When AgWorld first came to us, the initial challenge was communication across the organisation. Poor habits and a lack of structure was creating conflict that was keeping people stuck.
We introduced frameworks to help AgWorld’s employees to approach difficult conversations differently. Decision-making was an early focus, helping the team understand when to explore possibilities and when to create clarity and move forward.
This work then moved into deeper meetings and conversations work, including creating standards around what was referred to as ‘rigour and regard’ – a shared understanding of how to have important conversations effectively and respectfully.
This expanded into individual coaching and high-performance activities. Individuals were supported to step back from the immediate demands of their workload, think about what they wanted to achieve over a month, and then break this down into weeks and days.
The aim was to help people become more intentional about their time, whilst also feeling they were achieving more. At this same time, it gave AgWorld’s leadership greater visibility and a better foundation for feedback and guidance.
Over eight years, our relationship continued to evolve as AgWorld grew and new needs emerged.
Because we already had a deep understanding of the people and the business, each stage built on what had come before. Coaching connected with leadership development, work on decision-making and meetings influenced how people worked together – each piece reinforcing the next to gradually form a more consistent, productive way of operating.
This became particularly evident when AgWorld invited us to facilitate their vision and culture development. New values were developed from the ground up rather than handed down by leadership, giving people across the organisation a role in defining how they wanted to feel at work.
Doug Fitch, AgWorld’s former CEO, saw this as a vital part of ensuring their culture kept up with growth:
AgWorld continued to invest in coaching different cohorts across the business, from leadership to mid-level employees. Over time, as a result, Doug saw people become more invested in the company, with extremely low staff turnover and a high degree of loyalty.
There was also a broader intention behind that investment. AgWorld wanted people to take the skills they were developing at work into their lives outside it, becoming better communicators and better partners in their families.
The thinking was that what helped people build stronger relationships at home would ultimately benefit how they showed up at work too.
AgWorld also developed a more distributed approach to leadership, with people given opportunities to lead projects, with coaching and support to help them succeed rather than waiting for formal leadership positions.
The result was a workplace Doug remembers as having little politics or gossip, where people wanted to come into the office and teams worked across the business rather than sitting in siloes.
