Coaching and Leadership Development

Managing the Task

Phase I of the engagement was a six-month group coaching/leadership development program for nine client HR leaders. TalentRise’s used the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness program framework—the PQ mobile application—to support behavior change and reinforce learning concepts.

The developmental goals for the cohort included:

• Forming a solid team through team-building activities.
• Building more robust and consistent leadership competencies.
• Using PQ/Mental Fitness strategies to build more self-awareness among the HR team and how they show up as leaders in the eyes of broader leaders in the organization.

Our Process / Approach

Months one through three:

• Conducted weekly group coaching sessions with the participants
  focused on identifying self-limiting beliefs and team saboteur behaviors.
• Utilized the PQ app between sessions to reinforce behavior change and track progress against key learning concepts.

Months four through six:

• Held bi-weekly participant group coaching sessions focused on applying the PQ framework in real-life scenarios.
• Members built a universal language through PQ that helped form a closer and more collaborative team.

Conclusion / Outcome

At the end of six months, the HR leadership team and their executive sponsors reported that they had:

• More clarity around roles, personal missions, and life purposes aligned with the organization and team’s goals.
• Gained valuable insights into how they had previously derailed or sabotaged their or the team’s success during times of stress.
• Learned how to support each other when they saw these team derailing behaviors showing up so they could move past them with a positive outcome.

Managing the Task

Although the client organization had a solid performance management program built upon best practices, the various departmental integrations and role changes resulting from post-merger and acquisition (M&A) integration had created gaps. The client engaged TalentRise to close gaps in broader leadership skills development in various departments.

Phase II of the engagement focused on creating customized leadership development programs for selected high-performing leaders, at different levels in the organization and across various business unit groups. Each leader had ad hoc development needs identified in his/her/their development plan through manager feedback and HOGAN assessments conducted by the HR team.

Using the HOGAN Leadership Assessment, TalentRise conducted a team assessment diving deep into the five traits of a highly effective leader and team.

Our Process / Approach

TalentRise—working with our client’s HR team and a certified HOGAN consulting partner—co-created a customized leadership development program for several departments/units tailored to each team’s unique developmental needs.

The operations team developmental goal:

The team was overly task-oriented coming out of the pandemic and experiencing high turnover and stress-related burnout from being stuck in firefighting mode for the past two years. They wanted to shift from being reactive leaders into a more strategic, growth mindset team.

Using the HOGAN assessment, our goals were to:

• Help the team understand their current state alignment with these five leadership competencies.
• Design their future state around defining their “collective win” goal of being a “customer experience obsessed” culture.
• Assist the team in determining what was needed to get all 8,500 employees aligned to this goal.

Throughout 2022, TalentRise:

• Conducted regular leadership team coaching sessions.
• Held an in-person team retreat.
• Checked in quarterly with the team to measure individual and group progress against their collective win goals and progress as a team against decision-making, communication, and mutual support for effective leadership skills development goals.

Through the Phase II engagement, the client recognized they needed to restructure their operations team roles in late 2022, adding a regional leadership team layer between their district leaders and the operations VPs. This new team level enabled VPs to focus their talent and time on being more strategic vs. tactically focused on the business.

TalentRise then conducted a formal HOGAN leadership TEAM assessment of the newly reorganized operations team, including the new regional directors. The assessment focused on the following:

• Individual self-awareness
• Team awareness
• Role clarity
• Division of labor by role with goals

This engagement, and the feedback shared with the leaders and team, created unity between positions with the recent addition of the new regional operations leadership role.

In 2023, TalentRise will continue ongoing active work with the operations leadership group and has begun work with the merchandising and marketing teams, providing customized individual and team coaching and development services.

The engagement and feedback shared with the leaders and team resulted in several notable outcomes that directly contributed to the business’s bottom line and growth story:

• Unity and integration between positions with the recent  addition of the new regional operations leadership role
• Strengthened employee retention
• Elevated team engagement and performance