I received a request from a Fortune 250 tech company that seemed simple on the surface - develop and implement a new people platform that would be used by all of our 60,000 global employees. A complex, but straightforward, ask.

​

Once introduced to the stakeholders on the implementation team, some interesting challenges surfaced. The team had been attempting to implement the software they developed for two years, but had failed to roll the program out to even the first country. There was analysis paralysis, disagreements between team members, and morale was very low.

​

I knew the first step to making sure this implementation would go well was to address what was causing the team to feel so stressed. The first step was to take time separately with each team member, and get to know them. What motivated them? What made them lose trust in their colleagues?

​

In many disagreements, each party has their goals, and see the other's goals as opposite to theirs. They often fail to talk about what is important to them, so it never gets addressed. Through my conversations with the team, I was able to surface what each stakeholder's top priority was, and share them among the group. It gave the team an opportunity to align on a common vision that allowed the team to begin to trust each other once again.

​

Progress on the implementation started to pick up speed in earnest. Through regular coaching conversations with the product owner, and recommendations on how to support the team better, a stronger sense of psychological safety prevailed, and decisions were now able to be debated and arrived at more quickly.

​

In the end, the program was successfully implemented across eighteen countries after two years of work, aligning people processes and procedures for the first time since the company's global expansion, creating bandwidth capture for local HR teams and driving greater compliance to the law.