“There have been some remarkable turnarounds for people, everyone has changed positively. Results have exceeded my expectations, I couldn’t recommend RISE enough.”

The work

RISE won the tender on the premise that building coherence in a leadership group is an ongoing journey and not resolved through a one off event. The work began by bringing their global management team together for an initial retreat where we focussed on building connection and trust amongst the different areas of the business. This work continued by enabling virtual leadership development groups, composed of a mix of functions, geographies and experience. This ongoing mechanism for connection and support started to empower more voices across the business and nudge the culture of the organisation into a more engaged, collaborative, representative one. This work continued over a three year period and also included working with the level of management below the initial group.

Parallel to this, RISE supported, through a series of workshops and facilitated meetings, increased engagement in strategy which enabled the larger leadership team of the business to make tough decisions on how to accelerate the G&B brand. This resulted in making a more assertive move online and a more flexible approach to how they traditionally supplied large retail outlets.

“RISE has helped increase the level of trust between the senior management team through vulnerability-based sharing. This has enabled the team to truly understand each other and the way that we interact and contribute to the team dynamic. Collaboration has never been better and we are now cascading the techniques throughout the organization.

Impact

As part of our work together, we trained and supported internal facilitators to step into facilitating the ongoing ‘Blue Space Groups'. These groups remain today, years on, as spaces for reflection and connection across the business, supporting the agile management culture and the embedded collaborative principles across the organisation. 

In 2020, Graham & Brown, along with so many retail businesses faced the challenges of the consequences of COVID-19. The way the business responded and engaged its global workforce at this critical time was testament to the efforts of everyone that had put so much time and focus to their development and company culture over the preceding 4-5 years.