Background and objectives

Reddie and Grose are a leading European IP law firm. We were approached by Vanessa King IP Operations Director at Reddie and Grose to create a programme of support across two key teams in the firm – the formalities team and the secretarial team

The objectives of the programme were to

• develop the management skills of those overseeing different teams
• give team members their own support and empower them to get the most out of their working relationships
• bring each department together to explore effective team working – within and across different teams

Our solution

We worked closely with Vanessa and Claire (head of the secretarial team) to design an interactive programme which supported everyone

• we used Belbin Team Roles to raise awareness around the different contribution that everyone makes in a team environment. The learning from these workshops was then picked up in the team and line manager programmes
• we supported each department to create a Team Charter – linked to the Firm’s newly created values. We helped to create and support a Team Charter group with people drawn from different teams and with different levels of experience to lead on the charter creation
• we ran a follow up workshop specifically for non managers to develop their skills in building effective working relationships and looking at practical ways they could take responsibility for their own development
• we ran a programme of workshops for all those in line manager positions covering core skills, such as creating effective feedback conversations, coaching team members and holding effective one to ones. A pre and post programme skills assessment helped everybody to see the progress they had made

Outcomes

• 55 people took part in the programme overall – creating consistent messages across the whole department around roles and responsibilities, taking ownership, supporting each other and using each other’s strengths
• 19  line managers took part – again creating a consistent approach to supervising and managing across both teams
• The repeat of the skills assessment at the end of the programme showed all line managers increased their skills and confidence scores as a result of the workshops
• The Team Charters are being embedded into the day to day people processes such as Induction, One to ones, Team meetings and Performance reviews
• Regular one to ones have been implemented and are consistently taking place
• There is a more collaborative approach between line managers and their team members and between teams which is already resulting in more ideas being put forward and implemented. One great example of this is the Cambridge team coming down to work with the London teams on a regular basis

Claire / Vanessa commented “Having worked with Focal Point in previous roles, we knew their approach would be the highly practical one we needed to equip our people with tools and techniques that they could use straight away. The work on the Team Charters has really helped to bring the Values to life and given people a sense of ownership over the sort of culture they want in their teams.  Everyone has been really proud of this and we are exploring how we can showcase this to the rest of the firm.

We have seen a real growth in confidence in our line managers in managing their teams. They are taking a much more consultative approach and this is helping with greater engagement.

We have also really appreciated the feedback between sessions to help us to follow up internally and the post programme meeting to sum up all the outcomes and ideas to feed into future development planning ”