A new managing director wanted to accelerate the effective operation of Diesel's leadership team.
Diesel is well known for being one of the innovators in fashion retail. A (surprising) 30 years old in 2008, it was first to launch distressed denim. The company has around 3,500 employees in 17 subsidiaries across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Its products are available in 5000 retail outlets, of which 300 are Diesel-branded stores. 200 of these are owned by the company and the rest are franchised. Annual sales were approximately €1.2 billion in 2005 and largely consisted of denim sales, but also extremely successful and influential ranges of accessories and children's wear. The international nature of operations means that senior people are often transferred overseas and this has an inevitable impact on local team effectiveness.
In the UK, a new highly capable leadership team under a new Managing Director, had been brought on board during 2007 and 2008. Given the high octane environment of fashion retail, the team had little time to get to know each other. Management development in this sector has traditionally been limited. The MD and HR Director were determined that Diesel should take the lead in this, and asked Reconsulting to advise on how best to accelerate the effective operation of the leadership team.
To understand how they interact, we observed the team over 3 days while they were finalizing strategy for the upcoming year. We made quantitative & qualitative assessments of individual communication and influencing styles and behaviour.
There are two elements to a highly effective team. How they operate and interact together is one. The skill, will and motivation of the individuals form the other.
We took time to understand what each member of the leadership team wanted to achieve, and their current skillsets. We began a confidential personal coaching process with each member of the team, helping them self-assess their awareness and skills. Also drawing out their ambitions for the company and for themselves. One part of this involved deployment of bespoke and proprietary developmental tools, the other a personal inspiration and visioning approach.
We then fed back our observations privately to each individual, and continued the coaching process based on real business challenges that each were facing, focused on influence and communications. A leadership workshop followed this to embed and share learning.
The immediate positive report by participants was that we helped to instil a heightened sense of awareness. This was partly due to the personal coaching sessions, and also due to the observations made during the strategy sessions. The result of this is that team members had and took an opportunity to modify their behaviours. Diesel had cleverly timed our work to coincide with company appraisals, so the team could begin to use the new tools and techniques they had learned in the coaching sessions, the strategy sessions and the workshop to immediate effect.
The work was also designed to dovetail with other initiatives that the Diesel MD and HR Director had planned.
A side benefit of the engagement was that presentation skills improved within the team. From a financial perspective, the retention of valued leaders has increased.