A £3billion turnover global manufacturer.
The organisation wanted their Regional Managers to be able to drive more sales and have better influence over their various stakeholders at all levels, both internally and externally. They wanted these key people to be mentally tough and much more resilient in their approach.
To help delegates understand their inner strengths and development areas and to have ‘the conversations that matter’ in growing the aftersales business. This was initially expressed as needing to be more curious and demonstrate higher levels of resilience in the face of challenge or uncertainty.
An 8 module programme that had methods embedded into it to equip the delegates with knowledge, skills and techniques to improve in tandem both their Mental Toughness and their capability to deliver their roles more successfully. This included, following a full debrief on the MTQ construct, ways to manage their thinking better; understand, harness and manage emotions at work better – especially stress, anger, anxiety and frustration; better goal setting techniques and focus; ways of building empathy and thus trust and as a result, build better relationship and influencing skills; and generally, raise their self-awareness to a whole new level through the introduction of Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness. It also involved group exercise and role play.
The Programme began in November 2019 with face to face modules every 4 – 6 weeks and 1:1 coaching sessions every 8 weeks.
Covid-19 interrupted the programme, with most of the cohort furloughed for 3 months. The business demonstrated commitment to training and self-development by restarting the programme immediately on return to work and adding catch up sessions to re-cap on the earlier modules. The programme continued through online webinar format and concluded in November 2020.
Delegates were assessed using the MTQ48 at the start of the programme. The concept of Mental Toughness and the MTQ was fully explored in the first module before the MTQ profile was shared and followed up with 1:1 coaching. This led to some extraordinary personal discovery conversations and Line Managers experienced the reality of the self-development within their team and relating business success with the growth in mental toughness of their team members.
62% of the cohort increased their level of mental toughness between their MTQ in Nov 2019 and the repeat measurement in Nov 2020.
31% maintained their level of MTQ and 7% (1 person) declined by 1 point on the MTQ scale.
It could be seen as failure that 31% of the cohort maintained their level of Mental Toughness using the MTQ. However, this must be set in the context of a global pandemic which is well documented to have impacted mental health.
The original programme was so successful that the business has continued to invest in further cohorts – one was delivered in Dubai in February 2020. The Dubai cohort included Regional Teams from Australia, Russia, France and the Middle East. This cohort clearly demonstrated the truly global relevance of Mental Toughness as a concept and the MTQ profiling tool across cultures.
Annual cohorts are following a continuously improving programme bespoke to each cohort’s needs.
The client was awarded the Princess Royal Award in 2022 for a programme that has achieved record growth and mental toughness has also improved significantly, many learners have been promoted.
