Clients / Case study

Cross cultural leadership in CBPartners

How do you drive high performance leadership to the next level?

The brief

A phrase we often use is: "What got you here won’t necessarily get you there", but how do you drive and ensure high performance when growing a global business beyond its original aims?

Specialist pharmaceutical and biotech consulting firm CBPartners asked us to help hone their leadership style and coaching capability to foster high-performing teams with a positive culture, and help with a shift in emphasis from delivery to management as the business continued to grow.

The challenges

CBPartners’ employees are bright, articulate and capable individuals based in New York and San Francisco and London; they are experts with deep sector-specific and scientific knowledge, market analysis skills and client management skills. Requiring them to further develop their leadership and coaching skills on top of their day day job was no mean feat, but critical in order to take their teams to the next level of performance.

The solutions

Julie Blunt - our Creative Director who led on the design of this programme, elaborates: "Working in partnership with our client, we developed a highly interactive strengths based programme focussing on personal leadership and coaching others across cultures to create high performing teams. We wanted to encourage exploration of new thinking and best practice in the light of the rapidly changing world of work, but with a focus on practical application within CBPartners. This multi level programme provides development for senior and junior managers with shared learning in key areas to build and develop collaboration. Areas of interest included:

• Transitioning from excellent delivery to excellent management
• Coaching for high performance
• Developing an honest feedback culture
• Understanding and working with global team dynamics
• Driving performance across virtual teams

The results

Now moving into its fifth year, we are seeing true results from this programme. The openness of the founding director to see leadership development as a key enabler to their continuing growth was both refreshing and inspiring. Ongoing feedback gathered as the programme has developed and progressed has indicated that the increased business performance and results can in part be attributed to their strategic foresight and investment. Coaching is now just 'a way of life' and coaching conversations take place daily with everyone understanding that feedback can drive performance. Despite the demands of their roles, leaders are actively continuing to apply the principles of this strengths-based programme to great affect.