Facilitation
Background
Barney and Barney is a 100 year old company, it is one of California's largest insurance brokerage and consulting firms and is among the top 40 privately held firms nationwide. It is managed by its principals who are committed to maintaining steady, organic growth of 18-20% since 2000.
Their passion for growth was evident as they drive to continue to outperform themselves and the market. People are Barney and Barney's competitive advantage, and leadership is the way they energize their great people.
The executive team envisioned accelerating top performers and practice group leaders from good to great.
Identified Need
Insights4Results and Barney and Barney partnered to engage a facilitation in three acts:
- Act 1: Guide the CXO executives to define, articulate, and calculate the ROI for an intensive Good to Great leadership initiative.
- Act 2: Facilitate an executive team retreat to map out and quantify the Barney and Barney Model of Extraordinary Leader - the kind of decision making and judgment required for current and future leaders.
- Act 3: Facilitate an all owner retreat for their three dozen leaders - a facilitation focused on awareness, tools, and decision making for the leaders.
Our unbending commitment to understanding and incorporation Barney and Barney culture into all our work was a powerful success factor. By treating their culture as the shaping force of our interactions we were ensuring that the outcomes would be integrated into action without resistence.
Solution
- Act 1: Dialogue Model facilitation - guiding the CXO team through a process of investigation, analysis, exploration, organization, and reflection. As a result we successfully articulated the ROI for an initiative to develop leaders from good to great.
- Act 2: Success Factors Facilitation - the executive team examined 108 success factors for leadership decision making and judgment. We narrowed the factors through the filters of strategy, market conditions, and a commitment to nurturing and sustaining the Barney and Barney culture. The efforts resulted in a custom assessment screen that allows all leaders to evaluate themselves.
- Act 3: Retreat Facilitation - over the course of a full day three dozen leaders reflected on their definitions of leadership, digested the Barney and Barney Leadership Model, and studied their assessment results. Each of the leaders left the experience with increased awareness about their strengths and areas of interference and an action plan for their leadership journey from good to great.
Impact
The executive team crafted a clear and well defined vision for leaders. They compiled a customized map for how to identify, develop, and improve their perpetuation and succession process.
The facilitation process accelerated a highly efficient and effective executive team. By increasing their awareness and understanding of their unique decision making patterns and strengths they gained immediate improvement in their collective executive team decision process.
Leaders created targeted developmental plans - not mere best practice formulas from "experts." These leaders who received the time, attention, and concentrated insights increased in their commitment, loyalty, engagement, and performance.
One of the greatest impacts was the dramatically increased clarity about succession; quantifying decision making and judgment paved the road to assigning leaders unique strengths to specific functions and tasks.