Case Studies08 August 2024
St Andrews Aged Care
Todd Yourell | CEO
Industry: Aged Care
Scope of Work:
- Strategic Alignment
- Leadership Development
- Executive Coaching
The Opportunity
Elevate the Executive Leadership Team's capability and performance, so they can lead with clarity and confidence.
The Challenge
Beyond the brief, St Andrews' leadership team was operating less like one Executive Leadership Team and more like a group of small businesses sitting alongside each other. Individual members needed real capability growth, in emotional intelligence, operational excellence, delegation and communication, to make the leap from manager to confident executive leader, and Todd wanted a partner who understood the business and its people, not a generic leadership program.
The Approach
After exploring a few options, Todd chose Thriving Minds for how Gayle showed up: genuinely interested in the business and its people, easy to talk to, and arriving with well formed ideas rather than a generic pitch. Deeper exploratory conversations led to a bespoke six month program, Elevating Leadership Performance, built in three stages. Stage one, Teaming for Success, was a two day offsite building the team's charter and ways of working around their collective strengths, using the Strengths Profile diagnostic. Stage two laid the foundations of emotional intelligence, baselining each leader's strengths and growth areas with the MSCEIT diagnostic, and kicked off one to one executive coaching alongside it. Stage three, Coaching as a Leadership Style, built out the team's broader leadership toolkit with Coaching Australia. Two measures anchored the whole program: uniting the ELT behind a common purpose, vision and way of working, and growing their capability from manager, to leader, to confident C-suite executive.
“Gayle shone through, presenting Thriving Minds as the one with well presented ideas on how St Andrews could benefit, but above all, Gayle presented as the right fit for us. Gayle was interested in our business, interested in our people and was easy to communicate with.”
The Results & Impact
The ELT now has a team charter it reviews regularly to hold itself and each member accountable to the team's vision, and an architecture for testing whether ideas and decisions line up with the strategic plan and that internal vision, making sure the ELT gives its people the right clarity, climate and competence to succeed. The bigger shift has been cultural: St Andrews has moved from operating as a group of small businesses to genuinely operating as one, a change that helped the organisation absorb a new business unit with far less friction than it otherwise would have. Asked how likely he'd be to work with Thriving Minds again, or recommend them to a colleague, Todd scored both a perfect 10 out of 10.
“Partnering with Thriving Minds has provided St Andrews ELT with a much greater sense of teamwork within ourselves, as well as opened our eyes to our individual and collective strengths, a new way to view leadership, and importantly, helped each ELT member feel supported to move from a manager role into an executive C-suite role.”
Advice for anyone wishing to work with Thriving Minds
Thriving Minds has helped St Andrews be ready for a bright year ahead and an excellent future. We've already begun talking with Gayle about extending the partnership, for executive coaching and other organisational priorities too. It's been a genuinely fruitful partnership, and one we expect to keep going.
