NEWSLETTER – WINTER 2020
Welcome to our Winter 2020 Newsletter – scroll down to find out what we’ve been up to, or if you would prefer to view the newsletter in a flipbook you can click here to jump directly to that section.
Enjoy!
WELCOME!
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to our first newsletter!
As specialists in helping businesses build high performance environments, we know what great teams can achieve and understand what it takes to build them. You’ll find this newsletter is filled with useful information, helpful hints, events and news to help you on your journey to create and build your own sustainable, high performance environment.
Relationships are really important to us at Wingman and our approach epitomises that team ethos. We want this newsletter to be valuable for you so please feel free to share your feedback and suggestions to help us improve.
You can unsubscribe by clicking the link at the bottom of any of our emails. However, if you’d like to be kept up-to-date with what we’ve been up to and want to learn more about how to create the right environment where all the individuals and teams in your business can achieve their full potential, then we think you’ll enjoy these newsletters.
If you need anything as we work through this journey together, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Kind regards
Rory Underwood, Director
WINGMAN GROWTH
During lockdown we were made to think outside the box when it came to the way we deliver since we couldn’t deliver face to face. Even though we worked from home, like many of you, we still made sure we offered our clients the same great service we always have. However, whilst making the shift towards delivering online and virtually, what quickly became clear was that we were missing a skillset – someone to help with our visual presence
With that in mind, we welcomed Becca Underwood to the Wingman team in September. Becca’s background and experience in videography, photography, video editing and social media, to name just a few, means we are able to create more engaging content as we increase our visual presence.
Having Becca on board is great but that brought another problem – our little office, where we’ve lived since Wingman was formed back in 2009, housing our small team of just 3 people, now wasn’t big enough!
Moving into dedicated office space has been discussed several times over the years, so in November we finally took the next step and moved into a fantastic new office just down the road off the A1. Not only do we now all have our own desks (yay!), but we also have a dedicated space for virtual workshop delivery and online content filming to support our new way of delivering.
Special thanks go to Steve and Martine at Harlaxton Estates for the smooth process of moving in, Proici and Fovia, who did an amazing job on kitting out the office, training room and meeting room, and not forgetting our friends and Team Lincolnshire Ambassadors at Pygott & Crone for helping us source the space.
MEET THE TEAM
Many of you won’t know our team, having only met Rory or worked with a specific few, so as this is our first newsletter, we’d like to take the opportunity to introduce the whole of the Wingman team, as without them all, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do!
All our official blurb can be found on our website at wingmanltd.com/about but here are some fun facts about the team.
RORY UNDERWOOD – DIRECTOR
As well as being Wingman’s founder and Director, Rory is also the man to turn to if you need directions. From getting around the London Underground to the best route on the roads, Rory is a walking sat-nav!
DAVE MOSS – DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT
Dave has worked with Rory forever! When he’s not delivering, you’ll find him home-brewing or he loves to be outdoors, usually with his dog. He can’t wait for the pubs to re-open so he can enjoy a pint at the end of his long walks.
JAMES CLEGG – CONSULTANT
James is not only a highly experienced facilitator but he is the musical one of the team. Sit down with him over a pint and he’ll no doubt tell you about all the venues he’s played at!
KRISTIAN RAMSIER – CONSULTANT
Kristian when not helping companies improve their sales function, is a sports nut – whether it’s rugby, cricket, golf, fishing or shooting (to name a few), Kristian is never far away from a sporting field of some description.
JANE MCCLELLAND – BUSINESS OPERATIONS
As well as keeping the Wingman Operations running smoothly, Jane is the camping queen, if you think camping is boring and basic you’ve not seen Jane’s camp set up!
LAURA TAYLOR – BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
As well as being the Wingman’s marketing queen, Laura also keeps Wingman stocked as the office baker, from cakes to chocolates, biscuits and everything in between, the female Mr Kipling!
EMMA BAKER – BUSINESS SUPPORT
Emma is our go to lady for organizing both delegates and our consultants! In her free time she loves nothing more than a good murder mystery documentary.
BECCA UNDERWOOD – MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS
The newest recruit to Wingman, Becca’s background and experience of videography extends out of works as well, as she’s also a film and TV show nut – even watching all the behind the scenes extras too.
EMMA WEIGHILL – EVENTS CO-ORDINATOR
If you have an event to organize, then you want Emma on your team! She’s the healthy one in the office, be it running a 10k, playing tennis or walking the dog – and she makes a mean salad!
EVENTS
Just before lockdown began we were in the planning phase for running three events across the East Midlands giving CEOs, Managing Directors, Entrepreneurs and Directors an opportunity to hear Rory speak about what Wingman does and why it’s so important to us.
Obviously with the pandemic these events didn’t go ahead and we are now planning (hopefully) to run them in Spring 2021.
And we’d like your help – our question is ‘if you were going to join us for one of these events, would you prefer them to be online, so everyone throughout the UK and abroad can join in, or would you be happy to attend an event in person?
We have set up an online poll and we’d really appreciate you taking a few seconds to provide an answer to help us shape these events. Please use the link below to access the poll, and of course we’ll update you when we have some new dates.
