AB Agri


Stephen Adams has over 26 years of experience working in Director and Executive roles with Lloyds Banking Group, carrying out more than 1000 hours of training and coaching to colleagues across the organisation. Clients note Stephen’s vigilance, professionalism, and balance as his standout qualities when providing expertise on client liaison, detail, and integrity. Stephen was selected to deliver AB Agri’s programme as it was a natural progression from his past collaboration with the organisation. As an executive coach with a corporate leadership background, Stephen had previously coached one of the colleagues of AB Agri. He had also worked with its counterpart company AB Vista to deliver training – efforts which have since been nominated for an award entry.
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Client feedback
One of the participants of this training noted that Stephen’s coaching style was “knowledgeable and inspirational”, a testament to the finesse he brings to The TCM Group.
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Introduction

AB Agri is a global manufacturer in the agri-food industry, providing nutrition and technology-based products to more than 80 countries. They currently employ over 3000 staff members with a revenue of £1.2 billion. From February to June 2021, The TCM Group delivered team culture and climate training for the Singapore-based sector of the company.

Targeting issues

AB Agri prides itself on a highly engaged working environment throughout its organisation, consistently meeting exceptional standards. Regular Peakon pulse surveys are run across the business to ensure employee satisfaction and wellbeing. As a result of these surveys, it was uncovered that one team had low scores for drivers of engagement, notably for environment, caring, and informal space. This revealed a disconnect between colleagues and their senior leaders: it was felt that leaders were working in one singular direction, away from the colleagues they managed, causing a ruptured hierarchy with low levels of employee engagement.

As such, the team as a whole was not functioning to its optimum capacity. Like The TCM Group, AB Agri understood that creating a high level of performance required dedicated conscious commitment by managers. Working with both employees and leaders to address root issues and rebuild a solid team structure was imperative to drive the intersection between business success and employee satisfaction.

Because of the nature of the case, Stephen and The TCM Group were tasked with reshaping the structure of the team, providing consultancy and coaching rather than just the delivery of set frameworks and policies.

Making resolutions

In order to mend the disjoint between managers and employees, The TCM Group developed a programme to promote success, synergy, and sustained performance throughout the organisation. Achieving a high-performance business requires a highly energised team, which stems from effective cooperation and coherence: understanding and adapting to team strengths, styles, and perspectives. To unlock AB Agri’s full potential, Stephen facilitated a five-month team culture and climate programme beginning in February 2021, involving:

1. Coaching for 2 managers 

3 sessions per manager, including:

  • A personality type profile to help them better understand the working
    styles and perspectives of different team members

2. A manager workshop for 7 managers 

Leadership development and personality type, working towards:

  • Creating a shared vision of a positive team climate.
  • Identifying priorities to enhance the climate in line with the vision.
  • Developing awareness of and commitment to their own roles individually and together to create this climate.
  • Reflecting on and understanding how their own personality types impact on their different working styles and their ability to work together.
  • Spotting the values and traits that they can leverage together to create a positive climate.

3. Team development workshops

3 half-day sessions, including:

  • Developing a framework for team behaviours.
  • Personality type workshop.
  • Team effectiveness workshop.

These sessions were designed to create a positive climate throughout the team, boosting employee engagement and driving values of mutual collaboration, self-awareness, and accountability.

Impacting culture

Since TCM’s consultancy and coaching, the team has been restructured to better reflect its ideals of collaboration and engagement. Leadership has changed, with a greater emphasis on employee wellbeing and inclusion.

Following evaluation, it was found that 92% of participants felt that the programme exceeded their expectations and objectives. When asked to describe the impact of team development, the following words and phrases were used:

Client feedback: one of the participants of this training noted that Stephen’s coaching style was “knowledgeable and inspirational”, a testament to the finesse he brings to The TCM Group

Looking Forward

Moving forward, AB Agri aim to continue to ensure team effectiveness by continually checking progress into the future. A collaborative culture will remain at the forefront of their organisational structure. In September 2021, The TCM Group will also host a refresher course to ensure that the team is still working to optimum efficiency in a positive and mutually cooperative climate.