Global Investment Bank

Strengthening leadership during an organizational transformation

Background

Due to a rapidly changing market, the demands placed on the IT leadership team of a large bank had far surpassed the processes and practices it had in place to manage them.  As a result, they were undergoing an organizational transformation, revamping structure, roles and responsibilities.  During all this change, the senior IT leaders were finding it difficult to make well-informed decisions in a timely manner. More was being expected of them at an enterprise level, yet they were continuing to operate primarily as functional leaders.

The CIO engaged the Sundheim Group to streamline and improve how they were leading as a team.

How we supported the client

Clarified the issues at play – Through interviews and surveys, we discovered that information flows in the organization were infrequent and unpredictable making enterprise level IT leadership difficult. Decision-making was siloed within each function and optimized for functional needs, not those of the organization. Furthermore, the IT leaders had little experience with enterprise level leadership and didn’t know exactly what a high-functioning enterprise leadership team looked like.

Designed a leadership operating model – We helped the IT leadership team design and use an operating model that clarified how information would flow between leadership bodies over time, providing a visual of intended decision-making up and down in the organization

Facilitated strategy/leadership sessions – Conducted several off-sites over an 18-month period that focused on strengthening the team “in the line of fire” and improving their ability to lead at both a functional and enterprise level

Coached and advised leaders – Throughout the engagement we coached and advised members of the senior leadership team.

The engagement spanned 18 months.

Results

In the year following the engagement, the senior IT leaders got consistently high leadership marks from their internal business-line customers.  These high marks were due, in large part, to the strategic leadership conversations the IT group had been having together.  By pulling out of their day-to-day work and understanding the broader market forces at play, they improved their ability to lead and interact with customers at the highest levels.

“We were acting like a back office function, but we needed more front-office mentality to be successful.  We needed to see the business issues, not just the technical issues.  The leadership operating model and ensuing leadership dialogues helped us significantly up our game.”
CIO

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