Case Study – Joint Venture Project Team
Leadership Creativity was contacted by an executive from a tier one civil construction business looking for support for a Joint Venture Project. It was evident that the project was having some serious challenges:
- deadlines were being missed
- the customer relationship was strained
- the project leadership team were in a state of discord and not working together
- the performance of the overall project team was lower than desired
•there was a level of political misalignment between the senior management of the two JV businesses - this was creating high levels of stress and frustration for everyone involved
Senior management from both JV organisations were concerned about their ability to satisfactorily complete the project. They engaged us to provide external support for the leadership team with the outcome to improve alignment and performance.
The first step was to speak with each of the leaders individually to understand their perception of the challenges they were facing and what it would take for the situation to improve. The positive news was that there was high commonality in the findings across the good, the bad and the ugly. This meant they were clear on the issues, just not how to align as leaders to resolve them.
We proposed a program to align the team and bring the project back on track: a combination of individual coaching for senior leaders along with a series of workshops for the leaders and wider team.
The first workshops developed alignment by redefining the common purpose, vision, values and objectives for the project. The entire project team then agreed to hold each other accountable to a set of behaviours underpinning the purpose, vision and values. A plan was developed to roll this out across the entire project team to reset and uplift the team culture.
In parallel, the senior leaders undertook one-on-one coaching to support them to improve their leadership performance. They learned alternate strategies, skills and approaches to overcome the challenges they faced. They developed capabilities in maintaining a positive and open culture where everyone felt valued, respected and trusted to do their job.
A series of masterclasses was also delivered to the leaders across the project to uplift their skills and capabilities in deal with the situation that arise on a project like this.
The final ingredient was a whole of project full day workshop for the team to raise their concerns, work through solutions, do some team building activities and perform a reset across the project culture.
The improvements were felt within weeks. Delivery improved, moving back on track to schedule. The relationships within the project team were far more positive and productive, the team were enjoying working on the project again. There were of course some bumps along the way, however with the renewed enthusiasm, teamwork, and agreed approaches to managing conflict these were overcome with minimal impact.
The team were able to complete delivery of the project with a very successful outcome.
Are you looking for support with a challenging JV project leadership team? Contact us now to learn how we can help align the leadership team on your JV project.