Client need
The organisation is part of a larger group which is currently going through a 5-year transformation plan aimed at creating a unified company, driving digital capability and optimising its operational efficiency. Within this context, the organisation wants leaders with the business acumen required to create value in a VUCA world and build a culture where agility over control, clear accountability, and efficiency thrive. To deliver on this, they selected Accelerance as their partner to design and co-deliver one module in a six module leadership programme. Targeted at high potential talent deemed ready to take on a Head Of or Director Of position in their next role, this 4-day module had the following objectives:
- Understand the context that senior leaders are required to operate within and how that impacts on a leadership approach
- Better understand themselves as a leader, including what they want to stand for and their own leadership brand
- Understand what it means to create engagement and followership in order to deliver through others
- Explore how to influence at strategic level, including influencing upwards and across cultures
- Meet and get the know the company board
Solution
Collaborating with the client L&D team, we designed and co-delivered a 4 day module. To ensure learning was productive, we co-designed learning activities that offered rich, engaging and relevant ‘experiences’:
- Board Member Challenges: CEO and Board Members presented an overview of challenges facing the business.
- Adaptive Leadership: Participants understood adaptive leadership as a resource for leading and influencing more effectively in relation to their own leadership challenge.
- Leadership Impact: As leadership impact on organisational purpose begins with self-awareness, participants were invited to tell their leadership story (past, present, future) using images to illustrate it and how they intend to make an impact on organisational purpose.
- Leader-led sessions: The Director of Digital responded to questions about the ‘external’ threat of digital disruption to the Home Improvement sector.
- Store visit: Used to reinforce a strategic priority introduced in the CEO’s overview
- Presentations to Board Members: Board members listened to valuable reflection/challenge/insights from leaders who received high quality feedback on the ideas they offered.
Impact
Feedback comments sent through to the MD and the Board included:
- “Thoughtful, stretching and impactful”
- “It’s been the highlight of the programme so far. I learnt the most about myself and about how I can be more effective and I’ve gone away with a clear view of what I want to do differently, how and why. The perfect balance between stretched thinking, reflection and practical tools to apply.”
“It’s been a great week and widely acclaimed today in the LEAD team as the most thoughtful, helpful and useful module to date.” - “Well done for astutely choosing to have Accelerance as an external support deliver large parts of the key learning. He had an approach that relied on everyone leaning in and supporting feedback whilst ensuring that content and concepts stuck. A very clever and engaging approach”
- “The learning was relevant and very applicable: whether it was Curiosity, Adaptive influence Reflection, Sense making, followership or Influence and impact, the pace was controlled to increase the understanding across the team. I feel that I have been given learning I will use in many areas,”
Finally, the L&D team communicated that the intervention “was the most effective module of the programme” and “created an attraction to the organisation for the participants in terms of engagement”.
