Overview

Finning UK&I set a bold growth agenda: Delivering that ambition required more than strategy: it required consistent, high-impact sales leadership.

At the outset, Finning’s leadership capability was mixed, spanning highly experienced leaders and newly promoted managers. Delta Learning partnered with Finning UK&I, sponsored by Nicola Creasey, to design and deliver a Sales Leadership Capability Programme moving leaders from managing activity to leading performance — building leaders who coach rather than direct, and who can translate Finning’s strategy into day-to-day team behaviours.

What Was Delivered

Delta Learning designed and delivered a highly experiential two-day Sales Leadership Capability Workshop across two cohorts, covering both the Construction & Industry and Power & Energy sales leadership populations. The workshop structure and leadership themes were consistent across both audiences, with sector-specific commercial realities, customer scenarios and coaching conversations built into the practice sessions. The design integrated Finning’s strategic growth priorities with the GROW coaching model, the 4 Disciplines of Execution, Timothy Gallwey’s Inner Game principles (Performance = Potential − Interference), and Sales Rep 360 coaching data.

Day 1 — Leading Culture, Coaching & Commercial Performance

Leaders explored the shift from expert to leader, firefighter to coach, and activity management to performance leadership, before building a coaching culture — coaching versus directing, reducing dependency, and creating psychological safety alongside accountability. The day’s first practice simulation had leaders coach performance and accountability conversations using realistic Finning scenarios, in triad role-plays rotating through leader, salesperson and observer roles, before closing with translating strategy into behavioural priorities.

Day 2 — Driving Execution, Accountability & Growth Through Leadership

Day 2 focused on consultative selling leadership — coaching value-proposition conversations, commercial curiosity and discovery depth — followed by a second practice simulation coaching commercial and customer conversations, including premium pricing, consultative selling and handling resistance. Leaders then took part in peer-led leadership roundtables addressing live challenges and built a practical leadership operating rhythm covering coaching cadence, pipeline reviews, accountability rhythms and PDP conversations.

Review Day (1–2 months later)

A follow-up review day embedded behaviour change and scaled impact: reviewing progress against pipeline health, conversion rates and customer diversification; reinforcing leadership behaviours and coaching consistency; and developing capability in more complex, high-stakes scenarios such as strategic account growth and complex deal coaching.

Objectives

The programme was designed to improve sales leaders ability to:

Lead Performance Through People — shift from managing to coaching-led leadership, apply emotional intelligence and situational leadership, and build psychological safety alongside accountability.
Deliver Against Finning’s Growth Pillars — drive Lifecycle Value Solutions within existing accounts, increase share of wallet and new customer acquisition.
Use Data to Drive Better Decisions — improve pipeline quality, conversion and forecasting, and use data to coach effectively rather than simply report performance.
Build High-Performing, Resilient Teams — retain and stretch top performers, address underperformance early and effectively, and lead diverse teams through change and complexity.
Create a Culture of Ownership & Accountability — improve delegation and decision-making and empower teams to take responsibility for performance.

Key Outcomes

Post-workshop feedback, collected across both cohorts, showed overall satisfaction at 4.8 out of 5. Every respondent said the training met their expectations and was relevant to their leadership role, and every respondent rated the pace “just right” and said the format supported their learning.

“By far the best training course I have been on in my 20+ years sales and leadership experience. Steve captured the essence of the room, understood the challenges we face, even if unique to our business, and tailored the messaging and content to meet our needs. The lessons from this training will be invaluable in coaching my team and other stakeholders moving forward.” — Matthew Bryan, Finning UK&I

“This programme has been a fantastic learning experience. It helped me better understand what it takes to be an effective sales leader, from coaching and motivating teams to building stronger customer-focused strategies. The content was practical, relatable, and easy to apply in real-world situations.” — Keith Perkins, Finning UK&I