one of the biggest challenges. ZRG was able to speed up the learning process for the leader and team by implementing the below process which aided both new leader and team:

• The facilitator met with the CEO to prepare an appropriate communication to share with the team and generate engagement. At this point, the leader selected key questions to determine the outputs of the team sessions
• ZRG then facilitated two team sessions. The first, introduced but not fully attended by the leader, was an opportunity for the team to provide responses to the leader’s questions in an open and confidential environment
• To ensure clear understanding of the team’s output, the facilitator analyzed the team’s comments and fed these back to the leader in a one-to-one session
• The leader then joined the team for the second session to discuss the outputs. This was guided by the facilitator, who encouraged expectations and issues to be shared in an open, frank, and constructive way

The results

ZRG sped up the process by which the leader learned about the issues and concerns of the team, and provided a forum for the team to get to know the leader’s management style and ambitions for the future. We quickly identified the issues that needed to be addressed, and encouraged an open dialogue to facilitate the new leader and team acceleration. This allowed the relationship building process to begin by initiating an interchange between the team and the new leader.

Our expertise

Onboarding, New Leader and Team Acceleration, Change Management

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