Team development following change in the SLT

In February 2022, LCap was engaged by a private equity backed B2B software business to support team development and then optimise the working dynamics within the group. The portfolio company had multiple members of the senior leadership team who had joined the business in the preceding months

The key questions the client was looking to answer included:

• How complementary is the leadership team that has recently been constructed?

• How best can this newly formed team work optimally together?

• What areas to individuals within the team need to focus on in order to ensure they are able to maximally deliver their value creation plan?

• What factors should be considered to ensure the leadership team is investable and able to increase the likelihood of a prospective sale within a 24 month horizon?

• Given the typical structure and experiences of their situational peer group, what, if anything, do they need to do to improve the structure and experience of their SLT.

In order to properly evaluate the existing set up, LCap undertook a 2 week Leadership Dynamics project with the leadership team in order to understand fully the structure, experience and behavioural fit of the incumbent team.

This process involved engagement with senior stakeholders to define the value creation plan, benchmarking of the organisation against a set of situational peers, and psychometric PACE profiling of key team members. At the end of the 2 week process, a full Leadership Dynamics technical report on the team was delivered.

An Optimisation report was developed which focused around creating individual development plans for members within the team, including how to maximise their impact within the team and specific PACE behavioural traits they should prioritise to ensure maximal opportunity to create value.

The key recommendations included:

1. Focus development plans on three key members of the team (MD, CTO and COO) given their centrality to their value creation plan.

2. Appoint a Chief Marketing Officer

3. Support the MD/CFO’s development into a standalone MD by bringing in a CFO

This clear route to optimisation and development for the leadership team intends to provide them with the structure which provides the highest propensity to succeed in their private equity journey.

Following these recommendations, LCap conducted one-to-one sessions with the three SLT members needing more urgent development in order to identify ‘nudge techniques’ and behavioural cues helpful to fast-tracking that development.