How a trade company encouraged its managers to live up to their strategic role

Skills | October 1, 2019

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Тhe Challenge

The client was a big commerce company where managers grew organically from their specialist positions. Most of them were heavily involved in operational tasks and often managers of a more senior level dealt with matters to be handled by their direct reports. The company needed to change that soon as due to increased workloads managers were overwhelmed and important long-term and strategic matters lagged behind.

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The Solution

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The Results

Working on the role descriptions significantly heightened the managers’ sensitivity to what they were actually supposed to do and how to invest their abilities. This led to a shift in their predominant habit of getting involved in operational tasks and managers began to delegate more and limited their involvement in operational work.
Using their enhanced knowledge and drawing on their successful attempts at influencing people’s engagement and performance more effectively managers now had the confidence to apply the ‘achieving through others’ principle.