Go South West, part of the Go Ahead Group, traces its origins back to 1872 but in 2020 it was facing its biggest rate of change since the combustion engine and the 1980s privatisation. With a doubled post-merger workforce, Covid- affected staff and customers and the Government’s first ever National Bus Strategy, it faced digitisation, net-zero deadlines and an uncertain future fuel strategy.
Richard Stevens MBE, the MD, signed Mission Mindset to help them to solve these and other challenges. During this partnership, Mission Mindset has provided layers of support, from strategy design, executive development, leadership, management and team development through to focussed specialist advisory such as recruitment, structures and performance management.
Mission Mindset began its analysis using a combination of tools and research to understand the internal and external environment. This analysis drove design of Go South West’s first Executive Development Event at one of our favourite venues: Bovey Castle on the eastern edge of Dartmoor.
Focussing on the topics of alignment, trust, leadership and teamwork, we helped the Go South West Senior Leadership Team uncover what makes the business great and how it should adapt to face the future. We explored what leadership attributes Go South West should recruit and develop, how to strengthen the culture and how to develop deeper collaboration throughout the business. Most importantly, we helped them create a new, ambitious and industry-leading vision for the future that would inspire the workforce, investors and partners. Harnessing the experience, creativity and energy of his senior leaders enabled Richard to then clarify his top priorities for change.
Having crafted this ambitious new vision, Mission Mindset were asked to support Go South West build a simple, compelling strategy to 2030 that can be used to align the workforce. We used our unique strategy model to explore the operating environment, business forces, constraints, events and risks of the future that need considering to navigate a successful path to success.
Next, Mission Mindset were contracted to help the Senior Leadership Team collaborate with senior managers to align, work through details, building consensus and trust. Mission Mindset designed a bespoke 3-day event, focussing on ‘operationalising’ the strategy and refining the culture to deliver the brand-new vision and the leadership skills and mindset needed.
Mission Mindset continue to partner Go South West with focussed advisory services, helping solve complex people problems such as recruiting retention, training and performance management and Go South West continues its growth with acquisitions across the region.
“Mission Mindset have delivered a focused support program to our organisation in a professional and sophisticated way; to call it management training just does not do it justice. We have been on a journey that has seen us develop our skills and thinking in a way that few of us thought possible. It would be accurate to say that Mission Mindset did not just change our minds, it has changed our lives!”– Richard Stevens MBE, MD Go South West
