Leadership Coaching And Succession Planning For A Smooth Business Transition

Right people in the right roles - Bringing significant improvement to the organisational culture and team retention for the first time in the company’s 30-year history.

The Client

mcrIT is a family owned IT company based in North Sydney, Australia, providing innovative IT solutions to the government and corporate sectors as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. They had been in the business for nearly 28 years before meeting Peter Cox.

The Scope Of Work

In 2014, Harry Vakili was ready to step out of the day-to-day business operations and oversee the company as the Chairman of the Board.

It was his plan to appoint his son, Sam Vakili, as the CEO of mcrIT. So in the 8 years leading up to Harry’s ‘retirement’, Harry and Sam worked with Peter Cox to receive leadership mentoring to polish his leadership skills and develop a business transition plan. Doing this would ensure Sam could independently lead the day-to-day management and strategic direction of the company.

OUR APPROACH

As part of our succession planning services, we designed a mentoring program for Sam where we had a one-on-one session with him after every 4-6 weeks. This would give him a detailed insight into how he could lead his company in the right direction, improve organisational culture and retain his most talented and hard-wrorking team members.

In the monthly meeting with Sam and Harry, we would present them with a formalised written document. This document would highlight the key areas of progress they were making, and outline steps to take for further improvement.

The Challenges That We Overcame

The main challenge was to encourage Sam to work on his personal development as a CEO, rather than just polishing his leadership and sales skills. For that, Sam needed to demonstrate extreme self-discipline with the Leadership Dynamics process and actively contribute to the company’s betterment, so he could strengthen his influence within the organisation and build the team’s desire to work under his supervision.

THE OUTCOME

Now that Sam is the CEO of mcrIT, he has made a considerable effort in appointing the right people for the right roles. As a result:

The company is making significant progress, consistently breaking records and exceeding its monthly and annual sales budgets.
The growth of Managed Services that they provide has brought greater stability to the revenue generation for the business.
They have refined their employee recruitment and retention process leading to zero employee turnover in 24 months, which was the first time in the company’s 30-year history, serving in a highly competitive market.
There has been greater clarity in the communication and coordination among the board members since they have formalised their communication process.

All these changes have made a remarkable impact on the business operations, enabling Sam to emerge as a promising leader with a highly-motivated and sincere team that loves working under his supervision.

THE CHANGES WE WOULD HVE MADE IF WE COULD START THIS PROJECT FROM THE BEGINNING

If we were given the opportunity to start the project all over again, we would have invested in the leadership training of the top 20% of the business i.e. the higher management and the key members of the organisation, preparing them to lead the team in the right direction for improved performance and a positive organisational culture.

Top 4 Accomplishments We Are Most Proud Of

After the implementation of business succession planning:

Sam is now leading the company as the new CEO, overcoming challenges and unlocking new opportunities for growing their business.
mcrIT has created a new revenue stream through the provision of Managed Services and is impacting the IT industry by introducing something that is of a high delivery standard.
The company had zero employee turnover for 2 years straight, and that too in a highly competitive market.
The most significant achievement that has overshadowed all the rest was being asked by the Vakili family to serve as an Advisor on their Board.

The mentoring sessions by Leadership Dynamics are helping businesses streamline their succession planning processes through effective team-building strategies and pinpointing areas that need improvement, so the organisations keep thriving under the emerging leadership, leading to massive growth in all areas.

If you want your organisation to benefit from our leadership coaching programs, give us a call.