The Power of Leadership Alignment in Launching Transformation
A customized leadership series for CARTA.
Challenge
As CARTA launched a new fiscal year, there were several major challenges impacting the organization, including a new CEO, new leadership structure, the need to identify top priorities, and the need for a cohesive action plan.
Solution
CARTA engaged Bridge Innovate to design a custom leadership series to accelerate the alignment across the leadership team with agreed priorities and action plan. Bridge designed and facilitated three sessions with the Executive Leadership Team (ELT):
Session 1: Leadership - launch a new leadership and organizational structure
Session 2: Priorities - identify top priorities for the year
Session 3: Action Plan - clearly define an action plan to accomplish annual priorities
Leadership:
The leadership session began with each leader sharing what a successful year for CARTA looks like. This gathering of perspective equipped the leaders to examine in greater detail the needs of the community, CARTA assets, and CARTA challenges.
The next step was for each leader to develop a leadership plan including defining their role, current capabilities and function, future aspirational capabilities, and priorities for the year. Now with each leader having defined their personal plan, it became easier for the team to explore the collective leadership approach for the team.
Priorities:
Next, Bridge guided the leadership team through a prioritization and decisioning session. We began by inviting leaders to define the top personal values and analyzing how these values are driving behaviors. With this perspective in mind, we shifted to defining critical foundational business goals for CARTA. The alignment of values and critical goals provided the foundation for prioritization. Each leader then completed a business plan for their areas of accountability including goals, KPIs, tactics, and interdependencies and then shared their plan with the team overall. The mapping of these detailed plans provided the team with the information needed to collectively prioritize goals and area work efforts for the coming year.
Action Plan:
With clear goals in mind, Bridge then facilitated an action planning session where leaders mapped the goals and tactics across the four quarters of the year. Clearly outline the work ahead for each leader as well as the interdependencies and connections. At the end of the ELT sessions, the team had developed goals, KPIs, and tactics for each executive leader for the next fiscal year.
After the completion of those sessions with the ELT, CARTA quickly reengaged Bridge to lead a session with CARTA’s Middle Leadership Team (MLT) focused around the following goals:
Understanding and affirmation of CARTA’s goals
Identifying the values of the MLT
Finalizing tactics and developing a shared work plan
Creating empowerment for the MLT along with a sense of responsibility and accountability for the shared goals
At the end of the MLT, the team had prioritized, organized, and aligned on all 24 organizational goals and created 180+ actions to support those goals.
After the MLT session, Bridge assisted CARTA by providing Asana training sessions for employees to gain familiarity with the platform and confidence in navigating their future tasks and goals.
Result
The impact was a strategic plan for the next fiscal year that included goals, KPIs, and tactics, as well as an Asana work plan built out to reflect the 24 organizational goals and tasks required to reach those goals.
Contact us to learn more about how Bridge Innovate® can foster business innovation within your organization.