Keyfacts:
- Individual management audits in the IT sector using the Business Review methodology developed by managerberater.
- The target group comprised managers on the first and second reporting level below the Executive Board.
- The process provided a comprehensive assessment of strategic competence as well as operational capability and entrepreneurial mindset.
- Benefit: Intensive sparring for senior managers and a high level of insight for all parties involved – with strong acceptance of results due to the professional and methodological “peer-level” approach within the diagnostic process.
Challenge:
Following a reorganisation and repositioning in the market, our client – an internationally operating IT company – decided to conduct a management audit for leaders at the first and second reporting level below the Executive Board. The aim was to identify development and support needs resulting from the new strategic direction and to derive targeted measures for the managers involved.
In designing and implementing the initiative, it was particularly important to the client to create maximum distance from conventional assessment approaches.
Solution:
As the participant group consisted of experienced managers from various European and North African countries, we adopted an approach that appropriately acknowledged and took into account the leaders’ professional backgrounds, age, and (life) achievements. In our experience, seasoned managers have no reservations about audits as long as they are conducted on an equal footing and reflect their professional reality.
In the business reviews we carried out – full-day individual audit sessions – participants presented their area of responsibility, its (business) development over recent years, their strategic approaches, their understanding of management, and their underlying attitude towards the leadership process. These perspectives were explored and discussed in an intensive disputation throughout the day.
A biographical interview and a questionnaire developed by us (“Leadership Behaviour Inventory”) completed the diagnostic setting.
At the end of each business review, we shared our observations and documented feedback with the participants in a detailed closing session. This ensured transparency of information and, at the same time, enabled us to jointly verify the substantive outcomes together with the managers involved.
Outcome:
Using this tailored approach, we were able to provide our client with a fact-based and comprehensive assessment of the key dimensions relevant to them: strategic competence, operational capability, and entrepreneurial mindset. Dimensions more personality-related were captured as secondary observations.
The extensive documentation ensured that the findings of the evaluation were clearly traceable and reproducible, thereby forming a solid and transparent basis for any subsequent measures. All participating managers attested to the high degree of practical relevance, fairness, and transparency of this procedure, which resulted in the broadest possible acceptance of the outcomes.
