Vice President

We worked with ...

... a Vice President & Country Manager (UK & Ireland). Although a high performing VP, he wanted to explore how he could raise his game even further. He used the programme to identify specific areas where he thought he could do better, and then to focus on improving in those areas.

‘I have used TiBC programmes a lot in the UK business - for me, for my Management Team and for people in their teams. It's hard to say exactly what contribution the pogrammes have made to the bottom line but there are links. If you look at what you need to be successful in business, you need successful products that address an opportunity in the market place, and you need successful teams to sell and deliver them. It is clear to me that TiBC programmes had a big impact on the effectiveness of sales and delivery, which is what our business is all about in the UK, selling products into the market place.

When I started my Raise Your Game programme I had a general belief that I could do my job better and be more effective. There were periods of the programme where I had some very specific objectives, where we focused on certain things. If I embarked on it again, it would be with the same open approach and I would expect certain things to come out of the process that I need to look at then drill down and work on. It's a period of time when you can analyse the way you do your job, all aspects of your job in relation to other people, to think about how you did that and how effective you were.

The programme forced me to look at relating what I do to the objectives of the business, and to my objectives as well. I spent a lot of time sorting things out - prioritisation of tasks, the way the business is organised, relationships between people - and looking at how effectively they all came together to support objectives, team, personal and business.

I realised as I went through the programme, how important it is to have clear objectives, to understand everybody's perspective - a lot of different interests - and to get the communication right, to get an effective team.

There has been an effect on the Management Team and an impact on the business. There is much more effective communication in terms of the Management Team discussing much more openly what we are trying to do and what our own personal visions are. It is not just about hitting the revenue numbers and not talking about everything else that everyone is trying to do. Consequently, we have much more effective management meetings, communication is much better as a whole throughout the business, objective setting is much better, and reviews and feedback that are given throughout the organisation are much better.

I have made changes to the Management Team, which meant re-organising roles and moving some people out of the company. The first time I moved someone out I worked on it in the programme. It helped me get clarity and understanding - focusing on why I had to do what I had to do, what we were trying to do as a business, separating the personal from the business. It stood me in good stead for some things I did last year which were quite hard as well.

I got the most out of sessions when I had done my homework and preparation - you have to. It's a commitment you have to make - you take away what you are going to do and put it into practice, and come back and honestly assess whether it had the right impact. What you discuss has to be relevant and meaningful, and the proof is that you take it way and between coaching sessions you apply it, and then you review and look back afterwards.'

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