Successful Teams

Enabling senior teams to thrive in challenging times

Successful St Teams

In an age where we wrestle with demands of the ever-changing nature of teams, bringing the best out of your teams requires a tailored approach, carefully designed to meet the specific challenges and opportunities.

Successful Teams Model Ascend.png

We are experienced, insightful, and impactful in working with senior teams and their unique dynamics. After extensive research and testing, we have developed a unique and proprietary Successful Teams model and accompanying diagnostic, which allows teams and their members to accurately pinpoint areas of strength and, as importantly, the areas that require attention, to make the te

am a sustainably successful one in the current and future context.

We ask teams to focus on six dimensions: internal focus, external focus, spirit, agility, resilience, and leadership, through a series of carefully constructed online questions. We then generate data to ‘hold the mirror up’ to the teams to enable them to make informed, prioritised, and actionable decisions to improve performance.

We then challenge, coach, motivate, and support team members to leverage their strengths, as well as take ownership and accountability to act on development areas.

In short, Ascend’s unique approach and insight will empower your team(s) to thrive in challenging times.

Bill Lawry discusses each of our six dimensions and why they are so important to sustainable successful teams.

Specific areas of focus include:

Conducting executive team effectiveness audits
Accelerating the performance of new teams
Enabling all teams to take accountability for enhacing their performance

“My coaching with Ascend has given me more confidence in myself and had a major impact on my performance within my current role. My coach was excellent at breaking things down and getting outcomes for me in a way I can achieve. I found my coach to be much more personal, with a real focus on me and a desire to build a lasting relationship rather than a supplier / customer engagement. Overall, my Ascend coach provided a very professional service that gets results.”

— Group Chief Technology Officer, Insurance Services

“Our session regarding Resilience provided an easily accessible and actionable toolkit to help business leaders manage themselves and their teams more effectively. Ascend presents with a simple and engaging human energy which encourages active participation. Good core drills and skills as well as reflection points.”

“My Ascend coach has added a lot of value into my professional journey. I thoroughly appreciated the fact that I could say anything and trust that it will be viewed in confidence and with an eye to help me improve. My coach has the ability to see through me not only as a professional coach but also beyond my body language and energy. My coach was very focused in their approach, results orientated and acknowledged emotional intelligence. Improving myself has made me more grounded, focused, and empathetic towards my team.”

— Group Senior Vice President, Multinational Telecommunications Services Provider

“With Ascend, there is a real investment in time for the people and the team they are working with: their only focus and priority at that time is that/those individuals. They are professional and have the ability to interact at all levels of the business and they are fun to work with too.”

— Chief Organisation and Development Officer, Defence Engineering Company

“This is the first time I have had a true partnership with a trusted advisor who was a great sounding board for ideas around how to evolve our leadership development approach. Ascend has co-created programmes with us which work with our population, logistics and budgets. They bring a flexibility and innovative thinking to the table and really work on the problem with us to find great solutions. I know that the service and programmes we are getting are world class and will be brilliantly delivered. I never worry about how participants will react to the programmes as I know it will be well received and that Ascend will work to ensure all participants get value.”

— Chief People Officer, Global Defence Industry

“We have partnered with Ascend to use their High Potential Diagnostic tool. We’ve chosen to use it as our framework for differentiating between individuals in our talent pool (from the lens of potential), helping show where we have individual development opportunities and, when viewed in groups, where common themes and future behaviour gaps might be.

The tool helps our leaders avoid simply scoring people and instead considers people on a continuum of skill level in each of the categories in the tool. This allows us to focus in on the quality of our assessment, not just picking a number.

Without this tool, we would not be able to prioritise our talent development activities across our talent pools with as much effectiveness and confidence of success, it’s a key tool in our Talent Toolkit.”

— Head of People Development, Global Defence Industry

“Ascend’s down-to-earth approach has the ability to build and manage relationships with relevant stakeholders (coachees, managers, feedback providers, decision-makers), communicate in a straightforward and effective way, and have a real impact with their clients.”

— HR Business Partner, Sovereign Wealth Fund

“Ascend understands the world of HR and the work they have done has been very thought provoking and impactful. The learning experiences are of high quality, are experiential and practical.

Ascend’s flexible approach made us feel that they were working as an extension of the team, rather than an external vendor. They focus on the learners to support them to achieve their objectives as opposed to just delivering them. It’s great to work with someone you trust and it has been really easy to partner with Ascend. The quality of the work is top notch.”