Setting Shared Priorities for Accelerated Execution at a High-Growth Fintech Company
Situation
After a decade of rapid growth and unprecedented success, the CEO of a highly innovative fintech company found himself facing a classic tension – invest in innovation or drive operational efficiency in the core business? With a “can do” culture and significant success under their belts, the executive team committed to both, but soon found that the technology resources needed to support these two distinct priorities were stretched thin and that the broader organization was suffering under the load of too many “key” priorities – many of which were in conflict with one another.
The team agreed that “priority overload” was causing overall execution to falter and agreed that it was time to make some hard trade-off decisions. They wanted to come together and set a narrower and more focused execution agenda.
Challenge
- This company’s largest market was experiencing a major tightening for the first time in a decade
- The company operated in a highly regulated industry, subject to numerous compliance mandates outside of their direct control
- New hires to the executive team didn’t have the data to understand the inter-relationships between key initiatives and relative impact of trade off decisions
- The executive team had been operating in functional and business unit silos and didn’t have a clear process for aligned and connected strategy development
Resolution
To help the team navigate this critical inflection point, Trium was engaged to support the team in having new and different dialogues than the type they were accustomed to.
- The first phase of our work together focused on a comprehensive inquiry and diagnostic process with the entire leadership team and the board to identify the biggest opportunities to unlock organizational performance and enhance team dynamics
- Concurrently, we began an intensive 1:1 coaching process with the CEO to support him as he evolved his leadership approach
- The work culminated in the design and delivery of a two-day strategy-focused offsite that also created space for establishment of new and deeper relationships
During our time together, the executive team was able to distill and align on a set of enterprise-wide critical strategic priorities for near-term execution, providing unprecedented clarity on the path forward. The team was also able to resolve a number of open questions that had been plaguing them for some time, and to frame a set of key initiatives to make progress against their shared priorities. Perhaps most importantly, each leader left the offsite with a sense that they were part of a team that was fully committed not only to the company, but to each other’s success.
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