Success Stories. Lasting Impact.

The Need

A global industrial and commercial equipment manufacturer, long known for strong internal leadership and a robust promote-from-within culture, recognized that it needed a sharper, future-focused leadership profile to accelerate its global expansion strategy. The company wanted to define the capabilities its leaders would need 5–10 years out, identify high-potential talent against those capabilities, and create targeted development plans to prepare them for larger, more complex roles worldwide.

What We Did

We helped design the company’s “Leader of the Future” initiative, updating and expanding its leadership competency framework to align with the new strategy. We then designed and conducted a rigorous assessment process for waves of senior leaders and potential successors, combining in-depth interviews, critical-incident feedback from managers, peers, and direct reports, and online assessments of personal characteristics and derailers. Assessment results were then debriefed with each leader, followed by facilitated development planning discussions that included the person’s manager, a sponsoring C-level executive, and an executive coach.

The Result

The program brought new rigor, structure, and precision to the company's approach to identifying and developing its future leaders, especially at the top of the organization. Leaders received highly actionable, “in‑the‑moment” development plans; senior executives became more directly and intentionally engaged in developing potential successors; and the CEO and senior team gained a clearer understanding of leaders’ growth potential and best-fit next roles, improving both succession planning and global talent deployment.

The Need

This global integrated oil and gas corporation needed to strengthen its leadership pipeline for its top 200 leadership roles. The Executive Committee recognized that traditional, job-based succession planning was not reliably producing leaders capable of succeeding in rapid-growth, mature-operations, renewal, and turnaround contexts across diverse regions and cultures and needed an experience-based roadmap that clarified which developmental assignments high-potential leaders must complete at each stage of their career to be considered credible successors for critical roles.

What We Did

We developed a global leadership framework that addressed the company’s business challenges and the capabilities needed to address them. Working with senior executives and HR, we identified “must-have” stretch assignments at each career stage and embedded them in the company’s global succession planning process: early-career assignments focused on operational credibility and people leadership through frontline supervisory roles and cross-functional team experience; mid-career assignments emphasized cross-disciplinary breadth, international exposure, and running a business with a well-defined P&L; and senior-level assignments required leading a large business unit, setting up a new organization, or turning around a failing business.

The Result

By redefining readiness in terms of successfully-completed developmental assignments rather than job titles alone, the company established a transparent, objective standard for succession decisions. High-potential leaders saw clear development paths that signaled exactly what it takes to be considered a serious candidate for top roles. At the same time, the organization benefited from a stronger, globally-ready talent bench for its most critical positions.

The Need

A prominent nonprofit academic medical center was facing rapid change in healthcare and increasing competitive and structural pressures, and recognized that its senior leaders needed stronger, shared capabilities to navigate change and execute the mission more effectively. The CEO believed he had a good team that was not yet operating as a cohesive, high‑performing leadership group and asked for support to clarify leadership expectations, raise individual effectiveness, and strengthen collaboration. 

What We Did 

We structured a multi‑phase engagement, beginning with leadership competencies grounded in the organization’s strategy and institutional challenges. We then implemented a 360-degree review that included self‑assessments, peer and direct‑report interviews, CEO input, and a conflict‑style appraisal. Building on this foundation, we conducted group feedback sessions, provided one‑on‑one coaching, and facilitated a series of off‑site and quarterly team‑development meetings for two connected executive groups to build trust, clarify priorities, and practice new ways of working together.

The Result 

The leadership team moved from being guarded, skeptical, and accustomed to unproductive off‑site meetings to demonstrating clear behavioral shifts, stronger relationships, more open and honest dialogue, and visible collaboration across the executive group. The CEO’s aspiration to have “stars who play together” began to be realized, with coaches and participants noting a dramatic difference between the first and later sessions, and the organization choosing to maintain support to sustain the momentum.