Leading from Analytics to Leadership: Matt’s COE Journey at Coles

Matt and his team operated within the workforce planning function of Coles, planning for a workforce of tens of thousands of team members. Their analytics-focused team was immersed in intricate details and grappled with an intense workload, especially given the specialised nature of their roles.

Matt was looking to transition from being primarily an analytics expert to a leader: He wanted to shift his focus from delving into the data (which was in his comfort zone) to taking on a more proactive leadership role. Additionally, he sought solutions for the team’s workload challenges, although he was unsure whether COE could provide the necessary help.

An unsustainable situation

Matt’s team had not explored alternative approaches to their workload challenges but recognised that their current unsustainable situation required a change.

Through their experience with the COE program, they found:

• A substantial portion of their time was being consumed by ad hoc, non-core activities and they learned to say no to these distractions.
• Recognising that rework resulted from the absence of process documentation, they committed to documenting half of their processes.
• COE compelled Matt to step back from day-to-day tasks, allowing his team to take on greater responsibilities.
• The skills matrix helped identify skill gaps within the team that were affecting Matt’s ability to step back, prompting targeted skill development.

The challenge (and rewards) of more work (temporarily)!

Managing time was a substantial challenge due to the team’s heavy workload—a classic catch-22 situation. Matt’s coach supported him in devising strategies to carve out the necessary time and space for the changes they needed to implement.

It became clear for Matt that, even though he held an MBA, he could learn and benefit from COE. While the individual concepts weren’t entirely new, the program provided practical, real-time application that reinforced their significance.

Ironically, for a team of data analysts, they lacked metrics for their own performance. COE enabled them to deploy their first quantifiable team performance metrics.

“It is a lot of work but it was worth it.  Any leader who needs to step back from the day to day to improve will benefit significantly.” Matt Rodgers

 If you feel like you might be ready to explore an alternative approach, book a call here to chat with Anita or one of the team.