Organizational Transition through Divestiture and Merger
A client, a consumer package goods company, headquartered in the United States was divested from their publicly traded parent company, and requested support to help their top executives manage the ambiguity and emotions of change. This was particularly relevant, as they did not yet know who their new parent company would be. The client hired Sarah Scala Consulting to help build leader competence and emotional strength to move through the change and serve as effective leaders of their teams.
“Sarah’s approach to the workshop was very pragmatic and engaging. We didn’t dwell on each topic, nor did we settle for expected/obvious concepts. This means Sarah truly internalizes the concepts she teaches and gets to the so-what in a deeper, more sticky way. I’ve done many personal and leadership trainings; this session exceeded my expectation for the short duration and wide audience.”
The Objectives of the Project:
Learn how to lead together through change
Bring leaders to a place of heightened comfort with vulnerability
Learn tools and build strategies to lead their teams through this period of change
Strengthen empathy for each other and team members
“Leading through transition is critical and can be difficult. Each organization is different, so it was great that at the start of the training the hopes and fears for our organization were laid out so that the rest of day was really to address those specific needs for our organization.”
Questions Guiding this Project:
How are top leaders currently behaving in light of pending changes?
What is the desired state of behavior needed from the leaders?
What are leaders’ fears and hopes with the change?
Services Provided:
Pre-program survey and assessment
Custom retreat design and facilitation
Post-program survey and assessment
Process:
Met with senior leadership to establish goals and learn about current and desired state of the business, along with the timeline of the change.
Designed and administered pre-program survey to gain insights from participants on anticipated change. These data were used to design the program and provided insight on the current emotional state of leaders.
Custom designed and facilitated the off-site retreat for 40 leaders focused on strengthening empathy, leadership presence, optimism, resilience, grit, growth mindset, and managing vulnerability. Ensured that the program would address fears and hopes defined in pre-program survey.
Created and administered a post-program survey to assess potential next steps for the leadership team.
Results:
Leaders built skills, confidence, and strategies for moving through the ambiguity and emotional aspects of change including optimism, resilience, grit, growth mindset, and managing vulnerability.
Leaders returned to work with strengthened empathy and strategies to support each other and their teams during the merger.
Results from the pre-survey were assessed and used for an introduction document that was sent to the leaders of the new parent company. This document was created to share details about the client company, including their culture, hopes and fears.