SSE Case Study 2: Leadership Transformation at Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE)
This case study provides demonstrable evidence of VISION Consulting delivering a successful Leadership Transformation project to an organisation within the Utilities sector.
Background Challenge and VISION’s promise:
Ian Marchant, CEO, of Scottish and Southern Energy had declared that he would double the size of the company by 2016. In doing so, he was seeking that at least 75% of the new senior managers would come from within its current ranks. That required the development of 50 new leaders who could innovate and manage transformational business change.
Colin Hood, COO, and Jim McPhillimy, Head of Human Resources, admired the work that VISION had done in enhancing SSE’s customer service while cutting coordination waste from its processes. Given our performance, VISION was requested to bring our unique insights to develop the new generation of Scottish and Southern Leaders. They wanted leaders in the Scottish and Southern style. They sought leaders with rich characters who could step up to huge commitments with mastery.
Our Delivery Approach
VISION promised to grow the 50 managers who reported directly to the senior managers into highly aligned, efficient managers, who would cut waste and raise productivity dramatically. Beyond that, VISION promised that each of the managers would propose to lead a credible programme to achieve a benefit for Scottish and Southern Energy that seemed impossible then. In short, we promised they would initiate their own legendary story.
VISION held five six-monthly courses, monthly workshops and twice-monthly coaching. Two of the workshops focussed on Commitment-based Management™ and Execution to enable these leaders to cut waste and move quickly. The four other workshops focused on building leaders in the Scottish and Southern mould. They included workshops on:
Scottish and Southern legendary stories (to create ambition and an understanding of the content and character of leadership),
Taking a stand to achieve the impossible (where we got managers to move beyond accomplishing stretch targets to accomplishing context-changing transformations),
Listening for difference and building authentic trust (which enabled managers to understand their profound differences and build authentic trust on that basis),
Helping teams through their personal transformations (often a forgotten part of the change process; corporate transformation always requires strenuous personal transformation).
Each of the workshops took up relevant challenges and provided frameworks and exercises for dealing directly with the challenge.
Breakthrough Results
Colin Hood, COO, and Jim McPhillimy, HR Head, have expressed complete satisfaction.
They report that the workshops and coaching sessions were so profound and powerful, unique, and adapted to the Scottish and Southern culture that they are achieving extraordinary success with the participants. They have asked for an additional session to help the participants see how far they have come.
Colin Hood says that he now sees that this group of managers will transform the company as profoundly as he did when he moved it from a bureaucratic monopoly into the deregulated energy markets.
