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Case Study: Samworth Brothers

Samworth Brothers is a Leicestershire based food manufacturer, the owner of Cornish Pasty maker Ginsters, and the largest maker of certified Melton Mowbray Pork Pies. It is currently listed at number four in The Times Top Track 250.

As one of the largest food manufacturers in the UK, Samworth Brothers provides for a very interesting case study.  As with so many of our clients, their challenges stemmed from changes in the retail environment and pressures within their supply chain.  Samworth Brothers sought our support in order that they could generate greater revenue from their commercial interactions and maximise the outcomes of their strategic relationships.

After detailed research, the solution we proposed and subsequently executed, involved a very broad cross section of the business.  Thus far we have had the pleasure of working with Samworth Brothers staff who are involved in sales, procurement and the financial side of the business.  We have also dealt with a wide range of seniority.  

We have delivered a number of 1 and 2.5 day programs to the Samworth Brothers team.  The programs have been a mix of in-house and ‘open’ sessions as the business has realised the benefits of both.  We are able to deliver a sector specific offering when working in-house, whereas our open programs are available to anyone who wishes to join us; as Samworth Brothers has realised the great benefit of the latter is the chance to experience other delegate’s (and therefore other sector’s) commercial challenges and solutions.  

negotiation, retail, team development

Case Study: Promar International

Promar is the UK’s largest agricultural and agri-food consultancy, a division of Genus PLC.  Promar works with more than 2000 farmers in the UK and overseas, providing advice to maximise profit and fulfil the strategic objectives of the business.  Promar also works with commercial and trade organisations and governments globally to manage projects and provide advice to develop ambitious businesses.

Genus and Promar work very closely with Tesco.  They manage Tesco’s Future Farmers Foundation (TFFF).  This scheme is designed to take farmers who work within Tesco’s supply chain and give them the required skills to deliver more successful businesses whilst serving Tesco’s needs.  Part of this year long development program includes leadership and commercial negotiation.

From a start point of business planning and decision making, bridge][ability’s involvement with the TFFF has grown to include commercial negotiation development.  This has presented some almost unique challenges for us.  First, the agricultural sector was unfamiliar to us and whilst we know that our expertise is applicable across all industries, we did need to develop an understanding of the challenges presented in modern farming. Second, due to the time pressures in place on the TFFF, bridge][ability has been required to deliver impactful and useful material in an unusually short period of time.  Our involvement with the TFFF has required us to be highly disciplined in our delivery and has shown us what can be packed into a few short hours.  

Although brief, our interactions with the TFFF delegates have led to many of them taking places on our longer programs.  As the pressures grow on the UK farming industry, the ability to negotiate a good deal continues to be extremely important.  

influencing, international, negotiation, retail, team development, tesco

Case Study: Manchester Business School

bridge][ability is closely involved with Manchester Business School in a number of areas.  Over the past 3 years our focus has been delivery of negotiation development training on their Advanced Management Achievement Course (AMAC).

The AMAC:

The Advanced Management Achievement Course is a 3-week highly specialised programme designed for military officers moving into management and executive careers. Through a mix of taught sessions, in-company visits and guest speakers, attendees develop the confidence and management tools to take the next step into a new and unpredictable commercial environment.

Attendance on the programme also includes the award of the Chartered Management Institute Level 8 in strategy and leadership.

Although the AMAC has been running for several years, it has never addressed directly the subject of commercial negotiation.  Further, the attendees on the AMAC, whilst senior in their military roles, have not been exposed to the challenges of negotiation in the commercial world.  Our remit was to deliver a short and focussed programme within the AMAC, that would equip the attendee with the knowledge to enter a new career and be commercially effective immediately.

The AMAC provided an almost unique challenge.  In the vast majority of situations where bridge][ability is presented with ‘new-comers’ to negotiation, they tend to be junior, either in age or time served within their parent organisations; the AMAC delegates are neither of these things.  Their lack of knowledge and experience is a product of the environment in which they have worked.

