José Barroso

The "EOI coworkings" program provides entrepreneurs from different locations in Spain with training, mentoring, and support to launch their businesses, over 4 months, from the initial idea to the business presentation on a "Demo Day", even with sales already made.

My role, during three editions of the program which approximately 40 entrepreneurs participated in, was to deliver several workshops on team and stress management, and to coach various entrepreneurs.

The objective was to improve their shortcomings in certain areas (mainly sales and personal/work organization), identified by the different project mentors and specialized mentors, by working on improving their emotional blocks, limiting beliefs, and unproductive routines.

The success rate (measured by entrepreneurs who started living from their own project) was around 80%.

We applied the 3E team development and excellence program, of our own design.

The program seeks to measure the existing degree in participants of different competencies that were identified as essential for performing the role of commercial engineer in the corresponding department of the company, through a combined system of role-playing simulations and individualized feedback (with the particularity that it is given by the team leader, supervised by the consultant). As it is a sales team, the competencies were fundamentally focused on typical commercial area skills (achievement orientation, commercial leadership, persuasion, customer orientation, etc...)

The objective was to identify areas for improvement in competencies compared to the required level through feedback, which would be accepted and agreed upon by the team members, and to establish individual action plans for improvement.

The program was complemented by a short workshop on time management and a follow-up intervention three months after the first one, in order to evaluate the application and effectiveness of the action plans, using team coaching techniques.

The objective was to analyze and propose a professionalization plan for middle managers. Previously, in 2008, the French group Geopost had acquired the majority of shares in SEUR, the logistics leader in Spain.

The challenges were significant. SEUR's traditional franchise structure was being absorbed through acquisitions by the new owner and incorporated into its functional organization. Very different management styles, very different training levels for franchise employees, and very different hierarchical structures had to function under a single model if one of their main objectives at the time was to be successfully achieved: transforming from a company that traditionally handled large volumes between businesses to one that could handle direct home deliveries of small parcels, due to the needs of the then booming e-commerce companies.

The joint work culminated in a project where middle managers were the protagonists. Making the change "from the bottom up" involved working with them and providing them with the necessary support for their role to evolve into that of team leaders, becoming SEUR's "spearheads" to achieve the profound change needed throughout their entire workforce and subsequently providing them with concrete tools to carry it out, through training and coaching. Today, more than 300 managers from the company have gone through the training, coaching, and empowerment system that I designed and executed, and the organization's transformation has been successfully carried out.

The project consisted of the design and execution of training content and follow-up coaching sessions, aimed at the company's middle management staff within the "Management School" project. It consisted of two project phases, "The Role of the Middle Manager" and "Managing People", plus follow-up coaching sessions in both.