School for CEOs delivered a comprehensive leadership development solution for Ecometrica, an international software company. The programme included psychological profiling, tailored development plans, and structured interventions to prepare emerging leaders for senior roles.
CONTEXT
A growing technology organisation, led by original founders and main shareholders, was preparing for a transition in leadership. With the founders planning to exit the business, they were seeking to hand over the reins to a group of emerging leaders. But first, they wanted to ensure that the group had the potential to lead an organisation at scale and that they had time to prepare for this transition.
Furthermore, the outgoing leaders wanted an outside view to validate or challenge their opinion on potential CEO successors.
SOLUTION
To profile the emerging leader population of seven individuals, in order to identify areas of individual strength and development. Then, to create bespoke development plans to prepare them to step up and take on the leadership of the business as the founders exit.
APPROACH
A full psychological profile, followed up by 1:1 development conversations and structured development interventions running over a 24-month timeframe.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILING
This process included four main phases:
- Prep – briefing calls between the existing Executives and the profiler to understand organisational context and strategic priorities
- Interview – 1:1 3-hour interviews between profiler and emerging leaders explored individual upbringing, background and experience, complemented by a psychometric tool
- Feedback – a detailed report summarised measure of potential, key strengths and areas for awareness. Thematic feedback from each individual profile was relayed and discussed with existing Executives
- Development Session – 1:1 development session with each emerging leader identified areas for development.
“People came back from your programmes energised, not just by what they’d learned, but by who they’d met. They came back excited about their roles and about working for us.”
STRUCTURED DEVELOPMENT
Development plans were bespoke to each individual and included recommendations based on experiential learning, learning through interaction with others, and formal event-based learning. For some, this included leading a larger team, taking on P/L responsibility for a product line, or engaging in investor discussions. For some, this involved working 1:1 with a coach or mentor, participating on School for CEOs Vital Few programme or attending specific technical training courses with other organisations.
The process also identified group needs, that were supported through tailored workshops.
OUTCOME
The emerging leaders have now successfully stepped up to form the new Executive Team, with responsibility for executing the strategy for the organisation.
CLIENT REFLECTIONS
“After a year of your programme, we didn’t have a single leadership car crash. That had never happened before.” – Founder/ Shareholder
“Every bit of management development we did came from School for CEOs. You were our only toolkit, and we got a whole solution”.
This case study was provided by Adrian Smith, Shareholder/Co-Founder of Ecometrica.
