FASTEN YOUR SEATBELT, THIS IS GOING TO BE A HELL OF A RIDE

This is a tale of two entrepreneurs on a lightning speed acquisition strategy to buy retirement sale industry-specific businesses and create an umbrella group with clear identity and strategy that the growing team could get behind and drive. Hold on to your hats... 

You never have the luxury of a blank page when you deal with active businesses do you? As a living, breathing entity they evolve and develop, ebb and flow with a pace that is set by the leadership team. Well this leadership team was pulling 9Gs round the corners and any idea of crafting strategy at a controlled pace was certainly not on the cards with this project. 

The energy was palpable, exciting and contagious and we jumped at the opportunity to get involved in what proved to be a whirlwind of a project. 

So the project in simple terms was to help crystallise the group strategy establishing clarity through vision and mission, landing on and embedding core values and developing their brand identity. Just as a rather significant aside, each of the trading businesses in this growing group needed a brand refresh to reinforce their regional heritage, compliment the group branding and what’s more, they desperately needed modernisation. And the timescale… “twelve weeks would be great, thanks”. Deep intake of breath... Okay, after a squeaky bum moment we set to it! Well, action is our language after all…

So the date for the kickstart strategy session was set. A bringing together of the new senior leadership team from the newly acquired businesses. Reminiscent of the first rugby match of the season. New kit and shiny boots, testosterone laden athletes gauging the ‘other side’, assessing the ‘opposition’, flexing their virtual muscles. We set about mediating our kickstart workshop. Deep intake of breath…

What was fascinating about this session was how each person came to the table. After the initial, ever so slightly awkward chat over morning coffee and a pastry, everyone rolled up their sleeves with a collective determination to give it their all. Our approach was straightforward - mediate, moderate and frame breakout sessions to get people talking, engaging and a good sprinkling of challenge. Our approach was interactive, high energy and collaborative but we set principles and rules of engagement to ensure everyone’s voice was heard. Breaking down the big (standoffish) terminology of Strategic Vision, Mission and Objectives into language that dismantled barriers, we led four interactive sessions and a really fun, innovative game that we've developed to land on core values. After 6 hours, we had our raw material. 

We took it all away and presented back our initial pitch. After two rounds of modifications, we signed off the strategy deck with the stakeholders. So now the leadership team was aligned, we set to work to bring it all to life and deliver the rollout through department heads and the internal integration team.

This was a period of transformational change for both the individual businesses and the newly established group. Our role was to deliver and roll out this critically important work quickly and efficiently whilst engaging with the internal teams to harness their knowledge, win ‘hearts and minds’ and overcome barriers to successful launch. The success of this project would help the team drive engagement with brand owners, suppliers and investors and was critical for the group's ambitious growth plan.

Whilst our principal clients were Nottinghamshire’s equivalent of ‘Maverick’ and ‘Goose’ (quite sure that’s an analogy that won't be sniffed at by them), our success came through wider team endorsement and whilst we don't advocate ‘doing business by committee’ we were mindful and sympathetic to the people, their passion and loyalties and worked hard to take everyone on the journey.

As sticklers for structure and transparency, we ensured a robust project plan was designed and signed off, deliverables agreed and our approach of planning, preparation and execution was put firmly in place to keep the project on track.

Within the target timescale, we crystallised the group’s vision, mission and helped establish their strategic objectives. We landed the group’s core values and we crafted internal and external presentations ensuring the language resonated with the target audiences. 

And after all that, we needed a lie down and a rather large gin & tonic.

PS. I've just realised that I haven't talked about the brand identity piece, I’ll save that for another day!