The club’s board asked us to help create a shift in mind-set, skills and behaviours in their senior management team (SMT). The aim was a more strategic, joined-up approach to leading the organisation, and to help each member take their own leadership to the next level. We worked with the SMT and the board, collectively and individually, remotely and in person, evolving a bespoke programme over 10 months. The client was so happy with the work that they let us write it up for a handbook on team coaching.
The shift our client was seeking
When first Gareth Rogers came to us, during his time as CEO, Southampton Football Club (SFC) had around 250 staff, revenues of over £110m and assets in excess of £190m. With only a quarter of the income of the Premier League’s richest club, SFC was fighting well above its weight on the pitch and was seen as a real success story.
The board’s vision for the organisation required a step change among its SMT – an intentionally leaderless team of 12 peers reporting to the board. Our brief was to:
Take effective operational managers and help them develop the skills, mind-set and headspace required to attend to the strategic needs of the whole organisation
Enhance each individual SMT member’s leadership of their departmental teams
Create a consistent leadership ethos while respecting and encouraging different management styles
Help the SMT hold a consistent high-performance mentality despite the very public emotional highs and lows endemic to this industry. Being with them during and after both an ecstatic home win and an unexpected away loss showed us first-hand how challenging that can be
Deliver an experience and outcome that would set SFC apart when it came to leadership development – not just in football, but across sectors
How we approached it
The step change would require changes across the club, not just among SMT members: the SMT’s ways of thinking and working would be driven not just by their own habits, needs and mind-sets, but by those of the people above, below and around them. Gareth was in frequent contact throughout, sharing insights and listening to our observations of the forces hindering the SMT’s efforts to change – including well-intended behaviours on the part of the board itself.
We began with an on-site kick-off attended by the board, the SMT and their two LeaderSpace team coaches. The board shared their aspirations and left the SMT to explore its own hopes and fears with the coaches – a candid conversation the team then gave us permission to summarise for the board.
The SMT also invited their staff and stakeholders to assess them through our High Performing Teams Questionnaire.
Over the next 10 months, we met with the team five times, typically for two days. Those sessions included input on leadership, team dynamics and systems thinking; feedback given and received; work on the forces, past and present, that reinforced the status quo; and space for emergent ‘hot topics’. We taught participants to coach each other, so the team could keep coaching itself after the final module.
Between modules we coached members one-to-one, including a three-way meeting with each SMT member and the board member they reported to. The team also worked on two cross-departmental projects set by the board.
When it came to ‘the end’, we all acknowledged that there was still work to be done. The team had clarity at an individual and collective level regarding what that work was and how they’d go about doing it, which included asking us to work with the next tier down, to help embed the cultural change they were seeking across the organisation.
The impact we had
At a team and organisational level, the work contributed to:
A marked increase in the SMT’s clarity of purpose, transparency and trust, and willingness to challenge and support each other
Faster, more effective decision making as a team
Greater trust, proactivity and healthy challenge in the SMT’s relationship with the board
Promotion for the seven team members who had yet to be promoted to ‘band 6’ – the board hadn’t initially expected to promote everyone but were impressed by improvements in these individuals’ level of leadership and strategic contribution to the business
More frequent and effective cross-departmental working
Individually, the client saw ‘incredible progress’ in becoming more strategic leaders; greater willingness to involve, listen to and delegate to their staff; better management of their own reactions under pressure; greater alignment as a team; and improved relationships with their family through conscious management of the boundary between work and home.
“I’d gained a lot from working with LeaderSpace in a previous role and I was keen to bring their expertise to Southampton. I’ve seen a real, definitive change in the team. They’ve really stepped up as a team and as individual leaders. When we first brought LeaderSpace on board, the SMT was a team only in name. In reality, they were a collection of individuals who barely knew each other. Now, they’ve a clear identity and presence in the business, and they’re taking more responsibility rather than relying on the board. Speaking personally, the work also changed the nature of the one-to-ones I’ve been having with the members of the SMT reporting into me. They’re far more open to reflecting on their approaches to leading this business and to changing the way they operate both individually and as a team.”
Some challenges faced on the way
Securing the team’s commitment up front: some were initially concerned that the lessons we’ve learned and applied across other industries wouldn’t apply to the ‘cut throat world’ of football. We’ve heard the same when we first started work with Gucci, Shell, the military and certain charities – and when working across cultures and continents. We also had to deal with our differing interpretations of the term ‘coaching’: Les Reed, one of the board members, literally wrote the Football Association’s book on coaching football, which made for some interesting conversations. We agreed that ‘coaching’ in a business context is actually a subset of the approaches covered in Les’s book, which helped get us all on the same page.
Maintaining commitment when things got tough: despite their initial reservations, the team felt a huge wave of enthusiasm following the first two-day module. We warned them that a subsequent dip in motivation was par for the course: change is hard, and sustained change is harder. Sure enough, we faced a number of obstacles that threatened their motivation:
Getting everyone in the same room at the same time: we booked sessions well in advance to avoid fixtures and other ‘no go’ dates, but a few points’ difference in the league table could mean a member of the SMT flying abroad at a few days’ notice. One team member, Kate, had a baby shortly after Module 1. The team turned it into a benefit, learning new ways to work and represent absent colleagues – and Kate herself came back from maternity leave to join Module 3, bringing her husband and baby daughter which helped her stay bonded to the business and deepened relationships across the team.
Fear of exposure and aversion to conflict: the club’s culture had already come a long way, but there was still an underlying fear of exposing weakness or engaging with conflict – both essential to a high performing team. We helped create an environment safe enough, and challenging enough, for real trust and harder conversations, with each other and with the board.
Disappointment with the pace and visibility of change: it’s not only individuals who need to change for a leadership team to ‘step up’. It’s the relationships between them, with the board, and the culture beneath them – and that takes time. The process is similar to boiling water: the heat is on from the start, but anyone watching the water will see very little change between 5°C and 85°C. It’s only when we approach boiling point that they start to notice the change. Of course, the SMT, who were swimming in that ‘water’ since the start, could feel the heat throughout! Our job was to help maintain the team’s momentum, and keep feedback conversations flowing between them, the board and their departmental teams.
Balancing individual and team development: it’s tempting for participants to focus on what the team needs to do differently rather than on the changes they might need to make as individuals. We struck the balance by working on both spheres in the team sessions, supplemented with one-on-one coaching.
Personnel changes: the team stayed the same, but the board didn’t. The Chief Financial Officer left early on, that role was empty for months, and the club created and filled a new Commercial Director role. The work we’d already done with the SMT and the board helped everyone manage the transition and make the most of the benefits brought by these changes at the top.
“I joined the board from my previous role at Virgin, just after the penultimate module. By the final module, the SMT was one of the most cohesive teams I’ve ever seen.”
