A CASE STUDY:
As New Zealand’s leading supermarket brand, serving more than 2.5 million customers every week, Countdown is extremely proud of their people and as such is committed to helping every team member realise their potential.
Countdown’s General Manager Operations, Brett Ashley, knew what he wanted for his team and had the motivation and tenacity to hold himself accountable in his pursuit for a performance culture.
His vision was to create a culture that empowered Countdown team members to deliver exceptional customer experiences. He started by on-boarding his immediate team, building strength and support for the culture change journey and spent time sharing with them the exciting possibilities for individuals, teams and the organisation as a whole. This in turn would have a positive impact on their customers and ultimately their bottom line.
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED
Brett’s strength of character and absolute resolve for realising his vision saw him reach out to Dan, which is where the real work began, firstly in solidifying the vision, then in identifying the barriers and mapping out steps to overcome them. They identified issues with the command and control approach to operations, decision making and leadership which had contributed to a lack of accountability, honesty and responsibility.
Leaders weren’t facilitating the right experiences for teams, often reverting back to ‘doing’ (where they excelled), as opposed to ‘leading’, (where they needed to be). When leaders revert to doing instead of leading, they struggle under the overwhelming workload, taking on far too much of what they shouldn’t be doing and not enough time doing what they should. Leaders at Countdown were swamped and poorly focused. They felt like they needed to do everything, which saw them lose touch of what they really needed to do – lead their teams.
This pressure was leading to poor attitudes, high stress, inability to cope and feelings of failure. Together Brett and Dan assessed related triggers and proposed measures for Brett to drive character development to assist his leadership team in leading people. Dan then worked with Brett in sharing the tools to better lead and build teams, which included leadership principles, decision making frameworks and team building steps. He also coached Brett and his team in how to have accountability conversations, set personal responsibilities and have difficult conversations where expectations weren’t met.
OUTCOMES
Brett’s decision to invest in his team has since seen significant improvement to Countdown’s bottom line. They have also seen increased commitment from teams under now, clearly focused leaders. Even more impressive though, is the wide-spread and diverse level of leadership skills and practice across the business. They’ve also had an increase in women in leadership roles.
Brett’s vision now sees Countdown proudly supporting and enjoying a new level of leadership. One that motivates team members on an individual level empowering them to deliver exceptional customer experiences as well as working better together as a team. They also enjoy the flexibility of being able to move leaders across the business and between roles, regardless of the specific function, because their leadership skills are now transferable. This supports both the needs of the business as well as the interests of the individual leaders involved.
Dan’s program, recognising Brett’s vision, facilitated the development of future cultural champions across the team at Countdown, who now deliver clear performance goals across the organisation. Under Brett’s guidance, their new winning attitude and exceptional skills are creating and maintaining winners at all levels of the business and will continue to do so, well into the future.
NEED TO SHIFT THE CULTURE IN YOUR ORGANISATION?
Culture is made up of the individuals who form a business, team or relationship. How does yours stack up? Ask yourself these five questions:
- Can you define what culture you need, to meet expectations?
- Do you have strong cultural pillars?
- Can you identify the behaviours and habits required to support and/or deploy action under your cultural pillars?
- Are you investing in regular coaching and training across your business?
- Do you have an accountability and performance framework to support steps three and four?
If you recorded more ‘NOs’ than ‘YESs’, then give us a call. We can customise a solution to assist you at any stage of your culture journey, whether you’re just starting out – defining what culture you need, or are in the coaching and training stage, we can help you drive a winning culture.
Culture starts with strong individuals and strong leaders. Start your journey towards creating a winning culture today.
