Case Study
Ucidity’s Delivery Team
SUMMARY
Ucidity is dedicated to multiplying business commercial value through optimised HubSpot CRM solutions and backward-built websites. Owner John Hill is committed to ensuring that his team not only drives exceptional business performance but also creates an environment where quality family time is preserved. To better understand the internal dynamics and identify opportunities to improve customer retention and market competitiveness, Ucidity commissioned TeamEQ to produce an internal survey and analysis of key team attributes.
Seeing the data laid out so clearly has been an eye-opener. It’s provided the clarity I needed to steer our team toward higher performance.
2. Background Information
Ucidity operates with a clear vision and mission:
- VISION: To help businesses multiply their commercial value and scale beyond their horizon.
- MISSION: To help business owners sleep at night and maintain quality relationships with their families.
- VALUES:
- Fun: We get things done AND know how to have fun.
- Honesty: Open, brave, and supportive communication with our team and stakeholders.
- Inspiration: Every interaction with Ucidity leaves people feeling better than before.
- Growth: Constant education and self-improvement to provide ever-increasing value for our clients.
Specialising in implementing and optimising HubSpot CRM systems, Ucidity works closely with business brokers, digital agencies, and sales coaches to help their clients scale. To ensure that the delivery team is aligned with these values and performing at the highest level, a survey was conducted involving four members of the delivery team along with John Hill. John’s objective was to understand how well the team connects with customers, how well they communicate internally, and where gaps exist that may hinder customer retention and overall business growth.
3. The Challenges
The 20-page report revealed a mixed picture of the team’s internal dynamics and performance:
Overall Team Performance: The team is performing at a “satisfactory” level—functioning well enough but with significant untapped potential.
Internal Alignment:
While the team shows moderate alignment in areas like communication and performance excellence, overall internal alignment was lower than expected.
• Communication:
This attribute stood out as an area for improvement, with responses indicating notable misalignment. The overall average score was below 70%, with specific questions highlighting opportunities to enhance task updates and foster a more open exchange of ideas. Addressing these gaps will help streamline workflows and improve team cohesion.
• Leadership:
The findings reveal an interesting contrast between how the team perceives its leadership capabilities and how management views them. While the team expresses confidence in its leadership potential, there is an opportunity to further develop distributed leadership to ensure alignment and maximise effectiveness.
• Collaboration and Innovation:
These areas received moderate scores, indicating a solid foundation. However, there is significant potential to strengthen collaboration and innovation efforts, particularly in ways that enhance communication and accelerate project momentum.
John’s own analysis of the data pointed to the need for greater attention to communication issues, which are critical to both team cohesion and customer engagement.
4. The Approach
To address these challenges, our engagement with Ucidity followed a structured process:
-
Survey Administration:
Over a two-week period, four delivery team members and John answered 20 questions covering the following five selected attributes:- Performance Excellence
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Leadership
- Innovation and Creativity
Each participant answered 20 questions, resulting in 100 data points collected over a two-week period.
-
Feedback Sessions:
The report was presented to John a few days after completion. Following this, a 15-minute remote meeting was held during a regular weekly session. In this meeting:- Key questions were raised regarding the source of communication gaps and the misalignment in leadership expectations.
- The discussion focused on creating a psychologically safe space where team members can share insights using “yes and” principles.
- A plan was laid out for a follow-up session in two months to review changes, assess the impact of any implemented procedures, and determine further training needs over the next 12 months.
-
Strategic Focus Areas:
The conversation centered on the four pillars of a functioning team:- Being Heard: Emphasis on improving open communication and reducing delays.
- Psychological Safety: Fostering an environment where team members feel safe to express ideas and concerns.
- Respect and Collaboration: Strengthening mutual respect to improve overall team synergy.
- Trust and Leadership: Addressing the misalignment between team confidence in their leadership and management’s perception.
5. Summary of the Results
The findings from the survey and subsequent discussions have provided John Hill with a clear roadmap for driving change within Ucidity:
-
Significant potential remains untapped—particularly in the realms of communication and leadership.
-
Delayed task updates and rollover of responsibilities are creating bottlenecks, affecting performance excellence and possibly leading to client dissatisfaction.
-
Improved communication is expected to cascade positively across collaboration, leadership, and ultimately customer engagement.
-
Bridging the misalignment gap between the team’s self-assessment of their leadership capabilities and management’s expectations is vitally important.
-
Cultivating an environment where leadership is more evenly distributed and openly discussed could enhance overall team performance.
John shared his reflections on the report:
“It’s a good reflection of where we’re sitting—an eye-opener that shows both our strengths and the blindspots we need to address. I now see where our potential lies and understand that improving communication and leadership is key to moving forward. This report gives me the ‘why’ and the direction we need to create a new space for innovation and growth.”
By addressing these identified gaps and leveraging the team’s existing strengths, Ucidity is well-positioned to enhance customer retention, increase market share, and ultimately multiply its commercial value.
6. Next steps
- Immediate Focus: Enhance communication practices by introducing targeted training, improving task update procedures, and ensuring a safe space for open dialogue.
- Mid-Term Review: Conduct a second survey in two months to measure progress and adjust strategies as needed.
- Long-Term Development: Over the next 12 months, invest in leadership development and further training initiatives to fully harness the team’s potential and drive market competitiveness.