Insights
Onwrdz in Action
10 minute read
10 minute read
Neil Ward
•
Inside Onwrdz
Neil Ward
•
Inside Onwrdz
How a global technology business built a stronger leadership group — from individual coaching to team transformation.
How a global technology business built a stronger leadership group — from individual coaching to team transformation.
Every engagement starts with a conversation. This one began with a Chief Revenue Officer at a global technology business who had a clear commercial mandate, a high-performing team on paper, and a nagging sense that neither was operating at full potential.
What followed was two years of work — individual coaching, quarterly executive retreats, and a programme that grew as the leadership group did. This is how it happened.
Client details are anonymised in line with our commitment to confidentiality. The organisations we work with are referenced on our homepage.
The starting point
The CRO came to Onwrdz with a specific challenge: a senior leadership group that was talented individually but wasn't functioning as well collectively as it should. There was misalignment between personal ambitions and team objectives. Commercial decisions were being made without full clarity on the people dynamics underneath them.
The instinct was to bring in a programme. The reality, as it usually is, was more nuanced. Before anything could be fixed at the team level, work needed to happen at the individual level first.
Clarity
The first phase was diagnostic. Not a structured assessment tool or a 360 framework — a direct, honest conversation with each member of the leadership group about where they actually were, what they were working towards, and where the gaps existed between the two.
For the CRO, this surfaced a gap between the commercial targets being set and the development support being given to the people expected to deliver them. Leaders were being asked to grow without being given the conditions to do so.
For individuals within the team, clarity meant something different in each case — career direction, confidence in their own authority, understanding of how their role sat within the wider business. The work was tailored to each person because it had to be.
Gravitas
With clarity established, the work moved to gravitas — the harder, slower part.
Gravitas doesn't come from a workshop. It comes from sustained work on how a leader shows up: the consistency between what they say, what they do, and what the people around them experience. For a leadership group operating under commercial pressure, that consistency is exactly what tends to break down first.
Sessions ran fortnightly. The focus was on the individual — their specific style, their specific blind spots, their specific relationship with authority and accountability. Where patterns emerged across the group, they were addressed in the room together. Where they were personal, they stayed personal.
Action
The quarterly retreats began in 2024. This is where individual development started to translate into collective performance.
The retreats were built around real challenges — not hypothetical scenarios or facilitated exercises, but the actual strategic and commercial questions the leadership group was facing. Neil's role was to create the conditions for honest dialogue, challenge assumptions that had gone unchallenged, and drive towards decisions rather than discussions.
The commercial thinking that came out of those sessions changed the way the team operated. Not because of a new framework, but because people started having different conversations — more direct, more grounded, more aligned to what the business actually needed.
Ascent
The results compounded over time in the way they always do when the underlying work has been done properly.
The business developed a clearer understanding of its talent — who was ready for what, what the realistic career trajectories looked like, and where development investment would have the most impact. Leaders who had felt uncertain about their authority started operating from a more grounded place. The team began to function with a coherence it hadn't had before.
The engagement is ongoing. That's not unusual. The most valuable thing a coaching relationship can do is build the capacity for sustained performance — not deliver a short-term result and move on.
A representative programme: CRO and senior leadership group
To give a sense of how an engagement is structured, here is a representative programme menu for a Chief Revenue Officer and their leadership team:
Individual coaching (CRO) Knowing yourself — self-assessment, style, and leadership presence Optimal positioning — role clarity, authority, and strategic influence Commercial leadership — decision-making under pressure, stakeholder management
Team programme Functional leadership — team dynamics, talent mapping, development planning Commercial skills — strategic thinking, challenge, and accountability Communication — internal influence, executive presence, difficult conversations Future-proofing — succession, pipeline, and building for the long term
Ongoing Quarterly strategic retreats Individual mentoring and follow-up Personal brand and gravitas management
Onwrdz works with senior leaders and leadership teams across sectors. Every programme is built around your context, your culture, and what you're actually trying to achieve.
Ready to start a conversation? hello@onwrdz.com
Every engagement starts with a conversation. This one began with a Chief Revenue Officer at a global technology business who had a clear commercial mandate, a high-performing team on paper, and a nagging sense that neither was operating at full potential.
What followed was two years of work — individual coaching, quarterly executive retreats, and a programme that grew as the leadership group did. This is how it happened.
Client details are anonymised in line with our commitment to confidentiality. The organisations we work with are referenced on our homepage.
The starting point
The CRO came to Onwrdz with a specific challenge: a senior leadership group that was talented individually but wasn't functioning as well collectively as it should. There was misalignment between personal ambitions and team objectives. Commercial decisions were being made without full clarity on the people dynamics underneath them.
The instinct was to bring in a programme. The reality, as it usually is, was more nuanced. Before anything could be fixed at the team level, work needed to happen at the individual level first.
Clarity
The first phase was diagnostic. Not a structured assessment tool or a 360 framework — a direct, honest conversation with each member of the leadership group about where they actually were, what they were working towards, and where the gaps existed between the two.
For the CRO, this surfaced a gap between the commercial targets being set and the development support being given to the people expected to deliver them. Leaders were being asked to grow without being given the conditions to do so.
For individuals within the team, clarity meant something different in each case — career direction, confidence in their own authority, understanding of how their role sat within the wider business. The work was tailored to each person because it had to be.
Gravitas
With clarity established, the work moved to gravitas — the harder, slower part.
Gravitas doesn't come from a workshop. It comes from sustained work on how a leader shows up: the consistency between what they say, what they do, and what the people around them experience. For a leadership group operating under commercial pressure, that consistency is exactly what tends to break down first.
Sessions ran fortnightly. The focus was on the individual — their specific style, their specific blind spots, their specific relationship with authority and accountability. Where patterns emerged across the group, they were addressed in the room together. Where they were personal, they stayed personal.
Action
The quarterly retreats began in 2024. This is where individual development started to translate into collective performance.
The retreats were built around real challenges — not hypothetical scenarios or facilitated exercises, but the actual strategic and commercial questions the leadership group was facing. Neil's role was to create the conditions for honest dialogue, challenge assumptions that had gone unchallenged, and drive towards decisions rather than discussions.
The commercial thinking that came out of those sessions changed the way the team operated. Not because of a new framework, but because people started having different conversations — more direct, more grounded, more aligned to what the business actually needed.
Ascent
The results compounded over time in the way they always do when the underlying work has been done properly.
The business developed a clearer understanding of its talent — who was ready for what, what the realistic career trajectories looked like, and where development investment would have the most impact. Leaders who had felt uncertain about their authority started operating from a more grounded place. The team began to function with a coherence it hadn't had before.
The engagement is ongoing. That's not unusual. The most valuable thing a coaching relationship can do is build the capacity for sustained performance — not deliver a short-term result and move on.
A representative programme: CRO and senior leadership group
To give a sense of how an engagement is structured, here is a representative programme menu for a Chief Revenue Officer and their leadership team:
Individual coaching (CRO) Knowing yourself — self-assessment, style, and leadership presence Optimal positioning — role clarity, authority, and strategic influence Commercial leadership — decision-making under pressure, stakeholder management
Team programme Functional leadership — team dynamics, talent mapping, development planning Commercial skills — strategic thinking, challenge, and accountability Communication — internal influence, executive presence, difficult conversations Future-proofing — succession, pipeline, and building for the long term
Ongoing Quarterly strategic retreats Individual mentoring and follow-up Personal brand and gravitas management
Onwrdz works with senior leaders and leadership teams across sectors. Every programme is built around your context, your culture, and what you're actually trying to achieve.
Ready to start a conversation? hello@onwrdz.com