Bioss UK – A Bioss Affiliate Company – United Kingdom

Case Study

Releasing Latent Potential to Boost Innovation and Growth

The Client

A global Polymer Company employing approximately 14,000 people worldwide with sales of over €12 billion and a history of over 150 years. It recognised that the changing external environment required major changes to the way it operated.

The Challenge

The company had reached a stage in its life span when it needed to make significant changes to the way it operated. Important was the enhancement of their ability to seize opportunities developing in different parts of the world. Increased investment particularly across Asia was needed combined with a greater emphasis on innovation. This all required cultural change around the way in which people were led, the way they worked and the discretion they had to take decisions. It was also important to recognise and honour the long history. The Group appointed a new CEO who brought a new clarity around its strategic direction.

The Work

  • Build relationships and establish credibility and also introduce Bioss frameworks and models to the senior leadership team to illustrate their benefits.
  • Support the Senior Leadership team across their change initiatives 
  • Establish a capability map for the Executive that highlighted the organisation’s current and future potential 
  • Provide a development plan for the top 150 people taking into consideration the changes required in working patterns and culture. This involved working with line managers to support their development of their teams.
  • Provide coaching when requested; responding to individual needs as they arose
  • Provide ongoing feedback to the CEO and the Executive Team
  • Introducing the concept of Junior Boards as a way of developing the next generation of leaders
  • Support other initiatives that were taking place, for example: 
    • the reorganisation of the HSEQ function to determine what work should be held corporately and what needed to be held within the operations
    • designing the structure for a new business in a new growth market 
    • working with the new global industrial marketing team to help them identify changing work patterns and supporting the new role descriptions
    • team development sessions based on the aggregated development information around specific teams. 

Process 

Bioss UK’s work was underpinned by a range of Bioss tools and frameworks, including Career Path Appreciation, Linked Personal Appreciation, Domains of Work and Appreciative Conversations. Leaders were supported by discussions, workshops, regular meetings, conversations and feedback. It was also underpinned by a very supportive CEO who believed Bioss “helped his leaders to do their jobs better”.

Benefits to the Client

  • The Executive team regularly received in-depth objective information about the potential within the organisation and the culture including global comparisons.
  • Provided an objective language for conversations about people their development and succession
  • Identifying the considerable cost of under-utilisation of people in leadership roles.
  • Changing the nature of the conversations some senior executives had with their customers leading to new contracts and to invitations to become members of representative bodies of global institutions for example the United Nations.
  • Identifying under-utilised capability led to some very different succession appointments being made which led to new opportunities for innovative change.
  • Providing a short-list for CEO succession ten years prior to requirement leading to a well-structured programme of development to provide relevant experience.

For more information, please contact Peter Taylor.