Our knowledge allowed us to craft an impactful day that would give the attendees the ability to influence their negotiations through a thorough understanding of the nature of any negotiation (and environment), the ability to plan any negotiation and an understanding of the impact of their actions on others.  Through the use of video feedback we were able to demonstrate to the attendees how they influence, and are influenced by others, in a negotiation situation.  Whilst brief, the sessions we deliver on the AMAC expose attendees to transactional and collaborative negotiations – in short, we give them the all the skills they need to by effective in their new roles.

Our relationship with Manchester Business School continues to thrive.

influencing, management, negotiation, team development

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

Case Study – Yoox Net-a-Porter

Our experience in the retail world has been extremely varied over the last few years. Until the autumn of 2014 it had been confined to a number of high street retailers and FMCG businesses who happened to have an online offering. Their web presence was important, but it was not the thing upon which their success depended. Our experience developed significantly when we were approached by exclusively online retailer YNAP at the back end of 2014. This was an interesting prospect for us. On the surface of things it appeared to be uncharted water for bridge][ability. The conversation in our office revolved around the question “what, they have no shops; how does that work?”. However, after a short period of analysis of their requirement, it became reassuringly clear that what we do and what we pass on to our clients will work in any situation. Indeed our philosophy and what we impart, works in any negotiation…even on the telephone and via email!!

The Requirement:

The rag trade is a cyclical world. Yes, fashions come and go with increasing frequency, but the nature and rhythm of the fashion world is relatively fixed. YNAP wanted us to work with their buyers to address 2 issues. First, their bi-annual buying excursion to the far east. In spring and late autumn each year, teams of buyers travel through China, India and Bangladesh sourcing for the following season/year. Secondly, their buyers would also need developing to better deal with some of the largest names in the fashion world. Names such as Jimmy Choo, Louis Vuitton and Burberry all sell through YNAP. Consequently their buyers need the best price in order to maximise margin. Nothing unusual in that. Within the business it was commonly held wisdom that their buyers were not performing as well as they might due to lack of time in the far east and a belief that they were powerless when dealing with the likes of Jimmy Choo etc. The task for us was straight forward: they wanted to get more from their buyers in order that they could improve their margins. In short more for less. Fortunately that is the type if uncomplicated clear requirement that we thrive on.

The Solution:

We recommended a twin track approach that would develop their senior leaders and their buyers. Both groups had involvement at the coal-face, but on a day to day basis the junior buyers do most of the direct work with the supplier base. Due to the requirement we advocated that the senior team members attended our 2.5 day program; we devised a bespoke in-house program for the buyers.

Senior staff:

YNAP’s senior team members attended our 2.5 day Advanced Behavioural program. This allowed them to experience an immersive environment away from the distractions of the office and alongside delegates from other businesses and different sectors. It also gave a detailed view into what their buyers would be learning and applying.

Buyers:

With very little time and huge numbers we were keen to put in place measures that would be assimilated quickly and deliver instant results. We achieved this through a combination of experiential training involving all the elements of the bridge][ability thermometer. This allowed them to asses the nature of their negotiations, regardless of where in the world they were taking place, prior to embarking on them. It was this knowledge that allowed them to better understand their world and take a view on all of the factors that were influencing success. Key among these factors and something that YNAP wanted us to address directly, was their staff’s assessment of relative power. Specifically, they wanted us to address the perception of a lack of power on their part. Power and the perception of it are 2 things that we at bridge][ability deal with on a daily basis. What we wanted the YNAP buyers to understand was that power is about perception, it is relative and it can be influenced by adjusting one’s behaviours during negotiation. Our methods are simple: we get people negotiating in the ‘safety’ of their chosen environment and give feedback via video recordings. In our experience a picture paints more than 1000 words. This type of feedback really impacts what people do in their negotiations. Most importantly when seeing yourself during a one to one negotiation you get a ‘warts and all’ view that all the verbal feedback in the world cannot convey. This impact is what gets people to adjust their behaviours, influence the other party and maximise potential success.

We realised that power was not going to be the only issue for YNAP. They also felt that their buyers were struggling to identify where they should have been taking a collaborative approach rather than a transactional approach and vice versa. This is where we returned to the benefits of the bridge][ability thermometer. This simple tool allows anyone to assess the nature of the negotiation they are involved with. By using it, YNAP staff could decide how they would approach any given situation and behave appropriately. We exposed them to a series of scenarios which allowed them to make the judgement call on the nature of the situation and take the opportunity to wok collaboratively (or not) with the other party. They made the decisions, we merely provided the questions for them to answer. After all we are not usually present when they are conducting their negotiations.

