By
Background
Natura & Co is a Brazilian global personal care cosmetics group that currently includes Natura Cosméticos, Aesop, The Body Shop, and Avon. The Group is headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, and has a presence in 73 countries across all continents except Antarctica.
D uring the pandemic in 2021, the group added Avon to its portfolio which already included Natura, The Body Shop, and Aesop. After the new acquisition, the group needed to make changes to its structure in all the countries it had a presence.
In the Asia Pacific, the group’s Procurement team, led by Laura Ferrington, was tasked with overseeing the group’s restructuring in the region. However, due to various challenges, Laura and her team weren’t making enough progress as they wanted, so they approached us for help.
Challenge
Laura was faced with the task of formulating the procurement team's strategy for Nature & Co’s restructuring in the region and streamlining the processes involved together with her team. However, due to low engagement within the team, the restructuring wasn’t progressing as planned. Laura needed to identify what the problem was and resolve it in order to drive the much-needed productivity.
Approach
We started the project with discovery interviews with Laura and some of her colleagues. The initial analysis we carried out on the situation showed that Laura and her team were overwhelmed and frustrated with the workload of the restructuring that they were tasked with.
To relieve the frustration and improve engagement within the team, stronger connections needed to be built. We advised Laura to create a conducive space for everyone on the team to connect on a deeper human level using some of the best team collaboration tips which she implemented and immediately saw results.
We then designed and facilitated online sessions using the WakeMake Framework, where they could all collaborate and we used the Mural virtual whiteboard to help everyone on the team fully participate. The first session was a one-hour onboarding session focused on introducing the Mural tool, and creating rapport among all the participants (17 people altogether).
Subsequent sessions were co-created with Laura and carefully designed to create a safe space where everyone on the team expressed their views and gained clarity on collaboration strategies, approaches to challenges, and resolution of issues.
In addition, we gave Laura some of the best team collaboration tips to create a conducive space for everyone on the team at work to connect on a deeper human level, which she implemented and immediately saw results.
Conclusively we helped Laura and her team articulate their individual perspectives and create a shared understanding of where the team was and where it needs to go. This enabled them to develop goals for restructuring they needed to carry out and inspiring commitment to fulfilling them.
Results
In just 6 hours of online sessions, the participants who previously felt disconnected and overwhelmed, gained clarity and became more connected than ever before. They also stated how great it was to see what others think and learn about the roles of people in other markets and other brands.
As a leader, Laura commented on how she gained clarity and confidence to help teams when and where they needed her support the most. She said, “Our team alignment sessions were very enjoyable! It's amazing what can happen in just six hours. My biggest takeaway was understanding how I can precisely help my team as a leader.”
Laura also spoke about learning tips and tricks for managing meetings better and would help her in leading strategic decision-making with her teams. She said, “I have one board that shows me how people feel. I didn't realize the importance of the breakout groups and how people need to meet each other.”
For leaders of big teams likr Laura, who hold a lot of responsibility, it is crucial for them to pay more attention to the individual needs of each team member. With this project, we were able to help Laura become more aware of her team’s needs, instead of assuming they were doing fine.
Speaking about the improvement, Laura said.“It didn't occur to me that some people never met and I had assumed that the team feels down because of the restructuring but actually they are quite energized and want to change things.”
