Global Inkjet Systems, an industrial inkjet technology business in Cambridge, was targeting a step change from supplier to Tier 1 partner. The strategic ambition was clear at the top. What was missing was a shared, working understanding across the leadership group of what that meant day to day. An On The Same Page workshop series gave the team a single frame, a shared language, and a set of commitments to run against.
Global Inkjet Systems is an industrial inkjet technology business in Cambridge, and the ambition when Steve Williamson brought me in was clear. GIS wanted to make the step from respected supplier to genuine Tier 1 partner in their market. The strategy at the top was sound. What Steve sensed, rightly, was that the strategy wasn't yet shared in a way that reached how people worked day to day.I tend to find this is the real work in a strong engineering business. The technical capability is rarely in doubt. The question is whether the whole leadership group is carrying the same picture of where the company is going and what that asks of each of them. That was the brief: take a clear strategic ambition and turn it into a shared, working understanding across the team.
I never like to walk into a room cold, so the work started with listening. I ran a survey across the business, and followed it with a set of interviews, with staff and customers. That last group matters. Hearing how customers actually experience the business gives a leadership team something they can't get from talking only to themselves.
The picture that came back was a useful one to work with. There was real strength to build on, alongside a few honest themes worth addressing: a sense that communication between teams could be tighter, that the business ran more reactively than it wanted to, and that some valuable customer relationships sat with individuals rather than with the company. These are good problems, the kind a business only encounters because it has grown and is ready for the next level.
I structured the series around the five themes that I use to organise my work: Strategy, Leadership, Teamwork, Culture, and Brand. The framework gives a leadership group permission to spend time on the parts of the operating picture they tend to talk about least, Culture and Brand in particular, and it makes the connections visible. The ambition to be seen as a Tier 1 partner is a Brand outcome, but it rests on the Culture work of how the business shows up internally, which in turn rests on the Strategy clarity of what Tier 1 actually means.
We worked it across sessions at the Cambridge office, followed by an offsite that opened the conversation out to the wider leadership group. One moment I was particularly pleased with was when the team landed on their own description of what set them apart: the modular electronics, the configurable software, and the ability to finish the final twenty percent that others leave undone. Because they reached it themselves, it stuck, and they have been carrying that language into customer conversations since.
GIS came out of the series with a single frame holding the whole strategic conversation, a shared language for what they offer, and a set of commitments the leadership group owned together rather than received from outside. The differentiator they articulated has become part of how they talk to OEM partners. The cross-team and customer themes that surfaced in the pre-work were named openly and turned into things the team chose to act on.It was exactly the kind of engagement I most enjoy: a serious business, a team willing to look honestly at itself, and a clear ambition to point all of that work towards.
The reason the Five Pillars work for an engagement like this is that the framework forces the conversation to move across the whole operating shape of the business, not just the parts the team finds easiest to discuss. Industrial engineering businesses tend to be strong on Strategy and Leadership in conversation and weaker, or quieter, on Culture and Brand. The pillars give a leadership group permission to spend time on the parts of the system they have been quietly avoiding.
The other useful thing about working a leadership team across all five pillars in a compressed series is that the connections between the pillars become visible. The Brand commitment to being seen as a Tier 1 partner is not deliverable without the Culture work on how the business shows up internally, and the Culture work has no force without the Strategy clarity on what Tier 1 actually means. The framework makes those connections explicit rather than assumed.
The lesson I am carrying forward into similar engagements: invest the time in sessions that open the work out to the wider cohort, and design it so the leadership group themselves carry the framework rather than the facilitator. That handover is what makes the alignment durable.
Most work like this starts with a 30-minute call to understand the team, the context, and what good would look like. From there we agree the shape of the work together.
