BHP Billiton improves leadership team relationships and leadership skills

Business challenges

BHP Billiton’s (BHP) leadership team’s challenge was two-fold: both the leadership team’s working relationship and the team individual’s leadership skills were not as effective and productive as BHP believed was possible.

Client goals

• Improve the leadership team’s relationships and communication, both individually and collectively
• Develop and refine the team individual’s leadership skills to more effectively manage teams, ranging in size from eight to several hundred
• Emphasize the importance of communication among the entire BHP staff

How JMJ helped

JMJ applied its Integral Approach—which evaluates individuals and groups from subjective and objective viewpoints—to highlight the areas that needed attention. BHP’s natural leadership tendencies and areas requiring focused time and evaluation were identified through this process. As a result, JMJ helped the team members to better understand each other, which improved relationships and communication, both individually and as a whole.

BHP’s actual daily and long-term issues and problems were addressed in JMJ’s one-on-one coaching, rather than coaching on generic situations. Through this tailored approach, BHP’s leadership team gained appropriate communication and leadership skills that could be applied immediately in the workplace, in service of causing effective and lasting change.

Results

• Shifted leadership team’s communication from passive and disengaged to active and intentional
• Introduced the Integral Approach as part of BHP’s day-to-day work; leaders use the Integral Approach in meetings
• Helped the leadership team regularly engage in open, honest and productive conversations
• Improved the individual team member’s leadership skills

One key change from the engagement with JMJ is the leadership team’s emphasis and commitment to ensuring that their leadership skills are as good as they can be. The Integral Approach is now used in leadership team meetings, prompting in-depth discussions about the approach and ways to apply the findings to maximize each leader’s potential. The team also carves out time to reflect on their skills as leaders, examine their actions and think about how they’re impacting others in the company. Deliberately and thoughtfully, they consider adaptive challenges—situations for which there are no easy solutions. Today, they are more confident about their ability to address these challenges.

BHP acknowledged that a definite cultural shift occurred within four to five months of partnering with JMJ. Through example and conversations, the team spreads its new insights and ways of working with and relating to each other. As the leaders’ vision of the future permeated the organization, a higher-quality workforce emerged.