Background

Advance Response International works with a number of multinational clients. Two of these were going through periods of significant cultural shift and needed help in managing the transition while strengthening organisational performance. Both clients are well established multinationals that entered the Serbian market through the acquisition of existing local production companies.

In 2009 we began our partnership with Carlsberg, a globally recognised beer brand, working with their regional talent pool on enhancing their leadership competencies and helping employees to embrace company values and competency models.

The Strauss Group produces and sells coffee, and we began working with them in 2014, again to help embed company values and competencies. Neither company had prior experience of Facet5. In both instances we made the initial contact with the client company to introduce our ideas and services.

When she was initially approached, the idea was to use Facet5 in recruitment to select a slightly different personality type for new employees; ones more naturally comfortable in this driven, commercial environment. With an increased need to be tougher dealing with clients when collecting money, it was felt that some additional impetus might be needed to help the current team to optimise all the opportunities they encountered.

Tools & Approach

The requirements of both clients were strongly behavioural in context, and they accepted our suggestion to use Facet5 personality profiling and Teamscape to raise self-awareness of individuals and their roles within teams to strengthen individual performance and resilience.

In our experience, Facet5 is usually a popular instrument with clients. It is user friendly, accessible in many languages, easy to understand and above all, allows a great depth of discussion of personality characteristics without speaking negatively about risks or limitations. The neutral and jargon-free language establishes a common way for participants to discuss personality tendencies without judgement, meaning communication between teams can be much more open as a result. In these instances, Facet5 was the ideal solution as it is focused on the natural work behaviour of an individual. Advantages and gaps could be easily seen and worked on through different methodologies.

The neutral and jargon-free language establishes a common way for participants to discuss personality tendencies without judgement.

With Carlsberg, we began by working with previously identified high talent potentials, starting with the Facet5 questionnaire and feedback, allowing us to work with participants to create an individual development plan, emphasising specific actions required within the workplace, with managers, peers and individually. This also involved identifying any required training for individuals.

With Strauss we followed a similar plan, starting with the senior management team. Development plans were made and top managers continued their development through ongoing coaching programs. In both cases we used the individual Facet5 questionnaires and feedback sessions in conjunction with TeamScape to consolidate the insights and form ongoing plans that whole teams, as well as individuals, were committed to following through.

Feedback sessions and management debriefs showed that the behaviours which Facet5 assesses are visible in the work environment.

Results

Having started working with the top talent and management teams for both clients, we were asked to roll the Facet5 approach out to other departments. For Carlsberg this meant working with supply chain, marketing and sales departments, and with Strauss it filtered down to middle management.

When we began the projects we encountered some scepticism among participants, but once they saw the depth and accuracy of the feedback, trust levels rose enormously and everyone bought into the Facet5 approach. Successfully, feedback sessions and management debriefs showed that the behaviours which Facet5 assesses are visible in the work environment, so they fully appreciated its validity. Also, the development projects created after using Facet5 were more specific and relevant for the individuals than any previous ones, so the clients continued using it. Because Facet5 helps people to understand where differences and misunderstandings really lie, it enables useful comparison of individual behaviours with organisational expectation, thereby helping to overcome any discrepancies in a more constructive way.

We have continued to work with Carlsberg as a loyal client ever since 2009 when our collaboration began. With Strauss, we have plans for continuing our partnership well into 2016 and beyond, developing all management levels competencies according to the Strauss group leadership competency model and followed up by internal cross functional projects. Both have also become accredited Facet5 practitioners to enable further use deeper within each organisation.

Both clients were delighted with the accuracy, accessibility and output of Facet5 and its credibility has led in both instances to long term partnerships with clients based on mutual trust and respect. Because Facet5 is applicable to individual, team and organisations even on a global scale, it is a valuable and extremely credible tool for all sizes of business worldwide.

Both clients were delighted with the accuracy, accessibility and output of Facet5 and its credibility has led in both instances to long term partnerships with clients

Key Learnings

  • Use Facet5 to link, understand and act on the similarities & differences in natural behaviour of individuals in comparison to organisational expectations of individual and team roles.
  • Using Facet5 initially as a tool in development projects rather than for selection helps to establish trust with the client, making it easier to extend its uses into other areas as a longer term relationship.
  • Don’t be afraid to suggest using Facet5 in other ways. In both these client scenarios, our involvement ended up going well beyond the initial brief.