The Team Journey from Good to Great: Creating a High-Performing Team at CooperVision

CooperVision is transforming the contact lens market, conducting extensive optical science research and designing and manufacturing high-quality lenses. 

Rapid market and business growth demands an agility and commerciality of its leaders to come together to tackle challenges. Individually, they need to be capable but also need to be capable of even more when operating as a team. Its regionally-based finance leadership teams are no different. 

The EMEA finance leadership team has long since recognised the need to go beyond that of the traditional finance operation and partner with the commercial pillars of the business.

CoDevelop Consulting was already working with the extended team at CooperVision and had previously coached some of its leaders. Therefore, it was an obvious choice to explore how they might support the EMEA finance leadership team on its development journey.

Richard Cheshire, Head of Finance, EMEA, comments: “Separately, each of our finance leaders have exceptional skills. However, as a team, we knew we lacked the strong dynamic required to deliver what the growing business needed. In short, our total was less than the sum of the parts. We had to think differently and change how we operated as a group.” 

Jo Sponder, Senior HR Business Partner (EMEA Commercial), adds: “It’s about our teams being future-ready and making the shift from good to great. We need to help our teams realise their potential and become the high-performing teams that the business needs.”

At the root of CoDevelop’s approach to development is a journey. 

At the start of any project, it is the Discovery Stage which aims to unearth some of the fundamental issues and gather the perspectives and opinions across the team. We held conversations with each of the leaders individually to understand their views of how the team operates currently.

A standard eight questions were asked of all team members and her assessment of what was working well – and not so well – was then highlighted in the Discovery Report. 

From the report, CoDevelop proposed the outline of a two-day, off-site workshop to lay the foundations of a stronger, more futureproofed team. The start point would be to create a shared understanding of each other and their contribution and also to establish a team purpose. Tools provided self-insight and a means to scaffold the conversation.

Claire Osborn of CoDevelop comments:

“The team shared a commitment to improvement. However, time and again, each person told us of the need to rethink how the team work together and to develop a common and shared purpose.

It seemed that the team members each wanted different things and measured success differently. One practical area that needed addressing was the perceived inefficiency of meetings and how time is allocated to discussing the right issues.”

CoDevelop has a range of both proprietary and standardised exercises and tools that enable a greater self-awareness and draw from the CoDevelop Model of a High-Performing Team. 

Claire introduced the team to Motivational Maps®. This is a self-report measure that pinpoints an individual’s motivators and drivers. Powerful when used individually, it takes on additional value when the results are shared with each other, providing a foundation and common language about motivations. 

Other exercises uncovered more about each leader, their lives and their challenges. Together, they acted as a catalyst to conversations around how the lived experiences of each might translate into how they show up at work.

At the root of the two-day workshop was establishing the trust between the team to share, discuss and move forward. Trust is a challenge for all teams within all organisations and Claire chose to introduce the team to the Trust Equation – one of the most useful tools to understand this challenge.

Individually, the team had shared with Claire that it lacked collaboration and the commitment to tackling those thorny and complex problems faced by the business. Research shows that this is not unusual for teams in general. 

Richard comments:

“We came to the workshop knowing that we were a team of individuals who were not quite gelling, and with a desire for positive change. 

“The tools gave us structure and a language to share. At times, it was uncomfortable. But the tools helped us to understand the motivating factors that we all brought to the table and, importantly, to then explore any potential conflicts between ourselves and our drivers.

It meant we were able to better appreciate each other’s perspectives and to start breaking down any barriers arising from a lack of understanding.”

Claire explains:

“Drawing from studies into the development of teams, I was able to hold up a mirror to this leadership team for them to see clearly that they were simply experiencing a typical journey of a team going through rapid change. 

“In my coaching and development work, I regularly see others experience ‘a-ha moments’. This was one such moment and it spurred these leaders into taking action.”

Meeting structure had come under fire during the Discovery Stage, so the leaders were keen to reimagine how these should work. 

Transforming the business requires issues – however tricky – to be faced and dealt with. It seemed this team was shying away from tackling these, spending time discussing some of the more operational and functional problems that could be managed outside of the group. These bigger, crucial and ‘wicked’ issues were being left unresolved. 

The team mapped out a rethought meeting structure which separated these wicked issues from the more operational. The new meeting structure meant that the right people would join specific and focused meetings. 

Business leaders outside of finance joined the now-called ‘Wicked’ meetings; leaders from commercial, operations, manufacturing and distribution. The team invited younger talent too in order to help develop their own internal talent pool.

A Common Team Purpose

The workshop was not simply about gaining self-insight and how the team might work together. It also helped to take forward their own thinking and moved the team on. It provided the space to develop a shared sense of purpose; one that they could all align behind. 

A second workshop was scheduled. Between the first and workshops, each leader was keen to continue to use the tools and techniques shared. And they went further. Encouraged by their initial insights, the team collectively decided to find a way to provide feedback on each other and their impact on the team.

On coming back together, the empathy-mapping exercise, which had proved so valuable in the initial workshop, was revisited so as to extend further their understanding of each other.

Claire explains: 

“Deciding to take this on themselves demonstrated how far the team had come. While I helped guide how to create the feedback tool, they developed, tweaked and produced it. They were taking ownership of their team’s development.”

A more cohesive leadership team with the confidence to bring together others when needed, a shared and agreed purpose and a better understanding of each other, delivers: 

• 
  Greater confidence by the team, in the team. Leaders have clarity about their purpose, their ability to focus on key issues and expand the team accordingly.
  
  
• A redefined meeting structure. Meetings have focus, meaning and resolution. They are more effective and efficient, and address the issues appropriately.
  
  
• A common purpose. The leadership team is aligned behind an agreed purpose.
  
  
• A greater appreciation of each other. Insights gained from the workshops and the ongoing use of the tools have enabled leadership to have greater cohesion and harmony.
  
  
• Defined and developed thinking. The tools helped progress the leaders’ thinking around how decisions could be made, and actions taken.
  
  

Growth plans for the business are on track. Support from an effective, agile and consistent leadership team and also decision-making processes enable the business transformation.

The Journey Continues

This was never simply a workshop that would cement the team – it was the start of a journey. Each leader continues to push to build a higher-performing team, recognising the need to keep sharing and talking. And they are keen to share their journey outside of their own finance arena. 

Claire sums up the journey to date:

“This leadership team had been stymied by their concern that their team was underperforming rather than appreciating that it was a normal stage of team development. They needed the tools, time, structure and language to understand each other – and a safe place in which to build trust. We gave them that. The real work though was from each individual choosing to share openly and to seek out feedback in order to move the team – and the business – forward.”