Why Leadership Is Overrated
About Case Study Authors
Ibex Tactics LLC, was founded by Alex Bolowich & Ben Foodman. Before starting the company, Alex and Ben were working with athletes on an individual basis, helping them improve their mental performance using sport psychology-based interventions. While both professionals had incredible success working with some of the world’s most elite athletes, a significant portion of the time they were unable to help some of their clients due to the poor cultures these athletes were immersed in. As a result, Alex and Ben created Ibex Tactics LLC, which dedicated towards providing science-driven solutions to helping teams build resilient cultures.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION: Why Leadership Without Culture Is Meaningless
PART I. Introducing The Tier 2 Client Case Study
PART II. Why Leadership Fails Without Team Culture
PART III. Using Tier 2 Services To Focus On Team Culture Over Leadership
PART IV. Our Tier 2 Client’s “Before & After” Experience With Our Services
Introduction: Why Leadership Without Culture Is Meaningless
When leaders within the sports and corporate world examine ways to enhance their team’s performance metrics, one of the first areas they focus on improving is leadership. This is understandable because if an organization has effective leadership, then it stands to reason that decentralized command will work much more efficiently, thereby allowing the higher levels of leadership to shift their focus on other tasks. But based on our applied experience, if an organization ONLY focuses on leadership development without culture development, the results they are looking for will not become reality.
At Ibex Tactics, we know that leadership is an essential aspect of culture. However, there are too many organizational psychology practices that exclusively focus on leadership development. For this issue of the Ibex Tactics case study, we wanted to review our work with a Tier 2 client that had previously used a leadership development group before using our services. We will first explore how this Tier 2 client was experiencing setbacks after focusing exclusively on leadership development and then we will review their client experience working with us.
Part I. Introducing The Tier 2 Client Case Study
Bob was in charge of one of the largest mental health practices in his state. His practice had multiple locations serving a variety of populations in lower socioeconomic status areas. At first, Bob thought the answer to building a successful practice was to grow it as fast as possible. Bob kept taking out loans to build new locations, sign new contracts with different insurance providers, and would hire new graduates from clinical social work programs who were in need of licensure training. When all was said and done, Bob was providing the bulk of after-care services for clients who were newly discharged from psychiatric hospitals and emergency rooms.
Unfortunately for Bob, while his practice was expanding quickly, his client satisfaction was taking a linear decline fast. His different practice locations were consistently receiving poor patient satisfaction, and he began to notice concerning declines in employee performance. Bob was not entirely sure what he should do to improve his company’s situation, but he knew that he needed outside help to change the trajectory of his business. Bob spoke with multiple high-level executives that he knew in the community, asking for advice on how to change his business’s situation. They consistently spoke highly of a leadership development company they had used in the past, so Bob decided to give that a shot.
Part II. Why Leadership Fails Without Team Culture
Bob enrolled all of his employees in the leadership development program, making it a mandatory part of their continuing education. Overall, he was very satisfied with the program and felt that the content would be helpful for his employees to take accountability and ownership over their work. Furthermore, his employees also relayed that they thoroughly enjoyed this program compared to other CEU trainings they had attended and requested that they make this a normal part of their annual curriculum. While the feedback was very positive, he was still not seeing the changes that were required to change the trajectory of his business.
Bob was still receiving negative patient satisfaction surveys, employees were not improving in reducing mistakes, and Bob was starting to receive more audit requests from insurance companies to review mistakes in the record keeping. Bob needed to find an alternative solution that provided quantifiable changes to his organization’s performance. He eventually came in to contact with our organization through a blog post he found online about team culture and accountability. After reviewing our services and speaking with other individuals he knew had used Ibex Tactics, he decided to reach out and start services.
Part III. Using Tier 2 Services To Focus On TEam Culture Over Leadership
After reviewing Bob’s situation, recommended that he utilize Tier 2 services. His organization needed to change their performances immediately, and Tier 2 services matches his team’s needs. We explained that Tier 2 would be about a 6-Month engagement. This first started off with our Kickoff: This was a 1–3 Day Ibex Deep Dive Assessment, which included our coaches meeting with Bob and his staff on-site to see what the problems were at the macro and micro level. After completing the assessment, we began with what we call our Rapid Intervention Phase. This included 4 weekly sessions to identify and resolve major obstacles, friction points, and limiting patterns.
After completing our kickoff phase, we moved into Months 2–6, which we refer to as our Culture Building Phase. This included 10 bi-weekly coaching sessions to embed sustainable systems, leadership alignment, and team chemistry along with ongoing support via email and text to maintain momentum and drive day-to-day execution. We arrived at the final phase, Growth Review & Tier 1 Transition. This included a 1-hour Growth Analysis & Review Session to evaluate cultural integration, system adoption, and measurable outcomes. We also introduced how our Personalized Tier 1 system works should Bob want to further enhance his organization’s performance.
Part IV. Our Tier 2 Client’s “Before & After” Experience With Our Services
Before Bob started working with us, he was noticing rapid declines in his organization’s performance outcomes. These declines in performance were manifesting through negative patient satisfaction surveys, poor employee performance, and increases in insurance company audits. At first, Bob had tried to have his employees go through a leadership development program. While they had a positive experience with this company, he was still not seeing the necessary changes in performance. He decided to make a shift and began working with us, focusing on building a culture that emphasized accountability. At the end of our services, Bob reported significant improvements from his subjective experience and from objective measurements that we used. Bob stated that negative patient satisfaction surveys decreased, and insurance audit requests made a sharp decline. Bob was thrilled with our services and set up an appointment to review Tier 1 services to further enhance his organization’s performance.
NOTE TO READER:
Alex and Ben wanted to compile their expertise in the Ibex Tactics Case Studies to help teams in the sports and corporate sector better understand how many of the issues they are dealing with are more often than not related to culture. Most teams recognize that culture is an important component of their success, but do not always have the resources or expertise to analyze the complexity of culture. If you are interested in learning more about the services that Ibex Tactics offers to help with culture development, use the contact form below and sign up with your email to receive updates on new services and case studies!
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