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Case Study: Ledger Bennett

Background
Founded in the 1980s, Ledger Bennett is a UK based marketing business. Amongst its clients, Ledger Bennett lists Microsoft, LinkedIn, Vodafone and British Gas. We were introduced to Ledger Bennett in August 2017. Initially they wanted to make use of our leadership expertise.

The Situation
Ledger Bennett had experienced steady growth until 18 months ago when the business won some very large accounts and needed to take on more staff. The increase in work load, turnover and recruiting continued throughout 2016 and into 2017. During the summer of 2017, the board recognised that the business was outgrowing itself – a number of large mistakes had been made that would not have happened had the business not grown so rapidly. In short, it was still behaving like a small family concern when it should have been acting more maturely. We were asked to examine the business’s culture and values, with a view to recommending what they should be and how they should be carried forward.

The Solution
Having been involved with similar projects before, we were well aware that telling people what their culture and values are, or should be, is normally counter productive. Values and culture that are identified at the grass roots and nurtured within the organisation are more likely to gain traction. With this in mind we set about getting the Ledger Bennett staff to tell us what they thought. Over a number of workshop sessions and one on one interviews, we generated a detailed insight into the business’s values and culture. This work culminated with a detailed report recommending what Ledger Bennett could adapt as its values and culture.

When our input was complete we recommended that their value was integrity and their cultural anchors were proactivity, collaboration and pride.

The Result
Ledger Bennett have adopted our recommendations in full. The organisation is now more cohesive and able to deal with the rigours placed upon it by operating globally and servicing some of the largest businesses in the world. At the core of their successful development is a belief that the senior leadership team will listen to everyone in the business and take their views into consideration when planning their next move. The senior leadership team decided that the value and cultural anchors should not be something that was printed and stuck to the wall, more they should be facets of everyday life within the business and form part of ‘the Ledger Bennett way’.

The Follow Up
The business was not finished there. Seeing the value derived from listening to their staff, the board decided to invite bridge][ability to produce a staff development program for implementation throughout 2018. This program will accommodate everyone within the business, on both sides of the Atlantic and will cover leadership, commercial negotiation, team building and line management.

At the heart of this development program is a deep seated desire to get the best from their people by investing in them and drawing upon their expertise.

Simple? Yes, but many organisations would run away from what Ledger Bennett is embracing.

culture, influencing, leadership, negotiation, planning

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