Get clear on priorities. Keep the team aligned.

The Story

The new leader joined at a time of industry and organizational upheaval. The leadership team had become siloed and weary. How to energize the organization’s leaders around a new vision of the future? How to get them to put the organization first rather than operating as a collection of functions? The organization’s long history indicated that it wouldn’t be easy.

The Solution

The leader knew external coaching and facilitation would be needed if change was to happen. The process started with listening to each leader individually, mapping of alignment and then an all team ‘pitstop workshop’.

In one and a half days the leaders worked through tensions, crafted a shared definition of success and identified five strategic priorities for the next three years. The team immediately felt energized and unburdened. Others in the organization soon noticed a different, more united and purposeful team.

The team’s new cohesion was consolidated over time with regular pitstop-style check-ins on priorities, progress, obstacles, etc. The process was cascaded to other teams to achieve organization-wide impact.

The Story

Caught up in the busyness of the day-to-day leaders had little time to think. Everything seemed urgent and ineffective internal meetings and processes were a constant drain. After years of restructuring how to re-energize the leadership around growth? It was time for the annual Leadership Conference, how to make the event a seminal moment for the team?

The Solution

The new regional president had crafted ambitious plans, but had he gotten too far ahead of the rest of the leadership team. Before coming together for the week-long annual Leadership Conference it was important to check.

We listened to each leader - mapped their alignment and gathered their perspectives re the strategy. This shaped the agenda, conversation and goals for a conference (facilitated in pitstop-style) to deliver on the leaders goal for clarity and alignment, plus a mechanism to translate that alignment into a roadmap for execution on a set of key strategic priorities linked to success.

The Story

Free of legacy systems, new Fintech players could rapidly launch products and variations tailored to distinct customer groups. To compete, the industry leader launched a program to integrate eight systems into one platform (budget of approximately $4 million) in a timescale one-third of the previous norm. It would require spanning silos, with marketing, compliance, technical teams and other functions collaborating like never before. But could it be done?

The Solution

In pitstop-fashion, marketing, compliance, technology and business functions crafted a shared definition of success and a shared set of priorities. They identified the key dependencies, success factors and risks, and agreed how they needed to work together.

The result was a shift from separate functions acting independently to a team taking shared ownership of delivery. With a robust delivery program and a united voice, they could communicate more confidently with stakeholders about progress and deadlines.

The Story

The team had no time to move gradually through the usual stages of forming, storming and norming. Scientific and commercial colleagues, working across functions and time zones, needed to see the opportunities and challenges through each other’s eyes and act as one.

Competing priorities, relentless meetings and scarce resources made the task harder. In a traditionally hierarchical organization undergoing significant change, how could the team collaborate effectively and keep the launch on track?

The Solution

The team developed a shared definition of success and a compelling reason for the work, together with clarity on priorities, deliverables and what they would require. Scientific and commercial colleagues gained a better understanding of each other’s perspectives and the challenges they faced.

They also agreed how to work together more effectively: reducing time lost to poor collaboration and ineffective meetings, while presenting a united front to stakeholders and managing organizational noise.

The approach attracted attention at the highest levels. A senior executive highlighted the team as a model for future product launches—a surprising demonstration of what some call “big pharma muscle and biotech reflexes.”

The Story

AI offered the possibility of overcoming some longstanding technology challenges. Yet leaders were grappling with pilots and projects at different stages, questions about how to measure success, and concerns about how their people would respond.

Past technology initiatives had taught them that success requires more than a technical solution. How could they connect AI to business priorities and build ownership across the organization, rather than leave delivery to IT alone?

The Solution

In a Pitstop-style workshop, leaders pooled their experiences and road-tested their AI strategies and teams against the challenges ahead. They explored the key success factors and risks involved in moving from AI pilots to business success.

Together, they considered how to prioritize business problems, manage expectations and strengthen the IT–business alignment and cross-functional collaboration needed to turn AI’s potential into results.

The Story

After successive restructures and efficiency drives, people were wary of further change. They had become protective of their areas, concerned that more cuts could undermine their ability to do important work.

Questions about which team, leader or agenda would dominate created tension and distracted attention from the market. In a culture where people were often described as “too nice,” how could the teams address those concerns openly and put the organization’s needs first?

The Solution

The teams came together in Pitstop fashion, through face-to-face and online workshops. Expert facilitation created an environment where people could say what they were really thinking and embrace the tensions that needed to be addressed.

By listening to different perspectives, they discovered common ground, surfaced concerns and built understanding. Together, they reconciled differing views of success and priorities, and agreed a roadmap with first steps, early milestones and a plan for communicating progress to stakeholders.

The Story

Leaders were juggling multiple projects and priorities, with everything appearing important and urgent. New initiatives kept being added, but few came off the list. It felt like project whack-a-mole.

Meanwhile, meetings, emails and stakeholder demands crowded out strategic work. Even project names meant different things to different people. How could leaders make the trade-offs needed to focus scarce resources where they mattered most?

The Solution

The starting point was a shared definition of success. Leaders then clarified what each priority meant, its scope and its connection to the strategy.

Together, they made choices about what mattered most, rather than simply trying to schedule more work into an already full agenda. This allowed resources and energy to flow towards the most important initiatives.

People felt a sense of relief at a more manageable workload. Confidence in milestones and deliverables began to return, along with a growing sense of momentum.