Winning on Relationship

Business Imperative

This highly successful, family-owned brokerage house, thriving on quick deals and high-volume activity, was acquired by a large financial services institution. As a new member of the organization, this brokerage house needed to remain successful – but in newly strategic and complementary ways, across more segments of the investment-oriented market.

Leaders were challenged to rapidly and radically shift the entire enterprise away from its traditional, transaction-based model (with its short-term focus and emphasis on raw numbers) … toward a more service-oriented model, with its promise of deeper, longer-term relationships with clients across the full range of their personal and business financial needs.

Leadership Response

By analyzing relevant internal data, implementing a cultural survey, and conducting interviews across the executive team, Stratton provided a clear and compelling picture of the company’s prevailing culture – then helped leaders discern their best path forward for rapid change, sustained performance, and expanding success.

Based on the information and awareness generated in the process, the leaders declared a bold new Mission for the business: “To be America’s fastest-growing major investment firm by becoming the absolute, clear-cut leader in overall customer satisfaction.” They realized they needed to target some very explicit and tangible short-term goals to move quickly toward accomplishing this mission, including measures around:

• Employee recruitment and retention
• Employee growth and development
• New customer relationships
• Increased share of customer assets
• A dramatically improved customer experience

Accelerating Toward Success

Stratton facilitated a 3-day highly interactive leadership visioning offsite with the top 200 organizational leaders.  This offered them an opportunity to really grapple with the implications of their strategic Mission and the changes it demanded on both the professional and personal levels. Their leadership roles and abilities would be tested and extended in unprecedented ways; it was critical that they felt fully committed to the process as well as its goals.

The highly experiential session was characterized by penetrating questions, frank conversation, and dramatic shifts in shared (as well as personal) expectations and awareness. The clarity of the Mission when combined with the executive team’s demonstrated, unequivocal commitment helped to catalyze a new energy for advocacy and contribution across the top layer of the company.

It was important to continuously build and leverage the momentum of these sessions. Within a few weeks, members of the Top 200 partnered with Stratton to plan, prepare, and deliver an all-company Vision Engagement session. This meeting would not only be a high-impact vehicle for delivering new messages about Mission, contribution, leadership, and success … it would also signal a dramatic shift in the company leaders’ focus and commitment.

Never before had all 1500+ employees been called together, as one. Never before had the company invested so much executive time and talent focusing on the needs and expectations of the entire workforce. Never before had the company invested so much money in creating the right conditions for learning, networking, and rallying around their newly raised standard.

Results

The all-company session was a culminating event, signaling a new sharing of leadership responsibility across all levels and locations of the business. People were invited to embrace the challenges of the future as well as all the changes – both planned and unforeseeable – that would be required. The high levels of engagement, involvement, and mutual respect served them well in the months that followed. In addition to the strategic mandate from the parent company, they had to deal with the market downturns that dramatically impacted the entire investment community. Certainly a measure of success in the near-term is how this newly aligned firm responds to critical challenges.  They responded admirably:

• A new organization structure was put in place re-calibrating more focus & resources on areas such as business development and product development
• New alliances were formed with their business partners from the parent company to ensure customers were leveraged including:
  • -  Distribution
  • -  Clearing
  • -  High Value Clients
  • -  Small Business
• New production launch capabilities improved dramatically with specific emphasis on accelerating development cycle times