NEWSLETTER – SUMMER 2021
Welcome to our Summer 2021 Newsletter – scroll down to find out what we’ve been up to, or if you would prefer to view the newsletter in a flipbook you can click here to jump directly to that section.
Enjoy!
WELCOME!
I hope you are all well, business is getting back to some sort of normal for you and plans that were drawn up during lockdown (1, 2 or 3!) are now underway.
The last month or so has seen more face-to-face meetings for us, both with existing and potential clients, and we have also been back delivering face-to-face in some cases, which is a great feeling, and although virtual delivery has its place, you can’t beat the effective, in-depth discussions of a face-to-face workshop!
Behind the scenes, we have been planning a series of events for later in the year, and some of you may remember giving us feedback on the format of these in our Winter 2020 newsletter (thank you to those who participated). Dates and venues have been confirmed, final details are being pulled together and you can read more about them in the events section later in this newsletter.
The next few months are looking busy with more meetings and workshops in the diary, podcasts to record and even more face-to-face events, which I am really looking forward to.
We’re also excited to have a new Consultancy Manager joining the Wingman Team this month. Look out for a full introduction to Lea Dean later across our social media channels.
Stay safe and pick up the phone or drop me an email if we can help and maybe even catch up for a coffee in person.
Kind regards
Rory Underwood, Director
WHO DO WE WORK WITH…
“Any business that has people in it … as soon as you have a team of people, we’re there.” Rory.
Wingman works with businesses across many different sectors – retail, building services, hospitality, transport, banking, financial, to name a few, and we even work with clients outside of the UK.
Although each business is very individual and is on its own specific growth journey, Wingman provides solutions and support to make sure that everyone can achieve their full potential to therefore produce the best results.
We provide a variety of different solutions and services depending on the needs of the business, the number of people involved and their role within the business, but we always start the same way, face-to-face with a coffee and a chat to make sure that we fully understand your challenges and how we can help you in the best way possible.
Quite simply we can help your business to ‘fly higher and faster, with less effort’, whichever sector you’re in.
WORKING WITH
In each newsletter, we’ll be focusing on one our clients and unashamedly highlighting some of the work we have been doing with them. To find out about more of the businesses we’ve partnered with, and on what, you can visit wingmanltd.com/who-we-work-with.
This time around, it’s the turn of …
Wolseley are a leading plumbing, heating and cooling trade specialist merchant in the UK, who aim to be the first choice for trade customers across the country. They build their businesses through the quality of their people; the excellent service they provide and the strong relationships with both customers and suppliers.
When John Hancock was appointed Managing Director of the Building Services business unit in late 2019, part of his remit in moving the business forward was to really take things from ‘Good to Great’ and so in the Autumn of 2020, Wingman were approached to discuss interventions that would support the Leadership Team in their development of a high performance team environment.
Using Wingman’s LIFT™ Model as a framework, we have been working with the Leadership Team to:
- look in-depth at what a team is and fully understand what takes that team to the next level to become a high performance team.
- develop their understanding of the Building Services business priorities and focus on how everyone can work together more collaboratively so these can be achieved more effectively.
- agree how these priorities can be communicated down through the business in the most effective way to ensure that everyone within Building Services knows how they fit into the ‘bigger picture’.
Nicky Thomas, Finance Director for Wolseley Building Services said:
“Wingman supported the Leadership Team at Wolseley Building Services to recognise and understand our team dynamics and provided us with the tools to identify where we could improve collaboration and maximise the strengths of the team.
The series of sessions with Rory and Jane provided a solid platform to clarify our strategic direction, understand how to drive a high performance culture and provide clarity when communicating our strategy to the wider business.
The sessions were thought provoking & challenging, delivering benefits for both the individual and the team as a whole.”
John Hancock, MD, said:
“As part of our strategy to add value to our customers, clarity of strategy and purpose across our business was crucial to effective execution. Rory and the Wingman team have really taken the senior team on a journey, improving communication across the business functions and down to all our branches and sales teams. Our collaboration has significantly improved, with key stakeholders working cross functionally to deliver one vision with shared accountability.”
