Accelerating High-Performance Across the Board at PUNCH

PUNCH Consulting Engineers is one of Ireland’s leading and most experienced engineering consultancies. Established in 1973, the organisation’s ethos is to provide clients with the highest levels of quality in their design service and finished product.

They understood the emergent challenging global context and the concept ‘what got you here, won’t get you there’. The company was performing well but craved new knowledge on performing and interacting better. The board is made up of engineers who were keen to step up to become strategic leaders in a high-performance environment. Stephen and the Live Unbound team were brought in during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify areas of improvement in the team and the business and expand the leadership team’s performance and mindset, so they could seek out opportunities and adapt in challenging global contexts, driving the organisation forward, outperforming competitors.

We looked at the various business pillars within the organisation, such as finance, operations, innovation, people etc. We helped to identify where PUNCH needed to be and what the priorities were in these areas. World-class assessment tools were used to assess character, personality and working practices to align individuals with their strengths and role on the board. This helped the leadership team proactively set clear, measurable goals and reverse-engineered them into achievable steps for the leaders to execute and collaborate more effectively. A key element of our work involved bringing the company’s values to life and helping the CEO create a high-performing people-focused culture. In addition, Stephen worked one-to-one to support the CEO in his role.

Visual scoreboards were used for the strategy so all leaders could hold each other accountable to perform exceptionally while bringing their teams along their journey, succession planning and elevating the leadership pipeline. We incorporated physical games and mental challenges into the process to keep the work enjoyable whilst enhancing the connection between team members. We also explored the team’s vision and dynamics and built trust and psychological safety to transform individual and collective performance.

Our work has positively impacted the organisation’s performance and enabled PUNCH to stand out amongst competitors for their excellence in delivery. Stakeholders’ confidence in the organisation’s values and culture was elevated. PUNCH has doubled its revenue, hit major milestones ahead of schedule, won industry awards and is predicted to perform extremely well despite a global recession looming in 2023. The board members connected and got to know each other better throughout the process, which aligned the team and ultimately set the domino effect right throughout the organisation.

We are now working with PUNCH on a new innovative high performing project, ‘Growing with PUNCH, ’ supporting everyone to be the best version of themselves within and outside the organisation. PUNCH is a value-based organisation that continuously strives to improve, which is reflected in its culture and projects.