CASE STUDY
$35 million in new business generated through leadership alignment
The North American arm of a global services company formed by multiple acquisitions still operated like a collection of individual businesses. By aligning its leaders, Brimstone helped the firm win new business, reduce costs, and increase employee satisfaction.
A real estate and financial services company had grown largely via acquisitions to become a global enterprise with over $1B in annual revenues. Despite its strong brand and leadership position in the marketplace, the firm struggled to align its resources to drive organic growth. Different organizations operated almost wholly independently, and senior executives were pursuing different agendas for the company.
Working closely with the COO for the North America business, Brimstone took the organization’s top leaders through a Senior Team Alignment Process that helped unify the group around a single strategic view of the business and its future. The team worked collaboratively to create a Strategic Business Framework that highlighted the key objectives and measures for the organization.
The process also identified the most important opportunities to pursue—and the critical issues that would stand in the way of progress.
The Senior Team then launched project teams to study the six most pressing issues and opportunities, selecting 48 high-performing, high-potential leaders to participate in a Performance Leadership (PL) initiative. Working for 100 days on cross-functional teams, the leaders developed solutions for their assigned projects and received feedback and coaching on their leadership behaviors.
At the end of the program, each team presented final recommendations and clear implementation plans to the Senior Team, which made real-time yes/no decisions on each recommendation.
Results
The ideas that came out of the PL initiative produced immediate results.
- One team’s recommendations helped the company close over $35M in new business. Another team’s plan saved the company almost $1M annually in working capital costs.
- A team focused on employee engagement made recommendations that resulted in the company earning a spot in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.
Through the process, all project team members enhanced their skills and deepened their engagement, while developing long-lasting internal networks for sharing ideas and generating new business across the organization.