WINGMAN 2021 EVENTS PROGRAMME
Due to the pandemic, we had to cancel our 2020 Events Programme but now we’re back and excited to get going again.
We’ll be kicking off our events with a weekly three-part virtual series, starting on Tuesday 28th September for three weeks. These events will focus on how businesses align their strategic growth and achieve their business strategy, starting with how senior leaders in a business understand the business priorities, before moving on to how they communicate these through the business and finally how to make the most of cross-functional relationships to ensure delivery in the most efficient and effective way.
In each session, Rory and a selection of special guest speakers from across different sectors, will provide you with knowledge, examples, hints and tips that will build on each other through the series and which you’ll be able to take away and implement within your business.
Aligning your Strategic Growth – Virtual Events Series
Following on from our virtual events series, we are delighted to announce that we’ll then be moving back to face-to-face events in November with our first Wingman Business Breakfast.
This event is ideal for the Senior Leadership of any business so whether you’re a CEO, MD, Director or senior level team member. We hope you’ll join us to grab a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich and listen to Rory and special guests talk about how aligning your teams to deliver consistently on your business priorities, as well as getting them to work smarter together, can really get your business “flying higher and faster, with less effort”.
We’ll be running this event at three different venues across the East Midlands, and we really hope that you’ll be able to join us in either Lincoln, Nottingham or Leicester for these enlightening sessions.
Wingman Business Breakfasts
The final event in our 2021 programme will be our exclusive Wingman ‘Accelerate Your Business’ Masterclass, where Rory will facilitate a one-day workshop to really help you discover how to confidently accelerate your business growth by understanding and reducing the ‘drag’ factors and really empowering your people to lift the growth of your business to the next level and beyond.
Registration for our full 2021 Events Programme is officially open – places will be limited to keep the events as interactive as possible so click here or visit wingmanltd.com/crewroom to reserve your place now!
Alternatively, if you’d like Rory to come and speak exclusively to your senior team, please get in touch by emailing us at events@wingmanltd.com
OTHER EVENTS
Rory has been busy since our Spring newsletter taking part in a variety of different events, podcasts and webinars as a special guest.
These included:
- A wonderful Rugby vs Riders event for Tedworth Equestrian, hosted by another Rory (Bremner), to raise money for the Armed Forces Equine Centres,
- Hosting a webinar for Irwin Mitchell aimed at people who’d like to understand more about planning for their retirement and later years,
- An IoD Liverpool ‘Barriers to Business Growth’ event where Rory was guest speaker, sharing his leadership experiences from the pitch, sky and boardroom,
- Presenting to employees from Lincolnshire County Council where Kevin Kendall, Assistant Director – Corporate Property at the Council commented, ‘The session was excellent, and I was really pleased with the level of engagement with some really practical ideas coming from it which we now intend to follow through.’
The diary is already booking up for later in the year including sportsman’s dinners, keynote speeches and more podcasts, including with our wonderful friend from BizJuicer, Andy Goram.
If you are planning an event and are looking for a great speaker, please do get in touch at events@wingmanltd.com.
SUPPORTING LOCAL BUSINESS
As many of you will be aware, we moved out of our small office last year and relocated Wingman HQ to a great business park in Long Bennington, managed by Harlaxton Estates, and it’s been great over the last few months to see more businesses, all from different sectors and of varying sizes, moving in and becoming our neighbours.
Conveniently located just of the A1 between Lincoln and Nottingham, Long Bennington Business Park has everything we were looking for – plenty of car parking, great transport links, a variety of different-sized office spaces, plus the little things like onsite valeting, additional meeting rooms to hire, administration services if we need them, a dedicated caterer and more importantly, a coffee van and ice-cream truck that visit regularly!
Harlaxton Estates are an independent commercial property developers operating throughout Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, their team is hugely knowledgeable, and their experience and local expertise means that can find the right office or workspace from small serviced offices to entire industrial parks, which is exactly what they did for us!!
If you are in the local area and are thinking about upsizing, downsizing or just need a bit of extra space now and then, we thoroughly recommend that you get in touch and see how they can help you.
Have a wonderful summer, however you’ve chosen to spend it!
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