THE CHALLENGE

We partnered with a newly formed leadership team within a regional council.

The team was responsible for a broad range of asset management functions across multiple asset classes. Its work was important to the council’s operations, but as a relatively new team, it was still developing its collective identity, ways of working, and profile across the organisation.

The team needed to build credibility with stakeholders across different departments and navigate the complexity of working across functional boundaries. This required more than technical expertise. It required shared leadership, effective collaboration, and a stronger sense of how the team could work together to increase its organisational impact.

Internally, the team was also still forming. Team members needed a shared understanding of their individual work styles, collective strengths, collaboration patterns, and resilience as a leadership group. Without this shared foundation, it was harder to establish consistent behaviours, communicate effectively, and respond well to the pressures that come with managing an enterprise-level function in an asset-intensive environment.

The challenge was to help the team find its footing: to strengthen trust, clarify how it wanted to work together, and build the confidence and capability to engage more effectively across the organisation.

THE SOLUTION

We designed and facilitated a tailored team development process focused on insight, trust, resilience, and practical stakeholder engagement.

The work began with discovery. We conducted one-on-one interviews with team members to understand their experiences, challenges, strengths, and aspirations for the team. We also undertook a stakeholder audit, using interviews and a tailored survey to better understand stakeholder needs and perceptions.

To build individual and collective insight, we administered and debriefed the WorkPlace Big Five Profile™ and the Resilience at Work® personal workplace resilience profile. We also used the Resilience at Work® Team profile to help the team explore its collective resources and understand the factors that supported resilience at a team level.

These insights informed a series of facilitated workshops. The workshops gave the team structured time to reflect on individual work styles, team dynamics, trust, belonging, identity, collaboration, and resilience. Rather than treating team development as a generic exercise, the process focused on the specific behaviours and relationships the team needed to strengthen in order to work well together and increase its impact.

We also supported the team to develop a stakeholder engagement strategy and implementation plan. This helped the team think more deliberately about who it needed to influence, how it could build stronger relationships across the organisation, and how to communicate the value of its asset management function more clearly.

To support the team beyond the workshop environment, we provided follow-up coaching sessions. These sessions created space for leaders to troubleshoot emerging challenges, reflect on progress, and apply their learning in the context of day-to-day work.

THE RESULTS

The project gave the leadership team a clearer foundation for working together and increasing its impact across the organisation.

Through the assessment and workshop process, team members developed a deeper understanding of their individual styles, collective strengths, and shared resilience. This helped create more open conversations about how the team worked, where it was already strong, and where it needed to be more deliberate.

The team also developed a clearer sense of identity and purpose. As a newly formed group responsible for a significant organisational function, this shared identity provided an important foundation for building trust, strengthening collaboration, and presenting a more coherent presence to stakeholders.

The stakeholder engagement strategy gave the team a more structured approach to building relationships across the council. It helped clarify which relationships mattered most, what stakeholders needed from the team, and how the team could communicate its role and contribution more effectively.

The coaching support helped leaders continue applying the work in practice, giving them space to reflect on challenges, adapt their approach, and maintain focus as the team continued to develop.

By creating these foundations, the team was better equipped to strengthen its ways of working, build credibility with stakeholders, and contribute more effectively to the council’s asset management outcomes.