The background
A global luxury goods manufacturer and retailer, renowned for its high-end apparel, and hi-tech stores, with a strong focus on innovation, heritage, and international growth.
The challenge
The Finance team had been given a benchmarking report by their auditor which showed the gap between them and a ‘best-in-class’ Finance team. The depth of the report was overwhelming and presented them with a tough challenge to reach best-in-class status. The team had mobilised a change programme to deliver the change needed but progress had stalled.
I was asked to:
- Assess the current programme’s structure and it’s ‘fitness for purpose.’
- Evaluate the team’s readiness for change.
- Provide clear direction to inspire, motivate, and equip them to become a world-class function.
Our solution
Delivered a 3-Day Transformation Health check which included:
- Meeting the Finance and Change Programme teams for a series of 1-1 sessions
- Reviewing programme documentation and working practices
- Applying the Transformation Toolkit and principles of leading change to identify specific improvement to the change programme
- Delivering personal feedback sessions for everyone – helped them construct a simple improvement plan
- Running a group ways of working session to simplify reporting and governance
Key Outcomes of the Transformation Health Check:
- Refocussed the programme vision – what to stop, start, change
- Initiated a simple project definition and prioritisation approach
- Ensured each member of the team had a personal plan to improve their transformation skills (with the offer of ongoing mentoring support)
- Left the team energised and enthusiastic about the change programme
Feedback from the client:
- Paul blends good questions with the occasional really challenging one, which makes you think – he punctuates with a good amount of humour
- He makes you think about everything.
- His questioning was challenging, but this helped me to develop clearer and tangible goals and improvements
- I felt like he gave me all his skills – can’t recommend this enough
Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions and want to have a conversation.
