Leadership and team development within Coca Cola Enterprises, September 09

Adrenaline’s running, time’s ticking, and your trainers are squelching from the river you’ve just had to cross.  The steep hill, with two of your team members already half way up it, looms ominously. Ten kilometres down, four to go and you’re running on empty…

Fortunately it wasn’t me at the bottom of the hill.  I’d already gone through my rigorous assessment and selection process to be involved in this project.  I was here to support the performance of their high potential employees.

They’d been asked to take part in the gruelling Source2Sea challenge.  This is an annual event, where teams must make their way from the source of a river to the sea and points are awarded for the completion of tasks within time limits.

Coca Cola, the world’s number 1 brand, is a massive organisation of 70 000 employees.  You can imagine the range of languages and cultures that exist within it and how those differences can impact the supply chain.  The aim of this project was to bring together leaders from France, Belgium and Britain.

It’s a fantastic, focused and fun opportunity for them to develop as leaders and as people.  My role was to support their learning along this personal and practical journey.

In this petri dish of pressure, challenges came thick and fast.  The first being that team – of four men and one woman – to which I was assigned had never worked together before.  They came from three plants – Belgium, Toulouse and Paris – with varying degrees of English, fitness, seniority and self awareness.

Interestingly, but somewhat unsuprising,  those that emerged as star performers had built strong relationships with all their team members and as such were able to motivate and influence them at critical moments.

They were self assured without being chest beaters.  Their quiet confidence and sensitivity to the needs of others – particularly the physically less fit, culitvated a real sense of loyalty and team spirit.

They also had a greater degree of resilience, self awareness and were able to control their thoughts and feelings when it really mattered. And generally were all round really nice people.

Coca Cola have a real get-on and-do culture so there was much focus on strategic planning. The winning team weren’t the fittest but were able to plan effectively and so didn’t end up shooting off in the wrong direction.

Yes, a far cry from the arid plains of India but I was, none the less, reminded of Ghandi’s quote, “Speed is irrelevant if in the wrong direction.” It’s just usually the easy way out.

“I’m convinced  you have helped me to grow in a very short time…so much so that I have asked if I can continue to be coached  here in France to keep on developing myself.

I learned such a lot during the Source2Sea challenge. I really appreciated how you made us think about our objectives and personal goals, to achieve what we wanted and to think about what we might do differently next time to improve our performance.

Your job is not an easy one – to make people take the  time to reflect – it’s not usual for us and yet very beneficial. We should do it more often !

I learned from your coaching approach and have begun to use it with some of my team.   Seventy people is a lot so I have chosen a select few and am encouraging them to take more of their own decisions and it’s been very  well  accepted. Thank you.”

Arnaud Perrin
Operations Manager, Coca Cola Enterprises, Toulouse