The Challenge
Emma and Wright Medical tried other training methods and other training providers. Something wasn’t working. Wright Medical had amazing people in sales leadership roles, but they weren’t getting the kind of training they needed. The leadership team experienced difficulties making the transition from being great sales people to being great sales managers. The skills required were different and the new role demanded a different mindset too if Wright Medical were to deliver the required results. We required our sales leaders to excel in their role through providing the right encouragement and support to the salespeople via management and coaching competences. We needed them to be adaptable, supportive, resilient and be able to give tweak their approach for each individual in their team.
Emma and Leigh connected via social media, met, and came up with ‘The Plan’
The Leadership Development Plan (The ‘Original’ Plan!)
Leigh and Emma agreed to roll out a three month Sales Leadership Programme to some 30 of Wright Medical’s worldwide Sales Leaders including Regional Sales Managers and National Sales Managers.
- Initial live training delivery to three sales leadership groups in Barcelona
- Followed by a series of Group Coaching sessions targeted to leaders from each country
- Final live training delivery to the three sales leadership groups in the UK
Viva Barcelona! “3 days of amazing training”
Initial sessions took place as planned in Barcelona, with an immediate positive impact. The sales leaders loved the sessions and jumped quickly on board to embrace the growth mindset concepts and methodologies which were core to the programme. The leaders left Barcelona with strategies they could immediately adapt to transform how they managed their teams, their role generally…and in their own lives. Back in their various locations the language and environments were already suggesting positive change.
Covid!
The second phase of the Sales Leadership Programme commenced with the group coaching sessions, using Zoom. These small group sessions allowed deeper exploration of the programme objectives against the specific requirements of those leaders present. These sessions proved extremely valuable and many breakthroughs ensued.
When Covid-19 hit, with varying degrees of impact on Wright Medical’s worldwide sales leadership teams, a major rethink was required. It soon became clear that live in-the-room training was not an option for many months. With no way of knowing what might lie ahead, we agreed to go ahead and adopt the programme ready to be delivered solely in bite-sized chunks over Zoom.
We continued rolling out the programme on Zoom to the various worldwide groups of sales leaders. And in between carry on with the short group coaching sessions on Zoom too! The Zoom sessions proved very effective especially having shorter sessions and with mixed groups from various points in the world.
The Takeover of Wright Medical
The takeover had been in progress several months…since October 2019 so the programme was initiated in a time of some uncertainty. When the acquisition went through, the programme came into its own as it was giving the sales leaders the tools and resources they would need to survive and thrive in what would be an ongoing period of uncertainty. The leaders had all the tools they needed, mindset, positive approach to manage themselves and also to manage and coach their team members through a period of personal potential uncertainty and in an international pandemic.
One to one Coaching
With uncertainty continuing Emma at Wright Medical created a bespoke programme of resources and support which Wright Medical sales leaders and sales people could access to assist with their mental health levels. Leigh became one of the coaches and assisted with this programme for three months, in addition to the continuing group coaching and training sessions. Leigh was able to provide valuable one to one support, offering coaching and new perspectives for Wright Medical employees who accessed the support – and became an integral part of the acquisition integration process and beyond.
Ongoing Training and Support
Leigh will be working with the new owners – Stryker – delivering similar training programmes to ensure that the merging teams and managers get to know each other and integrate seamlessly.
