Leisure East Devon (LED) delivers leisure, health and wellbeing activities throughout East Devon and South Somerset, in partnership with East Devon County Council (EDDC) and South Somerset County Council (SSDC). Their portfolio includes 14 leisure centres, two hospitality venues, a theatre, and airport food and beverage outlets.

The Challenge

Due to the entrepreneurial drive of the CEO, LED had a diverse portfolio but was challenged by the systems, processes and people required to deliver. A new strategy needed to be created to secure further funding from EDDC and ensure the organisation's sustainability. When I met the small ELT Team, I could see they each had different working styles. Although the larger SLT team were highly experienced operationally, there was a strategic development opportunity. They needed an objective person to facilitate their strategic thinking, who could support with developing their people, to create a clearer direction for the organisation that all the team could get behind with renewed focus and certainty.

The Solution

Working first with the ELT, we agreed on how they wanted to work together to create their strategy and developed a road map for strategy development. In recognition that the ELT didn’t have the capacity or the desire to develop the strategy alone, we explored how we could engage the larger SLT and use this as a potential development opportunity.

My unbiased expertise supported a series of Vision and Values workshops with both ELT and SLT. Here we secured not only the organisation's vision and values but also identified the Strategic Themes, each led by a member of the SLT with a steering group of people representing different parts of the organisation.

Using my coaching skills, I supported the Theme Leads individually and as a group to assist them in successfully facilitating their Steering Group Meetings and producing their thematic strategy using a template I supplied.

Crucially, phasing needed to be planned so that not everything landed at once to enable the organisation to absorb the changes at a manageable rate. I was able to plot interdependencies with the teams and support this part of the process whilst also creating a balanced scorecard of measures for the strategy to be able to identify success.

The Impact

Increased confidence and effective leadership skills in strategic thinking across the leadership teams.
Greater collaborative and cross-functional working resulting in a cohesive shared vision underpinned by an agreed set of values.
Greater staff engagement creating a strategy that is owned by staff and supported by stakeholders
Creation of an aspirational and robust strategy, setting the organisation up for success for the next 3 years.

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