Outcome:

Well what started almost 4 years ago has continued ever since. We have worked across YNAP’s buying staff and continue to do so. From our detailed knowledge of the business it has been clear to us that their profits and the net value of the business have both exceeded expectation. Long may their success and our involvement in it continue.

negotiation, planning

Tesco Case Study

Tesco

The Situation
We were introduced to Tesco by the Category Director of Bakery in the summer of 2013. At that point they were using another provider for negotiation skills development – a company which provided other disciplines as well as negotiation. However, within Bakery they had a particular commercial challenge which they felt required a specialist in commercial negotiation, and invited bridge][ability to advise as to how we could help. At half year, they were significantly behind budget, and our brief was to develop the negotiation skills of the buying team in so that they could negotiate with the supply base in order to improve terms in order to claw back the deficit by year end.

The Solution
We ran an Advanced Behavioural (2.5 day) program which was designed to address their current problem. This was followed by 2 Coaching Days and an Implementation Day in the following weeks. The coaching Days comprised 1-2-1 coaching with the buyers to ensure that the learnings from the program were being applied to their individual situations. We were also able to conduct some short planning sessions for their upcoming more challenging supplier meetings and negotiations. The Implementation Day was designed for them to share with each other what they had achieved to date since the program, what was working, followed by a recap of some of the key learnings and some new learnings.

The Result
The Bakery Category were able to get back over budget by year end and they gage a lot of credit to this to the bridge][ability program. It was a significant turn-around, and one of the Senior Buyers mailed us at the year end to say ‘I thought you might like to know that we will deliver our balance sheet target for bakery and I think the training we had has had a big impact on this.’ She quantified the impact in millions.

The Follow Up
As a result of the success of the Bakery program, Tesco Group decided to tender their negotiation skills training provision and invited bridge][ability to respond and we were successful in winning the three year contract which started in early 2014.

We started by running short awareness sessions at Tesco head office in order to tee up the whole project. We then rolled out the 2.5 day Advanced Behavioural Program to all UK buyers to ensure a consistency of approach across the whole team and to put them through rigorous, thorough and engaging training. Following tremendous feedback and results from this programs during one of the most difficult and challenging periods in Tesco’s history, we were asked to deliver programs to the International Technical teams and to the International Sourcing teams in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and China. We also delivered bespoke programs to the commercial teams in Eastern Europe, and to the buying teams in Ireland. We also delivered programs to the Indirect Procurement teams based in the UK, totalling nearly 100 attendees.

The work we did with Tesco delivered a behavioural change which allowed them to achieve dramatic results in an increasingly competitive market where suppliers were seeking regular price increases.

We trained over 1000 Tesco employees and the feedback was exclusively outstanding and we have been invited to deliver many other projects as a result. This feedback was better than any that Tesco had received before and never dipped below 90% in terms of feedback gathered at the end of each program.

buyer, international, negotiation, retail, tesco

Case Study: The Football Association

Context.

Like any large organisation, The Football Association (FA) is made up of many parts. Regardless of its focus on sport it is a ‘corporate’ entity and has the same constituents parts as Tesco or General Motors; the FA merely ‘produces’ something different. All of the operating divisions of the FA are regulated, formerly organised, have career structures and defined modus operandi. There is one exception to this – the world of Talent Identification (TID), or scouting in common parlance, has always done it’s own thing. No formal career structures here. No job specific qualifications required. No awards ceremonies and certainly no industry standardisation. A comparison is often drawn between the coaching world with its rigidity and the TID world with its cottage industry approach to what is perhaps the single most important function in any club. After all, the TID staff find the talent for the coaches to work with.

Scope.

