Drax
CASE STUDY | Change and TransformationDrax can now make complex decisions autonomously at all levels of the business due to the thinking, structures and processes that were put in place through our Q-Suito model.
The client’s challenge
and how they found Quirk
Drax found Quirk through their recently appointed CEO, who had worked with Quirk in a prior role. Drax had to pivot to a more efficient business model to prepare for the end of government grants, which required a seismic shift in the whole organisation. Working practices and cultures across the entire organisation needed to be challenged head-on, with buy-in required from all areas and levels of the organisation. Drax had to turn deeply embedded ways of working, inculcated over generations, into an entirely new approach.
What Quirk did to address the challenge
Early on Quirk and Drax’s senior leadership jointly identified that an employee buy-in approach would be vital to success. This led to Quirk adopting our proprietary Q-Suito model- a ‘learn and solve’ decision-making framework developed by us to produce various problem-solving strategies and processes.
Q-Suito is an end-to-end process containing multiple elements that can be used in isolation but are more powerful when combined. Our work with Drax is an exemplar of our Q-Suito process in action:
The programme kicked off with the leadership team strategy sessions. These help to find where they want to go and how to get there.
A series of gaming sessions helped outline what was needed to deliver the strategy, what might go wrong, and which areas of the business needed to
be addressed.
Internal teams, feeding into the senior leadership team, each tackled specific problems/issues and created plans to address them.
Training was then put in place to help accelerate transformation, helping with human behaviour and culture change in particular.
A single plan was co-created to deliver transformation over 18 months. There was then a game to pressure test the plan, looking for and helping to solve gaps, problems and weaknesses.
Key outcomes of Quirk’s work
Over the following 18 months, the plant successfully implemented its co-created plan, thanks to the buy-in and training the teams had received throughout our Q-Suito process.
Drax can now make complex decisions autonomously at all levels of the business due to the thinking, structures and processes that were put in place through our Q-Suito model. This has been enabled through enhanced leadership skills. The full programme of work has enabled Drax to become a fresher, more forward-facing organisation, driven by the culture change work by Q-Suito.
Drax leadership viewed this not only as a transformation programme but as an investment in their people and allowed employees to engage with the business and gave them the tools to take control of their work areas. After 3 years of operating with the new approach built through our Q-Suito process Bruce Heppenstall, plant director, reported superb results across their key metrics of safety, production, finance and the look & feel of the plant.
Through Quirks unique style and approach to leadership learning and development we were able to unlock a significant culture change within our business, crucially providing a positive change in behaviours which have now become an embedded part of our business, improving cross functional collaboration and drive true empowerment to improve accountability and decision making at the right layer within the business.
Craig Whiteley
Head of Operations, Drax
Continued Success
Drax recognized that to ensure the positive outcomes of the transformation programme remained embedded further leadership development programmes would be necessary to ensure a stable benchmark of leadership capabilities across all levels of the plant. Further leadership training emphasised the required human behaviours and culture to support the working practices embedded during the transformation programme.
Our leadership programme with Drax has received consistently positive feedback with an astonishing 100% delegates stating they would recommend the training to a colleague. Additionally, 95% of delegates rated the training as either above average or excellent. This is thanks to our incredible trainers who were rated above 4 out of 5 in all measured areas speed of delivery, content knowledge, organisation and enthusiasm.
Our favourite takeaway is about getting people involved as early as possible and assembling small teams to work on business-specific problems when they arise. It is all about keeping momentum, and we did this by providing leadership training to those new to the business. You get unexpected but great results.
Bruce Heppenstall
Plant Director, Drax
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Quirk Solutions have a reputation for working with large and medium sized businesses across the world to maximise the internal team and empower positive change.