Workshops & Seminar Case Studies
Boral Resources - NSW Concrete, Bricks and Pavers Division
Business Unit Managers Successfully Leading Change
Background
Boral is an international building and construction materials group, with its headquarters in Sydney, Australia. With some A$4.3 billion worth of sales, Boral had 8,334 full-time equivalent employees working across over 550 operating sites as at 30 June 2016.
The General Manager of Boral Resources was restructuring his business to ensure greater efficiencies by removing administration resources from each Business Unit Manager and creating two regional administration hubs. This change would present the Business Unit Managers with a new challenge that they needed to respond to rapidly.
Case For Action
The organisational restructure was taking place at the same time as a demand for higher production levels were being asked for. Those higher production levels were at risk if the organisational change was not owned and driven by the Business Unit Managers. There also needed to be stronger networking and support between the Business Unit Managers and shared common leadership language and views across the business to support the change effort.
Engagement Coaching Workshop
This workshop is designed to both develop the leadership skills of managers and improve team dynamics through introducing them to a common view and language of leadership that facilitates conversations that elevate performance.
The workshop consists of a two-day workshop and four, one hour coaching sessions for each participant. The first session of the coaching prepares the participant to get the most value from the workshop and discusses personal development objectives that are of sufficient importance to motivate them to participate effectively. The following three sessions follow the two-day workshop to support the participants in implementing the learnings from the workshop.
The purpose of the Boral workshop was to provide the team with a foundation of simple but powerful concepts that would leave them engaged with operating responsibly and with integrity, sharing their knowledge and experience, communicating effectively with each other and their agencies and supporting each other in dealing with the challenges they faced day by day.
In this workshop, the individuals had an opportunity to raise their awareness of what drives their behaviour and the behaviour of others by:
- Exploring how their view of the world impacts their ability to lead effectively.
- Understanding the constraint their existing comfort zone imposes on their leadership and how to expand their comfort zone.
- Gaining a deeper understanding of accountability, responsibility and integrity at a personal and team level.
Organisational Results
An additional $1.4M of revenue was achieved directly from people’s participation in the workshop.
"Because of this workshop I got 'complete' with a customer who had taken their business away from us to Hanson. I stopped blaming the last Boral restructure, and the last manager. Before the workshop, I had no intention or desire to go back to them. The result from getting 'complete' with them is they placed an order with us for $1.26M."
"We got an extra $140K from one client directly from what I learnt on the workshop. I listened more effectively and asked them what they wanted as a customer."
"I have been able to present a positive business case which enabled me to get an extra $90K, before I would have been critical, blaming and abusive and not received the extra funding."
Note: Sometime after this workshop Boral Resources underwent another restructure and the General Manager reported to Hewsons that the Managers who went through this workshop stood out for their resilience and the way they lead others through yet another change.
Testimonials
"There are many different training courses that we attend that develop head knowledge. This workshop gets to the heart of personal behaviour and interactions with others. This workshop helps develop respect between managers and employees."
"The workshop made me realise that I was being negative and aggressive with day to day dealings with people and only this type of course could have shown me that."
"The models and concepts 'clicked' with me. Everyone in the course participated and the feedback suggests that everyone can use this approach not only in their workplace but in their personal life as well. Course participation was sometimes challenging, but beneficial."
"Managers are confronted with many difficult scenarios with human interaction whether it be employees, customers, contractors, government officials, their own senior management. This course is excellent in the way it provides you with techniques to help you understand or gain a perspective from another person’s viewpoint. How that combines with your views and how to influence other people. They also have excellent techniques to overcome personal obstacles that withhold us from being a better manager."
"The workshop contained a lot to take in just two days, however with the follow up coaching sessions, KPI’s and timeline the real benefits and knowledge gained will be put into practice in our lives over the next 2 months. We will be able to measure our performance, fine tune ourselves through coaching and put into practice for the rest of our lives."
Evaluation Scores
The percentages below represent the average of the 11 people who participated in the workshop. The rating scale below was Excellent, Good, Neutral, Poor, Very Poor.
- 73% of participants rated this as Excellent and 27% of participants rated this as Good.
- 45% of participants rated this as Excellent and 55% of participants rated this as Good.
- Overall average score was 8.7 out of 10.
All 11 participants said they see the programme being valuable for the development of managers in Boral.