Case Study · Chartway Group · Construction & Property · Post-acquisition leadership
We united Chartway's post-acquisition management layer, spread across seven trading divisions, into one team leading toward one goal.
Chartway has since extended the partnership, folding the senior leadership team into a Performance Partnership of their own to tackle the business's biggest challenges through 2026, a demanding period for the construction industry.Headline outcome
0
managers promoted into the senior leadership cohort, drawn from six different divisions of the group
Management Development33 managers
Senior Leadership15 leaders
7
trading divisions brought into one management practice
9.3/10
how participants rated the workshops, averaged across 27 sessions
25 months
of continuous engagement, and counting
Executive Summary
- Sector
- Construction & Property
- Buyer
- Director of People
The Brief
Take a 33-strong mid-management layer drawn from across seven divisions of an acquisition-built property and construction group. Build them into one unified layer leading with a shared management practice. Carry the business through continued investment, restructure and growth.
The Outcome
One unified management practice across all seven trading divisions. Cross-divisional alignment visible inside the cohort and out in the business. The same partnership now extended into the senior leadership team, running through November 2026.
From the buyer
10X Managers partnered with Chartway Group to support the development of our middle managers, and the impact has been clear.As our organisation has gone through investment, structural change and leadership transitions, they have worked with us to refine the programme so it better reflects our operational reality and cultural needs.
I see 10X Managers as a long-term partner in helping us build stronger, more confident leaders across the business.”
Judy Yarnton
Director of People, Chartway Group
01 / The Trigger
Chartway's management layer was seven things, not one.
Chartway saw it early. A group built through acquisition inherits several ways of working, and left alone, those differences harden into silos. Chartway chose not to leave it alone. They set out to build one management team, working to one set of priorities, with one shared way of leading, and they moved before the differences had the chance to harden.
The seven divisions under one Chartway banner
01
Westerhill Homes
Private housing development across the South East
02
Chartway Construction
Comprehensive building services across the region
03
Civil Engineering
Groundworks and civil engineering projects
04
LetLife
Private rented family homes
05
Chartway Living
Single-family rental partnerships with investors
06
Building Supplies
Trade and DIY building materials merchant
07
Chartway Drylining
Drylining, screeding, plastering and rendering
Chartway grew through acquisition into one of the South East's most capable property and construction groups. Seven trading divisions, some founded and some acquired, building homes, delivering civil engineering and supplying materials across Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Essex.
That growth brought together 33 managers shaped by different businesses, different cultures and different ways of getting things done. Each playbook had worked in the business it came from. The opportunity Chartway saw was what those 33 could do for the group if they led as one team, with one shared way of working.
Judy Yarnton, Chartway's Director of People, brought 10X in to make it happen. The brief: take the 33 managers from across every division, build them into one united management team, give them a shared language for managing at Chartway, and carry the business through its next phase of growth.
In Chartway's own words
Few leadership teams name their own work this honestly. Chartway did.
“As a senior team, we are bringing unresolved cross-team issues into the room and debating them in front of everyone. By the time it reaches the meeting, the friction has already cost time, trust and clarity. We are modelling the silos we say we want to break down.”
02 / Built for the industry
Built around how Chartway actually runs its sites, supply chains and customer handovers.
Chartway did not need a generic management programme dropped into a construction setting. This was still a management and leadership programme. What made it land was that it was built for managers who lead in construction. The delegation work was about site teams and sub-contractors. The performance conversations were about delivery deadlines and build quality. The managing-up work was about operating inside a group running seven trading divisions at once. We started with our Manager Strength Index diagnostic, which surfaced the management and leadership priorities specific to Chartway's situation in the construction industry. The programme was then built around what Wednesday morning actually looked like for a Chartway Senior Site Manager, a Buying Manager, or a Pre Construction Director.
Who was in the programme
Thirty-three managers. Four seniority levels. Every trading division on one programme.
Site, Construction & Projects
Senior Site Managers, Project Managers, Senior Project Managers, Contracts Managers, Pre Construction Directors, Operations Managers, Senior Technical Managers
Commercial, Surveying & Finance
Managing Surveyors, Senior Quantity Surveyors, Senior Planning Managers, Senior Land Managers, Financial Controllers
Sales, Marketing & Supplies
Sales Managers, Field Sales & Marketing Managers, Buying Managers, Branch Managers
Group Functions & Customer Care
Group Transport Manager, Senior Customer Care Manager, Group Head of HR, Group IT Manager
03 / The Work
Building one management practice across seven divisions.
10X did not arrive at Chartway with a pre-defined programme. The first thirty days were diagnostic. A Manager Strength Index plus 360 baseline across all 33 Chartway managers. The diagnostic produced the content of the workshops and the shape of the programme that followed, built around the real problems Chartway managers were facing across the divisions.
How the partnership ran
01
Diagnostic
Manager Strength Index plus 360 baseline across the 33 Chartway managers. The output named the focus areas the programme would work on. Run again at programme close to measure the movement.
02
Cadence
Three cohorts at Chartway. Six Prime workshops at 90 to 210 minutes each. An Elevate troubleshooting session between every Prime to work on the live problems the Chartway managers had brought back. DISC behavioural profiling added later in the programme based on what the diagnostic surfaced inside the group.
03
Embedded Partner
One embedded Performance Partner across the entire Chartway engagement. Known to Chartway managers by name, accessible between sessions, and measured on whether the Chartway managers acted on what they committed to. Not a trainer who turned up and left.
