The Challenge
At the start of 2025, I found myself in a deep Pause.
The months leading up to it had been tough. By the end of 2024, I was spending much of my time in skip-level conversations, trying to understand the growing friction inside my team.
On paper, we were meant to function as one unit. In reality, we were spread across three countries, shaped by different cultures and methodologies, and led by two people with very different leadership styles. It was clear: our structure wasn’t working. Something had to change.
So, in January, I dusted off my practicum project and launched “Re-imagine Access Services.” For the first time in seven years, we began to rethink our team’s design. The goal? Support our customers better. Cut down manual work. Reignite purpose. Create space for innovation and accept that failing fast might be part of the process.
This also meant tackling practical challenges: reducing cost, strengthening leadership skills, creating stretch opportunities, and addressing the long list of feedback from those Q4 conversations.
It was daunting work. The stakes were high, and the challenges kept coming. That’s when I turned to my HOW learnings and to T.R.I.P.
The Application
I re-drafted a mission statement and vision for the group. Alongside my peers, core stakeholders, and especially my own people-leaders who were going to help bring this re-imagination to life, we debated, disagreed, ‘parked’ difficult items we couldn’t agree on to then circle back to later and close off. I trusted my network’s feedback, consultancy and advice on how to make this work. We collaborated, innovated, fine-tuned, and documented roles and responsibilities each with a short- and long-term strategy to kickstart the change and set a direction. We purposely left some blank, knowing we were not the right focals to set the vision.
Throughout the spring, we started sharing our vision in 1:1s and skip-levels. Our experience had taught us it’s better to over-communicate than to not communicate at all. This was a valuable time for us, as we gathered insights on items we had forgotten about or not even considered. We ensured we incorporate these as well. Our senior leader was presented with our plan and was in agreement with all risk/rewards we highlighted, but was overall excited about the upcoming changes. Then it was finally time to face the final boss, the last level of the game: The team itself.
I was sweating buckets, tripping over my words and nostrils flaring as I presented. By this point, my blood had been replaced and fueled by caffeine getting this presentation ready, prepping questions, bringing the excitement, and turning every single stone of this now 9-month-long project.
The silence was deafening when I finally finished. My brain catastrophized for a tenth of a second and I saw my professional demise flash before my eyes. I composed myself and said, “I recognize that for some, this is a lot to take in. Know that we have had you in mind the whole time, looking at how to expand on your skillset, address the issues you have highlighted and this model addresses a lot of those points. It is tool-agnostic and suitable for the long haul. It is not perfect, we don’t have all the answers, and we invite you to co-design with us—be open-minded to changing some things and if it doesn’t work, let’s fail fast.”
The Results
One of the risks we expected to face was entrenchment. And I am so delighted to see, nearly 3 weeks later, how the team have adapted to new people leaders, new styles, new ways of thinking, and bubbling with excitement for the future.
Is it still early days? Heck yeah. Do we still have challenges on our hands after the re-org? Absolutely. But we are tackling those together as we move from an informed acquiescence leadership style to a self-governed one. I am bursting with pride on how my team embraced this change and have nothing but immense gratitude towards them and my hard-working leaders, who were in the trenches with me and believed in our shared vision.
The HOW Institute gave me the courage and tools to tackle these kind of leadership challenges and seeing the impact it has on my team is amazing. It has consumed me fully this year, to the extent that my children are using the phrase ‘reimagine’ and applying it to their own hobbies. My 11-year-old aviation-mad son Conor was explained what reimagine means and started drafting a new version of an airport in Denmark with better utilization of space, better logistic on the runway, and more gates. I love the wave it created.
