Team Effectiveness

Results

+80%

Of time now spent on strategy and culture

rather than on meetings, reporting and troubleshooting.

A shared cross-business language

that allows for more effective collaboration.

Collective decision-making

with a focus on improving execution and results.

THE BUSINESS

Shanks Group plc, a waste management company, faced challenges in leadership alignment and strategy execution. Despite having a defined strategy and completing significant organisational changes, leadership was not working well as a team and in its function for the group.

With new members joining the executive team, the need for a cohesive leadership approach became critical. Coode were brought in to help strengthen collaboration through enhanced leadership effectiveness, ensuring that all business units worked together towards a unified purpose.

THE CHALLENGE

To deliver on the strategy, the need for a shared identity and vision that was aligned within leadership became vital.

The challenge was to transform how the leaders collaborated, made decisions, and pushed the company’s strategic agenda. This would ensure that everyone was working to a clear and aligned purpose and using a common language to make decisions quickly and effectively.

“Coode have been exceptional working with me and my leadership team in aligning us around a common vision and language and enabling great team work and consistent leadership across multiple nationalities.”

Shanks Group plc

CEO

THE APPROACH

By focusing on both the behavioural and structural aspects of how the team operated, we were able to establish a common language amongst the team by:

Creating a shared vision: We successfully aligned the leadership team around a common vision and strategic direction. This involved interviews, a facilitated session with the team, and support at their annual leadership conference. The newly defined vision acted as a powerful catalyst for improved cohesiveness.
Improving leadership dynamics: After a change in the executive team a year later, the CEO re-engaged us to focus on leadership team effectiveness. We implemented our DIPS (Define, Insight, Practise, Sustain) methodology to enhance cooperation and decision-making, and create a common language that was positively received across the business.
Shifting focus to strategy: By reducing time spent on operational issues and creating sustained shifts in team dynamics, we were able to help Shanks refocus how they spent their team and put more emphasis on long-term strategic goals.

More case studies

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) recognised that strengthening its executive team would be critical to delivering its strategy. While its leaders brought significant individual expertise, there was an opportunity to create a more integrated, high-performing team that was greater than the sum of its parts, while establishing the ways of working and leadership behaviours needed to support this.

Since 2019, Coode has partnered with Solina to support its transformation into a globally aligned organisation. As the company achieved fivefold revenue growth and expanded across Europe, the Americas and Asia, integrating 18 acquisitions, Coode helped define a unifying strategic narrative and operating model that balanced local agility with global scale. By aligning leadership and embedding shared cultural principles, Solina built one cohesive story that continues to drive its international success.

In 2022, a new CEO took to the helm of Concurrent Technologies Plc, an organisation that was well-established in its niche but had hit a plateau. The business had no formal leadership team, with most key decisions previously made by the former CEO. There had been little emphasis on leadership development, and the company lacked the ambition to grow.

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