During the early part of 2014 new staff arrived at the FA. Key among them was Dan Ashworth. Having worked across the football world he knew that TID was the route to success for any club, including England. His aim was very straight forward, he wanted his department to put in place the means by which TID could be professionalised across the English football league. Their solution would need to work for all. From Chelsea to Torquay, all clubs would need to have access to the changes that were required. Dan Ashworth’s work was now complete, for his staff it was just beginning.

bridge][ability first became involved with the project during August 2014. Our consulting staff were employed to assist in scoping the problem. At this point we were merely tying down the exam question, we certainly weren’t answering it. So where to begin? The foundation was understanding what professionalising an industry looks like. Most sectors and industries have developed their own sets of rules, ways of working, discipline and vernacular – not so in the case of TID.

By understanding the skill set required of a TID staff member and the laws and codes of conduct in place to protect them, it quickly became apparent to us that the solution would need to be multi- faceted. What was lacking at the early stages of solution development was a clearly defined aim, something concrete that we could use as a point of reference and direction of travel to ensure that we did not become bogged-down in the minutiae in the early stages of the project. The solution needed an aim that stood above the detail of what we wanted people to ‘do’ – the aim needed to be about an approach, a philosophy rather than what would be done.

The program aim:

With bridge][ability’s assistance the focus of the program became leadership and its constituent parts. This made things clear for all of the development team – we were developing a solution that would allow people to lead; we were not in the business of telling/teaching people how to recruit football players.

After detailed examination and analysis of the daily requirement of a TID department leader/ member, the planning team arrived at 4 areas that would need to be part of the solution:

Leadership and management.
Negotiation.
Financial.
Ethics.

Whilst these were the building blocks, there were many other supporting skills that would also be required:

Communication.
Analysis.
Management.
Resource allocation.
Influence.
Planning.
Decision making.

The solution.

The solution which the FA and bridge][ability arrived at delivered all that was required above and, due to the method used, produced results far beyond the scope of the original problem. In short the path the FA chose delivered genuine synergy.

So a modular approach was adopted, which saw 4 modules, each of 3 days delivered over an 18 month period. The models were leadership and management, negotiation, ethics and financial fair play; bridge][ability were asked to deliver both leadership and management and negotiation.

Following extensive research and program development, all four modules were subject to a pilot program that ran during the Autumn of 2014. The program went live in February 2015.

Leadership and management.

The leadership and management module was delivered over a four day period (3+1). A block of 3 days was followed by a single feedback day. There was a 3 month gap between the 2 sessions to allow research and course work to be completed.

The foundation phase of the initial 3 day period introduced the concept of what leadership and management are; their similarities and, most importantly, where they differ. Leadership is one of those subjects that everyone has an opinion on; leaders are the go-to group when blame needs to be apportioned – “I blame the government”; “the parents should do something about it”; “if the teachers took this seriously things would be different”. You get the idea. Therefore the start point needed to be a thorough understanding of what leadership is and isn’t.

Although seen as contentious by some onlookers, we wanted to expose attendees to a number of so-called leaders and examine if they do in fact lead. We wanted to challenge pre-conceptions and get them to do likewise. We asked them to consider that we inhabit a world that is full of job titles and appointments that confer leadership on people, but do they really lead? The Queen is the head of the Commonwealth and is the senior member of the Church of England, Justin Bieber has over 80m followers on twitter, Katy Perry is copied by millions around the world, but are they leaders? The debates that followed allowed the delegates to understand that leadership and management are more than a title or position, they are about doing something.

Next we wanted to establish what leaders do. For bridge][ability’s leadership division this is really straight forward – leaders set an example, show the direction of travel (culturally and organisationally) and make decisions, they decide on a course of action, communicate it to their people and then put all of their energy into making it happen. These activities are underpinned by a solid understanding of their world, an ability to plan and the fundamental desire to do the right thing, both morally and ethically. At bridge][ability we use a philosophy known as Mission Leadership, this show delegates how best to lead their people and live by the maxim ‘do what you ought to do, not what you want to do’.

With this in mind we got the delegates doing something. We wanted them to be comfortable with ambiguity; this lies at the heart of what we wanted them to achieve…we wanted them to embrace ambiguity, to seek complex situations, the sort of situations that their competitors would run from.

Why?

