How we helped Glasswall grow by 230%

Summary

Glasswall is a leading cybersecurity company that protects organizations from advanced document-based cyber-attacks. With innovative technology and a customer-centric approach Glasswall are trusted by government agencies, critical infrastructure providers, and enterprises globally.

How Did we Get There?

The Challenge

Danny Lopez, Chief Executive Officer and Steve Roberts, Chief Financial Officer at Glasswall approached Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? in 2021 when Danny had recently taken on the role of interim CEO. At the time, the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) was newly formed with some members having been there for less than a year.

It was clear they needed to align and unite the ELT in order to achieve their ambition of becoming the best in their field within 3-5 years. Having identified significant market opportunities ahead, it was crucial to bring together and align the entire organisation behind this vision. The ELT recognised the importance of establishing agreed-upon definitions and measures of success, both within the ELT and across the wider organisation. This was necessary to set clear expectations at both a team and organisational level to understand what was required in order to achieve the overarching goal and aid in the development of a high-performance culture.

Glasswall wanted to build a high-performing technology team with a performance mindset at its core. The team needed to be clear on their objectives, fully understanding what they were striving to achieve and the behaviours and habits necessary to make it happen. Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? worked with Glasswall’s Executive Leadership members to realign them as a team, focus on the opportunity ahead and give clarity on where the level of performance needed to be raised in order to achieve their ‘Crazy Goal’. Ultimately, we wanted to create a compelling future for the organisation, align the entire business behind the goal and highlight specifically what is in it for them as individuals to encourage a complete buy-in.

The Solution

Firstly, Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? conducted in–depth 1:1 diagnostic interviews with the 8 members of the Glasswall ELT. This enabled us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the company’s current performance, and where they would like to dedicate their primary focus to for improvement, with our guidance.

Upon completion of the diagnostic report, Will It? designed a bespoke solution for the Glasswall team built around the parameters of our Crazy Goal Programme.

We worked with the ELT intensively over a two-day workshop to facilitate collaborative and collective decision-making. By getting clarity on what was most important, every team member could start to see what they needed to do in order to start pulling in the same direction and add boat speed. By aligning at this level, they were able to set the rhythm from the top down.

Will It? then ran an embedding day to launch the goal to the wider organisation. This work helped to facilitate a focus on what’s most important to drive their strategy forward and achieve their vision. By creating clear Concrete Goals, Glasswall were able to understand individual and team motivators, engaging team members on what floats their boat and ultimately drive excitement around the goal.

It was essential that everyone in the organisation was absolutely clear on how the goal translated to them in their role. Therefore, to excite and unite change across the entire business, Will It Make The Boat Go Faster? went on to run five Layered Goal sessions with all of Glasswall’s functional teams. The purpose of this was to translate what Glasswall’s company ‘Crazy Goal’ meant tangibly for each core team, ensuring all levels of the organisation were aligned to those at the top.

In May 2022 we ran a celebratory ‘All Hands’ event that brought together the entire Glasswall team to strengthen the understanding of the Crazy and Layered Goals. This event also allowed us to continue to build motivation around the goals for the specific functional teams. Ben Hunt-Davis delivered his Olympic winning keynote speech and updates were given from all functional teams on the progress they had made and their next steps for layering the goal. The purpose of this was to build a strong sense of celebration around both what each functional team had accomplished and the organisation as a whole to reflect how each core team contributed to the progress of the overarching goal.

The Results
Internal Measures

33% increase in internal operational efficiency.

35% increase in effective team working.

27% increase in employee engagement.

19% increase in the effectiveness of the ELTs internal communication.

Key Business Indicators

Since partnering with Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?, Glasswall’s Executive Leadership Team have wholeheartedly embraced their Crazy Goal. By utilising the tools and frameworks that Will It? have provided, the ELT has been able to focus on what’s most important, work together effectively and successfully drive performance towards achieving their goal. The team were delighted to report outstanding business growth results delivering x2.3 Glasswall’s Annual Recurring Revenue in the time we have worked together.

Leadership Development

27% increase in the leadership team being able to have open and honest conversations.

32% increase in the leadership team being able to prioritise what’s most important.

22% in the leadership team delivering good overall results.

28% increase in the leadership team working as a collective.

Between October 2021 and March 2023, the wider Glasswall team has seen a total 13% increase in team being aligned around the organisations ‘Crazy Goal’. This illustrates how individual employees now have a deeper of understanding what the goal means for them and the role they play in the goals achievement.

Next Steps

We have successfully completed the first year of our Crazy Goal Programme and are now looking ahead to year two. Glasswall’s commitment to achieving their ‘Crazy Goal’ remains unwavering as they continue to construct a solid foundation through their Concrete Goals. To ensure progress aligns with Glasswall’s objectives, we are supporting in the assessment of their key metrics and making sure they are still representative of Glasswall’s ‘Goals’ over their 3–5-year timeframe.

As we looked ahead to year two, Steve Roberts (CFO) posed a crucial question: “How can we enhance the effectiveness of the Executive Leadership team?”. Therefore, through regular momentum sessions and high-performance workshops, our upcoming focus is to:

  1. Deepen the level of trust within the ELT, enabling them to elevate their own performance to new heights.
  2. Expand their outlook to the external world, emphasising the development of strategic relationships with their clients by furthering productive collaborations.
  3. Concentrate on the heads of each functional team to develop a stronger collaboration between the ELT and Senior Leaders by developing their ways of working and ability to support each other.
  4. Prioritise leadership development initiatives to ensure continual growth of the Executive and Senior Leadership team’s capabilities.

The impact on our business from working with the ‘Will It?’ team has been transformational. As a leadership team, we have arrived at a series of goals that we are all fully committed to, and which now serve as the North Star of our business. Achieving that is easier said than done. The ‘Will It?’ team bring depth and substance but are able to deliver in an easy going and informal manner. They have become trusted partners and a source of invaluable support. Our ‘Will It?’ experience has also drilled down across the entire company, ensuring each and every one of our employees benefit from its impact. I cannot recommend the ‘Will it’ team enough. Professional, committed, thoroughly good at what they do and always fun to work with.

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