Client need
Our client organisation (a leading financial service organisation in Asia) is no different from any other organisation: in the main it is designed to deliver services (financial in this case) to the best of its ability and incrementally improves over time.However, it finds it much harder to provide individuals with the time, space and resources to challenge, innovate and rethink solutions in light of an increasingly complex and uncertain operating environment.
A range of development initiatives have seen high-profile “brand name” speakers and academics brought into the organisation to provide thought provocation. These have had mixed success, and are often described as “interesting – but so what?”
As a result of the increasing pace of change in the operating environment, key stakeholders and sponsors decided to invest in the top 200 executives development to provide them with a greater ability to deal with the transformation and growth ambitions of the organisation. Senior leaders recognize that building the capacity for change in the organisation is an inevitable part of the organisation’s success going forward.
Solution
The series is not a ‘journey’; each workshop (2.5 days long) stands on its own and addresses individual development needs (delegates choose to attend one or more event according to their area of interest). The selection of workshop themes has been a function of detailed conversations with the business to assess the gaps and understand the priorities as they relate to the business need and strategy. Connectivity with the business issues has also been reinforced through the sponsorship of senior leaders, in particular the chairman.
To address the adaptive leadership challenges the following workshops were delivered since 2012:
- Creating competitive advantage by building a Customer Centric Culture
- Leading teams and creating a sustainable performance culture
- Creating a more agile, adaptive and resilient business: future proofing for a more complex world
- Resiliency, authenticity and empathy
- Developing your Leadership Brand
- The innovative Leader
- Influencing without authority: how to shape the way people think, feel and act
- Managing Leadership Transitions
- Leadership in the Asian context
The design of each workshop is based on a unique combination of pedagogical principles including:
- The organisation’s perspective – what is the business imperative? why is it thought so important? (facilitated by a senior leader).
- Grounding the learning in real personal issues: discussion on the groups pre-work feedback to ground the event in their issues.
- Discovery visits – trips to companies, places, people who have a particular approach to the theme being explored (e.g. innovation, customer centricity, influencing, etc), what it means for them and how to create a culture back at work that supports this approach.
- Reflection – making meaning of these trips and internalising their relevance to the delegates own context.
- The Leadership Role – Exploring the role of leadership in this area/theme.
- Experienced business leaders (subject experts) inputs: to look at some examples, frameworks and tools.
- Individual plans – discussing what will each delegate commit to. Use of smaller groups to feedback each others core intent/ideas
- The debate – splitting the group into two teams to debate “the best way to create and lead an environment of (customer centricity, innovation, influencing, etc).
Impact
1:1 follow up phone calls with each delegate six to eight weeks after each workshop provide a measure of the progress made and a source of ideas for programme improvement. The impact of the programme has been assessed via a number of factors including: new insights acquired, new organisation initiatives launched and behaviours shifting.
As a result of the workshops, participants have:
- Used the insights from the workshop as a platform to look at new customer segments and develop new products
- Experimented simpler ways of doing things and developed the ability to look at things afresh with a new perspective.
- Spent time sharing the insights gained from the workshop with their teams so that they can look to leverage the insights, together.
- Adapted their team’s KPIs to integrate, for example, time to innovate
- Started to see an improved level of co-operation and sharing of information within a more collegial and relaxed culture.
- Have organised away days centered on the themes discussed in the workshop (e.g. looking after tomorrow as well as today; building a common purpose; etc.)
- Started informal lunches with their team to build relationships and strengthen mutual understanding
- Etc.