BLOG
Throughout the year we have been pushing out topical blogs and have received some great feedback, as well as starting conversations on social media. If you need to catch up on your reading, you can find all of these on our website at wingmanltd.com/blog.
We’re excited to push out more in the new year, as well as sharing videos from Rory on a variety of topics to keep you informed, get you thinking about your own business practises and asking you to join the conversations.
If there are any topics you’d particularly like to read about, or any questions you’d like in future blogs, we’d love to hear from you! Please also feel free to share these with anyone you feel may benefit from them and if they’d like to be added to the subscription list, they can sign up at wingmanltd.com by clicking on the ‘Subscribe’ red tab on the right-hand side.
TEAM LINCOLNSHIRE AMBASSADORS
Since 2018 Wingman have been a part of a great team of ambassadors in our local county who work together to strengthen our local economy and champion the region we live in.
Team Lincolnshire is a powerful, independent partnership of ambitious, forward-thinking private and public sector organisations who are united by the common goal of championing a stronger local economy. Ambassadors represent the whole of Greater Lincolnshire, Humber area and Rutland from a huge variety of sectors including legal, design, cultural, educational and property.
Since lockdown, they have come up with some fantastic ideas on how to keep ambassadors engaged and continuing to talk including the ‘Team Lincolnshire Coffee Club’ which is a weekly meeting for ambassadors to promote their company and/or a project they are involved with. It is also a really good chance to have a catch up with everyone.
If your business is within Greater Lincolnshire, take a look at their website for further information and we hope to see you at a Team Lincolnshire event soon.
greaterlincolnshirelep.co.uk/funding-and-projects/team-lincolnshire
WORKING WITH
In each newsletter, we’ll be focusing on one our clients and unashamedly highlighting some of the work we have been doing with them. To find out about more of the businesses we’ve partnered with, and on what, you can visit wingmanltd.com/who-we-work-with.
This time around, it’s the turn of …
ADEY INNOVATION LTD
ADEY, in their own words, are ‘here to protect the nation’s heating’. From best practices to innovative solutions, their mission is to eliminate the headache of heating system breakdowns for installers and homeowners and for more than a decade, they’ve devoted their time to inventing advanced technology and investing in industry-leading products that do this. You’ll find their products in more than five million homes across the UK and Ireland and that number grows by the thousands every month.
Although they work in 19 different countries across Europe, as well as China, the United States and New Zealand, their Head Office is in Cheltenham and in late 2018, that’s where Wingman headed.
Wingman’s overall goal – to assist with the next stage of ADEY’s growth. We were asked to come and support them through some of the challenges that they faced as they grew, following organic and acquisition growth. The speed of this growth had been a challenge for the business and they needed some guidance with enabling them to improve their senior management with leading the business through these challenging, yet exciting, times.
We conducted a series of interviews and workshops with individuals, groups and teams across a wide range of levels and roles to fully understand the challenges that ADEY were facing and where Wingman’s unique approach and methodology could best be applied.
As part of a larger plan, one of our recommendations was around the need to really embed a team-mindset across the leadership of the newly expanded business, and so in October 2019 we kicked off a multi-group Leadership Development Programme with the top 36 leaders of the business from across the UK and Europe.
The programme began with a high-impact residential workshop where we took ‘The 36’ to a fantastic woodland site close to ADEY’s HQ for 2.5 days of intense experiential activities and hard-hitting strategic discussion sessions, to really get them to understand each other and the challenges they had, both as individuals and teams, with delivering their ambitious strategic priorities.
Utilising the tried and tested formula of simple problem-solving activities and tasks, interspersed with regular discussions to review and reflect on what makes a high-performance team, we set the group a series of challenges, starting with small teams and gradually increasing the size of the teams over the course of the 2.5 days.
The teams were mixed from different levels and departments of the business and this, combined with social activities in the evening, gave all 36 delegates the opportunity to really get to know each other.
Discussions that flowed from the breakouts combined the learnings from the activities with a better understanding of the priorities and challenges of the different parts of the business, creating a greater awareness of the way they needed to operative collectively as the senior leadership to help the business deliver on its strategic priorities.
This initial workshop created positive momentum for the rest of the Programme and formed the basis for ‘The 36’ to collectively create their high performance environment, and when the country went into lockdown in March 2020, having this solid foundation across the leadership levels was invaluable for the business.
Matt Webber, Group MD, said
“The Wingman Team did a great job in helping us improve collaboration across our Senior Management team and consequently the overall business. New in my role I was also trying to drive a high performing culture. Having Wingman to facilitate all of the above made a huge difference and I highly recommend their services.”
SUPPORTING LOCAL BUSINESS
Micro-Fresh are based in Leicestershire and have been in business for 20 years. Beginning life as an innovative formula that solved the problem of bacterial growth during the transit of retail goods, now their multi-award-winning technology is used by major retailers and manufacturers around the world to achieve lifetime product freshness including bedding and shoes.
Micro-Fresh are now looking at adding the technology to sportswear so throughout November they recruited volunteers, including Jane and Laura from Wingman, to wear a new micro-fresh top for 30 days straight when working out which had their technology in. The results were unanimous, the top smelt as fresh on day 30 as it did on day 1!
You can find out more about Micro Fresh at microfresh.com.
We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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