Creating a culture of Enterprise Leadership

“What FiveAndCo. did went far beyond coaching. They got alongside us, created that sense of trust across the team, and have really got our people to see themselves as leaders in their own right.”

How it started

FiveAndCo. were first introduced to our client by one of her colleagues who had seen us in action and experienced personal and team transformation. We met with her to hear about her team, their context, and the specific challenges and opportunities they encounter.

The team is part of one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Their highly specialised work in the field of neuroscience means they are responsible for combating the most devastating of diseases.

Our client’s team – Strategic Planning and Operations – are a group of incredibly skilled individuals, but when we first started working together, they didn’t yet see themselves as a team or as the leaders they had the potential to be.

Like many teams, they were also a diverse mix of personalities. And there were practical challenges too. The team had taken on new hires during a disruptive time: the COVID19 pandemic. This meant they hadn’t yet had a chance to meet together to deepen their relationships and build a healthy team culture.

Our first engagement with our client and her team, in the Summer of 2020, was virtual and our aim was a simple one: to help the team connect and communicate more effectively with each other. By understanding themselves better and understanding how to get the best from each other, they could build greater levels of trust, ultimately becoming a truly thriving team.

The Journey

From that initial meeting, it became clear that the team needed to regroup, refining their sense of team purpose. The Strategic Planning and Operations team spend their time facilitating complex collaborations between departments, as well as heading up important R&D work with huge research budgets to allocate. They’re the go-to people to make things happen, which can be challenging as it’s easy to become ‘all things to all people’, being pulled in multiple ways in the process.

We designed a nine month team journey, employing a variety of engagement methods. It had to be lightweight enough to allow the team to get on with their crucial BAU, but it also had to be substantial enough to create traction. Therefore, the focus of the journey was two-fold:

First, to apply a renewed clarity of purpose to their team habits. We wanted to see their meetings drive towards their goals.

Secondly, we wanted to see the team reflect their self-awareness in their relationships with stakeholders, and grow their influence across the wider business.

We knew achieving these goals would take time, focus, and the right conversations. We met with the team online for half-day workshops, short team check-ins and 1:1 coaching sessions. We then followed up with a series of 90 minute sessions for the team, and short, impactful, 30 minute check-ins with their leader.

The results were transformative. Members of the team reported a sense of realisation about what they had to contribute. They felt ownership over their work which was collaborative and shared rather than based on individual wins.

Having never taken a step backward to assess their leadership before, they were astounded by their own capacity for positive change. Our client noted how we got “beside” her team and listened deeply, forging trust along the way. There is no doubt that the team is now empowered to thrive, and will continue to do so.

The Future

Our working relationship with this company as a whole is now poised to go further. We’re looking forward to a strong period of work with the team to create the capacity to move quickly, learn from each other and adapt well. We’re creating a learning culture which not only enables the team to tell their story, but to imagine where it goes next.