The Situation

The company is one of the 10 largest financial institutions in the US. The leadership team has invested heavily in building a company culture centered on innovation and community, earning it many accolades including being ranked for more than 10 years as one of America’s top places to work. Like their Industry, the company’s workplace was evolving rapidly… high levels of turnover, remote work, and lack of connectedness.

3 Goals

The company had three primary goals it wanted to achieve:

1. Quickly build trust across an executive team which was rapidly adding new members as the business evolved.

2. Train the next generation of management to maintain a growth mindset, high-levels of productivity, and effective decision-making despite working remotely.

3. As a new generation of employees join, be a fearless innovator and thought leader in how to sustain a world-class company culture.

The Challenge

The company knew that it couldn’t rest on its laurels. Despite decades of being recognized as a thought leader in leadership development, the company saw that its workforce was transforming.  Its next generation of leaders had their own new and unique ambitions, priorities and values. If the company wanted to sustain an inclusive, highly productive organization, they needed to be as innovative organizationally as they were in the marketplace.   

At the same time, senior executives were facing an intense period of change. New hires, promotions, and departures had all reshaped the look (and feel) of the group of senior leaders. They needed to renew their sense of collective trust, camaraderie and connectedness so that they could drive the next wave of innovation and growth in the business.

The Solution

The company engaged Loom to work with two different groups. First Loom worked with a team of senior executives to help them to incorporate new members and rebuild quickly back to high levels of trust and effective decision-making. Second, Loom worked with newly joining and promoted managers to cultivate their collective trust and connectedness to the company and to train them on the tools to build and sustain trust in their own team. 

To that end, Loom implemented 4 key interventions to address these objectives:

1. Expert Facilitated In-Person Experience. Loom facilitators organized offsites and led the team through a series of trust building exercises and discussions.

2. Recurring Small Group Gatherings. Once a month, the leadership team was split into smaller cohorts and joined one 60-min virtual experience, led by a Loom facilitator, designed to foster authentic dialogue, vulnerability, and productive conflict.

3. Targeted Skill-Building. After assessing the team’s specific needs, Loom trained the leadership team on a series of in-depth and practical tools to foster greater trust and effectiveness among their teams.

4. Annual Survey and Feedback. Loom surveyed the executive team and broader organization on trust and contributing factors and reviewed the survey results with the executives and managers (individually and as a group)