How we cohorted the group
One of the things we set out to do was break down the barriers and silos across the organisation. So we built the cohorts deliberately. A Senior Site Manager from Construction next to a Buying Manager from Building Supplies. A Group Transport Manager next to a Senior Customer Care Manager. A Pre Construction Director next to a Financial Controller. Three cohorts of roughly eleven managers each, every cohort spanning every division of the group. We mixed the people who needed to be working together so that they could actually start working together, in the room and back out in the business.
What the diagnostic told us
Six focus areas, shaped around leading in construction.
Focus 01
Managing Performance & Behaviour
Holding the performance and behaviour conversations that keep sites moving and standards high, rather than letting them drift or escalate.
Focus 02
Delegation & Driving Accountability
Letting go of work managers had been carrying themselves, trusting site teams and direct reports to deliver, and building the accountability that keeps quality high.
Focus 03
Managing Up & Aligning to Business Priorities
Connecting the day on site to the group's priorities, and communicating delivery realities upwards with clarity and confidence.
Focus 04
Coaching & Developing Talent
Growing the next generation across the divisions by coaching with questions rather than handing over the answers.
Focus 05
Building a Balanced & Inclusive Culture
Building teams where every voice contributes, from the site cabin to the group office.
Focus 06
Working Styles (DISC)
Added partway through the programme when the diagnostic showed how widely communication styles varied across the group. Understanding how colleagues across seven divisions work, so one group speaks one language.
Chartway's embedded Performance Partner
One embedded Performance Partner inside Chartway, not a trainer who turned up, delivered and left.
A single 10X Performance Partner stayed embedded with the Chartway People team across both the Management Development Programme and the Senior Leadership Programme that followed. The same partner, the same cadence, across 25 months: visible to Chartway's managers between the sessions, reachable by name, and measured on whether those managers acted on what they committed to.
04 / The silos coming down
At Chartway, people who had never previously been in the same room were now solving each other's problems.
Halfway through the programme, the cohort itself was telling us the unification was working. Managers from different divisions were sharing problems they had previously kept inside their own teams, hearing the language other parts of the group were using to lead, and recognising themselves in what they heard. Here is what they said.
“Good to sit with different people from within the group and share experiences in an open forum. It gave me a better understanding of how I can improve my own management style.”
“Valuable information that helps you understand the management chain and company goals. It encourages a different way of thinking and makes you reflect on how to improve. Great to hear opinions from other departments.”
“It gave me practical tools to lead more effectively across teams, communicate with more clarity, and drive stronger alignment. The sessions were easy to apply to real situations, and I felt the impact was immediate.”
“I am now more intentional in setting clear expectations and goals, ensuring alignment with wider business priorities from the outset. I have also improved how I give and receive feedback, focusing on listening first.”
“Useful to hear different points of view and learn from more experienced colleagues and experts. It empowers you and shares knowledge.”
“The workshop offered valuable points for senior staff to consider and prompted reflection on key issues within our business. Patient, clear and certainly worthwhile.”
That gap, between modelling the silos and breaking them down, between Chartway's own diagnosis at the start and Chartway's managers in the quotes above, is the gap the programme closed.
05 / What changed
One unified layer, leading across every division of the group. Six of the original 33 promoted into the senior leadership team.
The brief was unification. The proof is in two places at once.
Inside the cohort, managers from all seven divisions were now sharing problems, language and standards group-wide. Cross-divisional problem-solving became a default rather than an exception, and the gap between site teams and group functions visibly narrowed.
Outside the cohort, six managers were deemed to have grown and developed enough to be promoted into the senior leadership team. Having now joined our Senior Leadership Programme, they have expanded the partnership with us into 2026.
Six of the original 33 are now in the 15-strong senior leadership team.
The remaining nine seats are senior team members who joined the second programme directly. The bridge between the two cohorts is the clearest single piece of evidence that the unification work landed.
Measured on the Manager Strength Index
The behaviours that moved most.
Chartway's managers were measured on twelve leadership behaviours, in October 2025 and again at programme close. Nine of the twelve rose. These six moved most, and four of them were the Prime workshop focus areas Chartway had chosen to develop.
+12.8%
Manage Performance & Behaviour
7.20 → 8.12 on the Manager Strength Index
+8.2%
Develop Vision & Strategic Planning
7.76 → 8.40 on the Manager Strength Index
+6.6%
Delegate & Drive Accountability
7.70 → 8.21 on the Manager Strength Index
+3.7%
Manage Up & Align to Business Priorities
7.59 → 7.87 on the Manager Strength Index
+3.6%
Lead Change Initiatives
7.58 → 7.85 on the Manager Strength Index
+3.4%
Build Balanced & Inclusive Culture
7.42 → 7.67 on the Manager Strength Index
The aggregate Manager Strength Index for the whole cohort rose from 7.73 to 7.85 over the same period.
How the managers rated it
Rated 9.3 out of 10 across the programme, with every month of workshops averaging 9 or above.
Average workshop rating by month of delivery, as rated by the Chartway managers on the programme. Coloured band marks the 9-to-10 zone; dashed line marks the programme-level average.
What Chartway did next
Two months after the final workshop, Chartway brought 10X back. This time for the senior team itself.
Fifteen Chartway senior leaders, including the six promoted from the original cohort, are now in our Senior Leadership Programme. It runs through November 2026, working on the business's biggest challenges through a demanding period for the construction industry. The partnership continues.
06 / Start here
If your business has grown through acquisition and is now trying to make several things behave like one, or you run a construction or property group looking to develop your managers and leaders around the way you run your sites and businesses, we should talk.
Every partnership between 10X and a client is entirely bespoke and unique. Book a no-obligation call with one of our Development Experts to scope how we could support you and your situation.