Edgecumbe was approached by Stripe’s Chairman back in 2016. Stripe was in the early stages of its expansion from a small consultancy start-up and experiencing some common ‘growing pains’. The leadership team were struggling to relinquish day-to-day management and delivery of client work and support the next layer of managers to step up, so that they could in turn focus on developing the business.

There were tensions within the leadership team and in the wider business; everyone was feeling stretched, and this was starting to impact relationships, communication across the business and the ability to hold onto key talent.

We started by building the leadership team’s individual self-awareness; we provided feedback and coaching on the results of personality questionnaires and 360° feedback. This approach helped each team member understand where their strengths lie, why they find some things more taxing, and led them to identify things they are never likely to be great at or will be very costly for them to develop and maintain.

We then used the data from the individual assessments to identify collective strengths, weaknesses, overlaps and gaps in team capabilities by creating a Team Profile. Edgecumbe also observed a board meeting to understand how the team engaged with one another and what roles they naturally took on in a team setting. Through a facilitated team workshop, we shared and discussed our findings and the Team Profile, helping to shift the team’s focus from individual strengths and contributions to mutual awareness of collective capability.

It was through this process that the leadership team could clearly see their main challenge; several of them were in roles that were completely incompatible with their natural strengths. This was not only taking a toll on the individual leaders but had further implications for the rest of the business around them.