Levi Strauss & Co has a portfolio of 2,800 stores in 110 countries. Seth Ellison is the company’s EVP and President, Europe. When he joined in 2014, he could see the performance potential of the 22 business unit leaders in his European Leadership Team (E.L.T.) and knew that independent coaching would help unlock this. That’s when Leading Edge was invited in…
The Leading Edge team has helped many global organisations to maximise team performance. Each journey with each team is different, but we always star to understand their needs and discover their dynamics by spending time with the team Patrick Marr is Owner Director at Leading Edge. He explains how this approach helped everyone to be outcome focussed at Levi’s:
“The phrase ‘great partnerships start with great relationships’ isn’t just something we write on our website. We really get inside a business to discover, design and deliver solutions that matter and have a positive impact. I attended one of Levi’s E.L.T. meetings and asked the leader how many game-changing decisions they’d made during that s s to consider asking a few more challenging questions. Their responses were honest and candid, and that’s where the learning started and the team opened up to becoming even greater. “
Leading Edge Team Coaches created a development journey for Levi’s – with a clear beginning, middle and end – using our established model for Highly Effective Teams (H.E.T.).
Highly Effective Teams framework
H.E.T. does have its key parts but it’s not a formulaic model and there are no pre-prepared solutions. All Leading Edge Team Coaches must be able to – and do – wear different ‘hats’ so they can help teams to check the landscape, define their purpose, align the critical priorities, maximise strengths and relationships, enhance ways of working, and review and build. Our H.E.T. work with Levi’s was all about real business and designed to become ‘how we are around here’. An essential part of enabling transformation was helping the team to recognise how their preferences differ and therefore identify how they can work together most effectively
I am convinced that Highly Effective Teams has not only driven engagement but also created real leadership alignment in the organisation and enabled people to work more efficiently, absorbing more work with the same level of resource.”
- Hubert Van Nuvel - HR Director, Levi Strauss & Co
