Adam knows diversity in a team doesn’t just happen, rather it took a deliberate and considered approach.

When Adam took on the Cabot’s role, he knew he was leading a group of employees with long standing service and experience. They knew how to get the job done so Adam’s initial focus was on making sure they remained engaged during the change in leadership to continue delivering exceptional results. When movement occurred within the team, Adam used this opportunity to mould and shape the team differently. His vision was to create a diverse sales team (in terms of experience, gender, age and backgrounds) to truly drive team performance within a supportive environment. Adam’s goal was to foster a high performing team culture where everyone felt empowered to step up and deliver no matter what their experience was. There is no doubt – it worked. It took time and patience which eventually paid off. Individual members of the team have since been singled out and recognised for their outstanding performances, including three members being recognised as National Sales Professional of the Year, while two have achieved further career advancements, all under Adam’s leadership.

The team now comprises a mixture of long serving experienced Sales Executives; their wealth of knowledge invaluable, as well as graduates; fresh and eager to learn, to employees new to the industry, with a host of ideas on how to do things differently; and finally employees advancing their career and moving up into more challenging roles.

Whilst Adam has been with DuluxGroup for over 14 years, he has enjoyed the benefits of working for a large multi-branded organisation. The State Sales Manager role was his first foray into people leadership and it was very much a deliberate move. He was clear from the get go that he wanted to create an empowered team with a strong culture who could add value to their customer's businesses, and he knew he would have to lead from the front in order to make that happen.

When asked about his leadership style Adam explains his approach was to coach his team to their strengths, giving them every opportunity to demonstrate their skills and abilities within a supportive environment. They needed to be challenged, supported and empowered to come up with new and different ways of delivering value to our customers.

Ultimately, Adam measured his individual performance through his team’s success.