From Siloed Experts to Learning to Lead Together
AKRF is a consulting firm with 19 different technical service lines—natural resources, civil engineering, archaeology, air quality, chemical engineering, and more. Over the last 15 years, the company has doubled in size to meet the demand for its services, from 200 to 400 employees.
As the number of people grew, AKRF shifted away from the loose leadership hierarchy that had worked when they were smaller. Subject matter experts moved into management and leadership roles. Everyone led their own way, and soon disparities in mentorship, promotions, and power dynamics cropped up.
The core question became, “How do we help technical people stretch into a leadership position?”
Delivering custom leadership development
AKRF hired a traditional leadership training company to get things moving. Unfortunately, the material felt too prescriptive. “The program we did directly before we started working with Collectively felt like it was not responsive to our specific needs, culture, and goals,” said Dan Abatemarco, Senior Vice President. “ It was kind of like, ‘Here's the way you do leadership, here's the way you run a business, we'll teach it to you.’”
Collectively’s approach was different.
“With Collectively the starting place was, ‘Help us understand what made you successful to this point and the goals you have looking ahead,’” said Dan.
Through an organizational assessment and interviews with people across the company, Collectively developed a deep understanding of AKRF’s people, culture, and processes. Using what they learned, Collectively created a customized leadership development program paired with executive coaching. After the pilot cohort, AKRF could feel the change. They’ve run two more cohorts in the last three years, continuing to invest in developing people who show interest in leadership.
Fostering leadership at every level
Since implementing Collectively’s leadership program, AKRF has seen tangible results.
“The training and coaching we do with Collectively makes our leaders feel supported, which means the whole team has more opportunities for growth,” said Dan. “A lot of people who completed our leadership development program have advanced to officer positions. They have been able to take what they learned and turn it into success in their own careers, which benefits our company, of course. Promoting from within is the way we want to be growing.”
Working with Collectively, AKRF learned that it’s possible to foster originality—their core value—while creating supportive structures and processes to achieve impressive business outcomes.
“We’ve always valued the expertise of our people. We want them to be able to use that to create value for our clients, projects, and the firm to the greatest extent possible,” said Dan. “As a third-party partner, Collectively exponentially accelerates our success. They get to know the strengths and listen to the challenges of each person on our team so they can help us generate more and different ideas that we haven’t tried before.”
Industry
Engineering
Company size
Midsized
Collectively’s services