case study

Building a team around a business ambition, not a campfire

How HSBC's Channel Islands ExCo led together to deliver remarkable results.

Summary

Challenge

Post ring-fencing, HSBC's Channel Islands business needed an unprecedented level of financial contribution, but its leadership team operated in siloed lines of business rather than as a unified force.

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Solution

BRIDGE took the ExCo on a journey from market assessment through to building collaboration, shared purpose, and trust, while coaching each member individually to lead as business leaders rather than function heads.

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Results

Financial growth hit 150% of plan within 12 months, alongside double-digit gains in employee pride (+15%), confidence in strategy (+12%), confidence in senior leadership (+11%), and belief in career opportunity (+15%).

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“BRIDGE provide a very different lens on business. They demystify the difficult... As a result, we have become a high performance leadership team.”

– Global Bank Leadership

The challenge

As a result of the ring fencing of HSBC’s UK bank, HSBC’s Channel Islands business was required to make a financial contribution at a level they had never made before. We partnered with HSBC to help the leadership team step up to this challenge. In the past, each line of business had focused on the delivery of its own numbers. To achieve this new level of financial contribution, the leadership team needed to work together to understand the true growth potential of the business as a whole and lead together in a way it had never done before.

The solution

We helped the CEO take the Executive Committee (ExCo) on a journey. This started by assessing the competitive market, unlocking in the ExCo an appetite and ambition to realise the potential of the business, and identifying the critical strategic choices they needed to make as well as key capability gaps we needed to address. We worked with the ExCo to build a greater level of collaboration, develop a deep sense of shared purpose for the promises made to customers and employees, and work through any issues that may be limiting trust of each other. BRIDGE also worked with each ExCo member individually, helping them understand how they needed to lead differently, as a business leader, and not just as a leader of their particular function or line of business.

The impact

The ExCo drove significant improvement in both enabling and output measures. Pride for working in HSBC amongst employees grew 15% year on year and their belief in the future and confidence in the strategy increased by 12%, while confidence in senior leadership increased by 11%. In addition, employees’ belief in the opportunity to realise their career aspirations increased by 15%. Most significantly, the financial growth of the business within the first 12 months of starting this journey was 150% of the original financial plan.

“BRIDGE provide a very different lens (view) on business. They demystify the difficult – we wouldn’t have made the progress we have without them… they inspired our team with concepts not process – we have significantly stepped-up our strategy… and they helped us to think differently about our purpose – we have defined our leadership agenda around our bank’s unique reason to be here. As a result, we have become a high performance leadership team.” – Global Bank Leadership

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