Lloyds Banking Group Insurance
Team alignment and effectiveness
Summary
Like the rest of Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), the General Insurance division (GI) needed to integrate two legacy businesses while pursuing growth in the teeth of the 2008 financial crisis. We were asked to help the newly formed GI management teams to align themselves rapidly with the new strategy and organisation and become effective as quickly as possible.
Client Need
The merger of Lloyds and HBOS gave the General Insurance (GI) division the chance to dominate the UK general insurance market. GI accepted this challenge, but had to pursue it while integrating its product ranges, operations, systems, organisation and locations. The teams leading this complex agenda were themselves formed from Lloyds and HBOS executives who needed to find the right way to work together, while making tough decisions about change, people and cost. Importantly, in order to achieve growth they needed to re-motivate employees concerned about organisational turmoil, work pressure, and their own and their colleagues’ futures.
Our Approach
We interviewed each team to learn about their specific needs and issues and to understand the impact of organisation-wide change demands on their part of the business. We used our findings to tailor a team effectiveness process we had used successfully at more senior levels in LBG. Each GI team experienced two day-long events (Time and cost pressures meant we had been asked to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum intervention.) Across the two sessions we fed back our view of their issues, helped the team agree strategic priorities, applied a change curve for them to decide where their people were, and challenged their thinking. We helped them to clarify their purpose and management processes, their strategy for change management and their own needs for development and mutual support.
Results
GI has succeeded in its integration, achieved most of the synergy targets, and moved towards its market leadership and growth goals. GI acknowledges that the acceleration of the formation and effectiveness of its senior teams has contributed to those achievements. The teams themselves judged that they would have moved more slowly and uncertainly without hour help and the process we provided.