It’s very simple. We wanted them to be able to approach a situation that was, at best, ill-defined and would require some intellectual horse-power to make sense of it. Further, we needed them to be able to deal with something that could be morally challenging. These sorts of problems usually scare people half to death and so they avoid them. At bridge][ability we see other’s avoidance of ambiguity and moral complexity as presenting an opportunity to us. To instil the confidence to deal with these problems we gave the delegates a number of scenarios to wrestle with that had no defined answer. Of course, problems with no solution generate the best conversations and this is exactly what happened; once comfortable with ambiguity, people quickly realise that these situations present opportunities rather than threats.

The final, and most important stage in developing leadership came next. In order to make decisions and act, a leader must be able to plan. So we set about giving the delegates the skills to make decisions and the confidence to communicate those decisions to their teams.
At bridge][ability we have developed a decision making tool known as The Mission Planner. This simple intellectual tool allows leaders at all levels to unravel complexity and use limited resources to achieve a desired effect. The bedrock of using this tool is a thorough understanding of one’s situation, resources and the ‘exam question’, i.e. what are you required to do and most importantly, why are you doing it. The Mission Planner does all of these things. For the TID team and department leaders it enabled them all to take their people further than they had previously gone, more quickly, whilst being more resource efficient and cohesive. In short, The Mission Planner gave them all the confidence to make decisions and act upon them, i.e. lead.

The leadership and management module included a piece of ‘homework’ that was to be conducted and delivered in teams of 5. Each team was given a case study based on a successful sporting leader. The chosen subjects were Sir Dave Brailsford, Jurgen Grobler, Lord Coe, Leon Smith, Bernie Ecclestone and Sir Clive Woodward. Each team was asked to examine their leadership skills, traits and levels of success. They had to consider what they could take from them and to look critically at their impact on the successful teams they produced. This proved to be one of the high points of the program.

Negotiation.

Having been involved with planning the program from the outset, it was apparent to us that a perceived lack of commercial acumen needed addressing. For many, this lack of commercial expertise, knowledge and experience, manifested itself in the form of poor performance during negotiation. Anecdotal evidence suggested that negotiation in the football world was not something that had ever been formerly taught; it was learnt through osmosis, following the ‘gaffer’, seeing what he did then eventually being allowed to fly solo and conduct one’s own negotiations in a similar manner. This may seem a damning indictment of the commercial skills in the football world but, in their defence, they are similar to many of our clients in the commercial/non-sporting world.

We designed a program that would address all of the pre-conceptions that surround negotiation. In a competitive industry, such as football, it is easy for people to focus on winning i.e. beating the other party. We wanted to address the misconception that negotiation is all about winning and that success can be achieved without heavy handed tactics or a preoccupation with beating the other party. Interestingly, bridge][ability consultants often refer to ‘losing in order to win’. Success can be achieved through behaviours and unspoken communication without overly competitive tactics and ego.

The 3 day package that the delegates attended allowed them to learn, experience and practice the skills and behaviours required at the tactical level as well as being exposed to strategic negotiation planning. In short they would be fully prepared to influence at the lowest level, but also equipped to play a pivotal role within the commercial business of their clubs.

As a vehicle for learning we used the bridge][ability Negotiation Thermometer. This intellectual tool demonstrates 3 types of negotiation and the factors that influence where, on the thermometer, a negotiation might be. For example a transactional/distributive negotiation would typically be seen as ‘cold’. It is the knowledge of the type of negotiation one is entering that allows behaviours to be appropriate to that situation.

Execution.

Through a series of exercises, delegates were exposed to the effect of power on negotiation. They quickly realised that there is only one thing more important than power…the perception of power. We exposed them to methods by which they could influence power in negotiation and the potential ramifications of so doing. In order to embed what they had been taught about cold negotiation, they conducted a series of one-on-one negotiations which were recorded and watched by all delegates. The benefits of watching oneself ‘in action’ cannot be overstated. In watching a their performance the subjects are able to see how they influence another person, how they communicate (verbally and non-verbally) and how what they do impacts the outcome. Importantly they were given detailed feedback in front of their colleagues. This meant that they could all learn from each other. The reality of video feedback is very much in the DNA of what bridge][ability does. Our consultants could observe and give verbal feedback, but it would not have the impact. From the program development phase we were adamant that video feedback had to be an integral part of whatever we delivered. As the FA are a forward looking organisation we found ourselves pushing on a open door.

