Strengthening Leadership at a Large Bank

Due to a rapidly changing market, the demands placed on the IT leadership team of a large bank had far surpassed the processes and practices it had in place to manage them. Increasingly, they were finding it difficult to make well-informed decisions in a timely manner. More was being expected of them at an enterprise level, yet they were continuing to operate primarily as functional leaders.

A leadership operating system
Through interviews and surveys, we discovered that information flows in the organization were infrequent and unpredictable making enterprise level IT leadership difficult. Decision-making was siloed within each function and optimized for functional needs, not those of the organization. Furthermore, the IT leaders had little experience with enterprise level leadership and didn't know exactly what a high-functioning enterprise leadership team looked like.

What we did:

• Conducted a discovery process that identified critical break points in communication and decision making among leadership
• Helped the IT leadership team design and use an operating model that clarified how information would flow between leadership bodies over time, providing a visual of intended decision-making up and down in the organization
• Facilitated strategy/leadership offsites over an 18-month period that focused on strengthening the team "in the line of fire" and improving their ability to lead at both an functional and enterprise level
• Supported the execution of several enterprise initiatives that required cross-functional collaboration
• Coached and developed senior team and individual leaders in one-on-one and group meetings

Expanded capacity & skill
Follow up interviews six and twelve months later showed that the changes significantly decreased the feeling of chaos, improved dialogue and accelerated decision-making in the division.