Case Study: Leadership and Strategy

CASE STUDY: LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A rapidly growing e-commerce and technology services company engaged Prana Business to provide a one-day management training course to its executives focusing on coaching and communication skills as a path to developing the companys culture. Prana Business used the LOS diagnostic as part of its initial assessment of the trainees. After seeing the LOS results regarding strategic execution, the CEO and Director of Human Resources requested a five-day custom leadership program oriented around the LOS.

CLIENT PROFILE
CDS (not real name) is a branded e-commerce and technology services company located in midtown Manhattan. A division of a Global 500 media firm Revenues exceed $20M annually Provides mobile, social, and branded e-commerce technology solutions to well-known international brands

BUSINESS SITUATION
CDS is an early development company with rapid revenue growth over the past several years. The Chief Executive Officer understands the need to scale his executive teams capabilities and actively steer the development of the corporate culture. His main focus is on cultivating the executives leadership skills to ensure the organization has the capacity to manage a robust annual growth rate. This is the missing piece to his puzzle.

PRANA BUSINESS LLC

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CASE STUDY: LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY

THE REQUEST
Prana Business was contacted by the Director of Human Resources at CDS, who sought a on-day training program. The initial discussion centered on her desire, and directive by the CEO, to provide management training to his somewhat inexperienced executive team. The HR Director was in the process of developing and launching a company-wide performance review system. Her goal was to begin shaping the corporate culture and provide the executives and managers with a tool that would help them cascade their team goals to the overall growth goal of the organization. She wanted training that would help the executives shore up their coaching, goal-setting, and communication skill-sets. During the first conversation we talked about a number of possible coaching tools and approaches that could help the executives. Although the executive team at CDS was a highly capable and individually successful group, much of their experience was related to technical aspects of the business and less on their ability to lead large groups. Essentially, they were a strong group of supervisors that found themselves in senior leadership roles very quickly because of the rapid growth of their products and services. After seeing the initial LOS results, CDS requested a five-day customized leadership program oriented around the LOS.

THE SOLUTION
We proposed a tailored solution to CDS that would fulfill their needs. The proposal highlighted the important first step of improving the line-of-sight into the current capabilities of the organization. We wanted to avoid designing a program that was disconnected from reality. Instead our goal was to design and develop a leadership initiative that would target the specific capabilities required to differentiate CDS from the competition.

PRANA BUSINESS LLC

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CASE STUDY: LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY

We proposed the use of our proprietary Line-of-Sight enterprise indicator: a simple, cost-effective, and non-intrusive business tool that gauges a companys ability to execute strategy. The CEO and the Director of HR agreed with our approach and we quickly launched the indicator, which started by using the Prana Business reporting engine to gather employee input, organize the data, and create an intuitive business brief. The Line-of-Sight indicator pinpointed areas within CDS where the executive team needed to focus their leadership development efforts. The results of the indicator were presented to the CEO and his executive staff during a one-day team-building workshop. During this session the team agreed on the most important items and we concluded the day by deciding to create a leadership program that would bolster the following areas: 1. 2. 3. 4. The executive teams ability to lead the company through change. The communication of the company vision and strategy to all employees. The use of strategy as the centerpiece of the performance review system. The executive teams decision-making and prioritization skills.

Using this information as a guideline, we circled around and began the instructional design of a 5-day leadership program, which included focusing on skills such as strategy mapping, effective communication, building collaboration, SMART goal-setting, a 12-step coaching process, and a full day on leading teams through change and transition. The entire program was built on a solid foundation with the strategy at the epicenter.

PRANA BUSINESS LLC

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CASE STUDY: LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY CDS Strategy Map 50% CAGR through 2015

Financial

Client

Tailored eCommerce, Logistics, and Digital Services

Internal Activities

Customize Hybris Mobile Acceleration

Expand partnership w/dedicated acct mgmt

Deepen global consulting solutions

Capabilities

Stimulate and cultivate leadership and culture with a mindset of solving specific client problems

THE RECAP This case study illustrates how Prana Business positioned the Line-of-Sight enterprise indicator within a broad leadership development initiative. The client contacted us for a custom program focused on helping their managers improve their performance review skills. We inserted the indicator as a needs analysis tool to help us tailor the program and ultimately link the initiative to the companys strategy and competitive advantage.

PRANA BUSINESS LLC

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CASE STUDY: LEADERSHIP AND STRATEGY

Like many management training requests, we were initially contacted by the HR department. However, because of the emphasis on alignment and strategy execution as well as the telling influence of the Line-of-Sight tool, we quickly caught the attention of the CEO. At that point the program, which initially began as a one-day session, turned into a deeper five-day initiative spread across a three-month timeframe with in-depth coaching support and guidance from Prana Business. Because of the Line-of-Sight indicator, we were able to connect the training program to the companys value proposition and hone in on the leadership skills that supporte d the uniqueness of the firm. Both the CEO and the Director of HR were fired up about the results and confident about the programs ability to shape the corporate culture, impact the credibility of the executive team, and ultimately strengthen the companys promise to shareholders. Not only were we happy with a job well done but it was an economic win for Prana Business and a hands-on reminder of the power of the Line-of-Sight.

PRANA BUSINESS LLC

WWW.PRANABUSINESS.COM

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