Both bridge][ability and the FA were keen that attendees had the opportunity to practice their new found skills in a safe environment. To that end they were given a separate scenario and a second opportunity to negotiate a cold case in front of the camera. The improvements were impressive across the entire audience. They had all taken the opportunity to try something different, to see how it felt and the impact it had on the other party.

As the journey up the thermometer continued delegates were exposed to a combination of cool and warm negotiations, both individually and in teams. They developed their ability to analyse complex commercial problems and create solutions. They encountered the benefits of collaboration and the impact of not taking the opportunity to work creatively with the other party when the opportunity arises. As a group they remained enthusiastic and engaged throughout, thus the levels of assimilation were rapid and impressive. The negotiation module was capped with an introduction to strategic planning. At bridge][ability we use our strategic planning filter. This assists planners within a business in developing strategy to be used in a series of related negotiations. Once introduced to the theory that underpins the model, delegates were exposed to the online version of it. The electronic version, known as the bridge][builder app allows easy analysis of the most complex negotiation. It gives the user the opportunity to understand levels of power, the impact of collaborative vs competitive approaches and the steps that one might take in executing a given negotiation. Whilst very useful, the bridge][builder merely assists in ordering one’s thoughts and making useful suggestions. The user is able at all times to override the software and go with their own decision, wether based on science or intuition.

As with the leadership module, the attendees were given an piece of homework to complete. They were tasked with compiling their own strategy for either an ongoing or up-coming negotiation. The choice was their’s, we simply specified that it needed to be ‘real life’.

After a 3 month gap, which included a football transfer window, we reconvened for the negotiation feedback session. Delegates were given the opportunity to share their experiences of using the tool and, more importantly, what they had achieved. Given that they had spent the summer months doing deals this proved to be time spent very productively. Commercial confidence prevents us from giving too much detail, however a large number of this summer’s premiership deals were shaped by what the delegates had learnt from bridge][ability and put into practice. There were very strong results from those individuals who had been negotiating across international borders and those who had been in situations dealing with other parties that they had dealt with previously. In short they were doing better than they had done on previous occasions.

Capstone.

“four days of my life I wish had been 20 years ago!”

Talent ID department leader, Premier League Club

The finale of the entire program was a 3 day ‘exercise’, designed to test all that the delegates had been taught throughout the program. bridge][ability was employed to write the exercise and deliver it. The FA wanted to replicate the fast moving and often unpredictable nature of the football world; this was a real bonus for us. It meant that we could run the scenario continuously over the 3 day period and really test the delegates’ ability to work under pressure and make decisions in a fast moving environment whilst experiencing all of the pressures they might expect in their ‘day jobs’. The scenario placed them in a fictitious club as the TID department. They were required to plan for the department’s future in all resources areas – traditionally they would have focussed on the players, (possibly) the money and little else, but we wanted them to consider, more broadly, how they were going to deliver over the coming season and beyond. The exercise was made all the more demanding by the addition of last minute information and unpredictable changes in requirement and timings. Three long days of planning, negotiation, resource management and moral ambiguity were concluded with a formal presentation to the club’s new owners, which would test their ability to communicate their ideas and gain support for them. For most, these 3 days of ‘testing’ were the zenith of the program.

Outcome.

We are surprised on a weekly and sometimes daily basis just how impactful our work has been. Those members of club TID departments that have attended the program are always keen to share their experiences; particularly when they achieve something they had not anticipated. In their world success tends to mean spending less and getting more. All the evidence that we have received from our former delegates has confirmed that they are certainly achieving both of those things. We have also been reassured by the fact that those people and clubs who have worked with us are now more prepared to be ambitious in their decision making and negotiations as they feel well prepared for the sorts of challenges that many would avoid.

Of course self-praise is no praise, but allow us a single indulgence. One former delegate who secured a very favourable package with his employers was overheard saying:

“if I hadn’t met those guys from bridge][ability, I wouldn’t have got anything like this – they made me stop, think and consider what I was going to do before I did it – I’ve never done that before!”.

change, FA, influencing, international, negotiation, planning