The Board always found themselves in difficult conversations when reviewing the top leadership of the company. It was recognized that there was no method behind the debate which led to unstructured and disappointing results. With the introduction of IBR, the conversation became structured and led to tangible results. It was the first time that the Board could understand the stretch for each team in the execution of strategy. Individual development measures started to make sense in light of the comparison against the strategic complexity.

In their support to the Chair and the CEO to build up value fast, the PE firm closely monitors the performance of each of the individuals in the leadership team. Together with Chair and CEO, the PE team decided to have every 6 months a structured discussion about the top leadership of the portfolio company. The leadership positions are the ones that contribute most to the value creation over the next 3 years. In order to have structured but fast people debates and a facility to compare progress, the PE team introduced IBR as the standard tool. In the mean time also the portfolio companies have taken over the practice of regular leadership reviews, supported by IBR.

In order to better understand the leadership risks, the investment team spend 2 hours evaluating the leadership of the target company supported by the IBR software. Based on the multiple interactions they had with the team leadership a first view on the capabilities as a team was established quickly. When compared with the complexity of the envisaged new strategy, the key people risks became very clear. One third of the team was definitely not qualified to run with the new plan. This led to a risk adjusted 100 day plan and a discount from the sellers side.

Client strategies are conceived based on rigid methodology, thorough analysis of the markets and deep insights in the financial conseqences. The exception is often the analysis of the leadership required to execute the strategy. When it comes to human resources, a company always has to start with what they have in-house. You can not expect a new strategy with a freshly hired team to be successful. So, in order to have a candid discussion with the client the consultant uses IBR to form a "client owned" opinion on the implementation strength of its leadership. It helped tremulously to get the client on-board for the changes that have to happen. More often than not has this resulted in a recalibration of the strategy and an acceleration of leadership changes.

The company voted IBR as the best tool for their HR Business Partners. It increased the quality of relationship between the HR departments and line management. By using IBR, the topics of discussions became strategic and into the heart of the business agenda. A one hour discussion became all of a sudden enough to tackle difficult team performance questions. Or to have an indepth conversation how far the team could take the strategy implementation. The HR Business Partners experienced that their views were now asked as part of key business decisions. IBR enables the HR Business Partners to put the leadership conversation into the heart of the business decisions.

A buy and build strategy is never an easy one when it comes to maximizing the value of the acquisition after purchase. The key factor that determines the success of integration is the way that the leadership goes about it. During the process of acquiring an add-on, the company evaluated the leadership of the target with the support of IBR. Based on the IBR results and the capabilities of the soon to join new leaders, the company came up with a very efficient integration plan. Instead of starting from zero, the company could extremely fast roll out the leadership integration plan.

The Board visit to the individual business units was traditionally focussed on business strategy and operational results. The initiative to include a half day section on leadership started when succession in most leadership teams came up as a serious business risk. In order to have open and constructive leadership discussions with the business unit CEO and in context of the strategy, IBR was chosen as the platform of choice. Limited preparation time, building overview before spending time on the details and judging the team against the strategic complexity were mentioned as the key reasons.

The search consultant got a mandate to search for a new CFO. The first course of action was the ‘requirements’ interview with the client CEO. Instead of starting with the customary questionnaire, the search consultant first engaged in a 30 minute discussion about the top team. Using IBR the CEO was taken through his own top team. This led to an open and frank debate about the strengths and weaknesses in the team. And with that a much better understanding of the type of person that would add most to the team in the role of CFO. It also revealed further other issues that could now be addressed with much more clarity.

Coaching is about addressing the growth of the individual in its wider context. To better understand the context this executive coach always starts with a review of the team. After a demonstration of IBR, the executive coach decided to use IBR for the initial conversations. The user experience was especially positive because of the ability to simulate the strategic stretch of a team. How far could the team go in the implementation of strategy? As 90% of executive coaching work is about getting faster and better results, the use of IBR as a primer to start of the conversation proved very effective.