Fuelling growth across DMW
Strategic need: to engage the leaders of today and focus the leaders of tomorrow as the company continue to grow quickly under a new strategy.
Population: Over 50 colleagues during a 2-year period. This encompassed leaders from the Managing Partner to new team managers.
Impact: “Potentialife delivered an attitude of personal responsibility, a set of practical tools for improving our performance, and a collective focus on the opportunity ahead of us” – Chris Dean, Managing Director of DMW.
Context:
As a leading IT consultancy firm, DMW work with international public and private organizations to transform their business-critical technology needs. In December 2014, Potentialife and DMW began designing a leadership development program focused on fueling DMW's recently unveiled growth strategy.
“We decided to do Potentialife for a few reasons. We wanted to work together better as a senior team - and we wanted to develop our next generation of people into leaders of the future - with a common framework for what it means to be a senior manager of the firm”
Chris Dean,
Managing Director
DMW wanted to support their top team in managing their growing organizations. They were also focused on equipping their manager ranks and leaders of tomorrow their leaders, with the right toolkit to deliver excellent client value, inspire their teams, and be ready to lead the firm in the years ahead.
Program design:
One of the core appeals of Potentialife to DMW was that the program's grounding in scientific research. It was decided to leverage the SHARP framework, which links directly to the research, as a new organizational language on how to reach your potential.
“It has resulted in higher performing teams, more satisfied teams, projects have been delivered on time, all of those sorts of things, and it's really because of that energy and investment in building those relationships with people I work with.”
Corie Hawkins,
Management Consultant
Potentialife and DMW then designed a roll-out of cohorts, which would see senior management start first, followed in sequence by their direct reports, and their direct reports. This has the added benefit of senior managers role-modeling the behaviors and positioning the program for their colleagues in advance of them commencing the program.
“Focusing on strengths was a light-bulb moment for me. I’ve become more effective with clients on day one and more confident in the work I’m doing.”
Donal Smith,
Director
Impact:
In assessing the impact of Potentialife at DMW, Managing Director Chris Dean noted four distinct areas where the firm had benefitted.
The organization as a whole had clearly begun to think and act much more strategically. With a new growth strategy being rolled out, Potentialife came at the right time for the group. This allowed management to take a step back and consider if they were really driving the strategic impact needed for the organization.
Potentialife equipped DMW’s managers to take on greater management responsibility by instilling best practice techniques for motivating and leading others. The program became a clear signal that the firm had recognized talent and was willing to invest resources to develop that talent for everyone’s benefit.
Potentialife created a common language across the organization, which led to new practices when it came to ‘how we do things around here’. For example, one senior manager reported how he had integrated the strengths based approach into how he assigned tasks within his teams. He now starts every client project by having a 1:1 strengths conversation with each member of his team, which then informs who takes the lead on the various pieces of work throughout the project.
Finally, almost every DMW participant reported that Potentialife increased their energy levels and allowed them to become more engaged in whatever they were doing. From the stories shared, the program had a clear impact on home life, as well as work life. This created a feeling amongst many participants that DMW people are ‘more balanced, self-aware, and ready for what comes at them’.
“One of the big changes is that, we, as an organisation are thinking much more strategically…. That's been a big change compared to before Potentialife.”
Chris Dean,
Managing Director
