Deep conversations
Creative agencies often run on strong relationships, fast judgement and high emotional signal.
Helping a creative agency leadership group use relationship awareness during business transformation.
Relationship Awareness and TotalSDI work for Rothco, now Droga5 Dublin, helping leaders understand motives, conflict triggers and practical habits during culture change.
Rothco was an award-winning Dublin creative agency, now Droga5 Dublin, part of Accenture Song.
The context
Rothco was navigating business transformation and the culture change that comes with it. The team did not need a theoretical model to admire from a distance. They needed a practical way to understand why people click, where friction starts and how different leaders can work better with each other when pressure rises.
The work
We created the space to think clearly, together.
Clear thinking
Kate designed a TotalSDI-based Relationship Awareness programme for the group, combining online assessments, an interactive debrief workshop and follow-up coaching. The work focused on motives, strengths, overdone strengths, conflict triggers and the everyday techniques people could use to build stronger relationships.
Practical ways forward
Used TotalSDI assessments to surface motivational values, strengths and conflict style.
The outcome
Stronger foundations. Clearer direction. Better relationships.
- Leaders gained clearer language for motivation, strengths and conflict
- The group could understand difference without turning it into personality judgement
- Relationship awareness became practical enough to support culture change
- Follow-up coaching helped translate insight into personal goals and daily prompts
“Kate coaches me in Leadership confidence and teaches me effectiveness techniques that I can very practically apply in my working life. She was able to help me boil down what it is I really want and the steps I need to take to get there, and then helped me develop simple daily prompts to keep me focussed on my goals. Her practice and coaching made an enormous difference as I stepped up to C-Level, and I'm sure her expertise will stay with me as I travel that trajectory further.”
The impact
Clarity that changed how the work could move.
The value of Relationship Awareness was not that it labelled people. It helped leaders understand what each person was trying to protect, prove or contribute, and gave them a more useful way to work with that.
Delve deeper
Related resources for the pattern underneath this work.
01
Neuroscience
You know exactly what habit you need to change. So why haven't you?
Most leaders, at some point in their development, arrive at a moment of uncomfortable clarity. They can see the pattern.
02
Relationships
What is SDI Core Strengths?
A practical guide to SDI Core Strengths, motivation, strengths, overdone strengths, conflict sequences and how relationship intelligence helps teams work better.
03
Models
What is SDI and how does it help teams work better
Most team tools help people describe how they behave. SDI, the Strength Deployment Inventory developed by Tim Overman and now published by Core Strengths, does something more specific: it helps people understand why they behave as they do, what motivates them at a deeper level, and crucially, what happens to their strengths when they feel threatened or when conflict enters the room.