MJA’s work with Infineum developed over several years and centred on an idea the organisation described as unleashing our full capabilities.
The phrase captured something more fundamental than individual development. To deliver its strategy, Infineum needed leaders to work differently through other people: creating clarity, inspiring and motivating colleagues, connecting individual goals with strategic direction and helping people contribute more of what they were capable of.
A leadership model provided the language, but the challenge was turning that model into a different leadership culture. MJA worked with Infineum on the wider leadership architecture and on practical experiences through which leaders could understand what the model meant in their own roles.
The Organisational Excellence Workshops were one expression of that approach. Leaders arrived having reflected on how they actually spent their time. They explored the strategic case for leadership, worked through realistic people-leadership situations and considered the organisational conditions that made it easier or harder to unleash capability.
Crucially, the work was not positioned as something HR should deliver to the organisation. Senior leaders were expected to lead the conversation themselves. The proposed workshops were facilitated by the CEO and VP HR, signalling that leadership behaviour was a business issue and that the change needed visible sponsorship from the top.
The journey connected individual leadership, team performance and organisational capability. Models and programmes provided scaffolding, but culture would ultimately be shaped by what leaders repeatedly paid attention to, reinforced and role-modelled.