A large global brand sought to deliver world-class leadership development training to leaders in 20+ countries while avoiding the costs of gathering in-person.
OVERVIEW
A leading bottler for a major global soft drink brand wished to offer its high potential managers a leadership development opportunity that emphasized the importance of collaboration across functions, understanding evolving strategy and increased skills in business acumen. Additionally, they tasked IndustryMasters to deliver to 180 leaders based in 20+ countries in a four-week timeframe without incurring costs related to travel and lodging. At the time, virtual leadership training was almost unheard of. Now, of course, as a result of the pandemic, virtual leadership training is happening at all levels across organizations large and small.
OUR CLIENT’S ISSUE
The organization had set ambitious goals around growth, embracing multiple category expansions and diversifications, a transition to 100% recyclable plastic by 2030 and much more. Its leaders were tasked with innovating new practices, translating strategy into action, greater understanding and ability to incorporate business acumen skills and functioning as high performing teams across the enterprise. It was imperative that the company’s leaders quickly become a stronger, more insightful decision-making team.
OUR APPROACH
To address concerns related to the costs of gathering leaders for in-person sessions, IndustryMasters had already positioned itself well inside the company to deliver virtual training sessions to remote-based participants. Using an online conference platform that allows teams to be segregated and collaborate as they would at in-person gatherings, then convene as a larger group for debrief sessions, our online, web-based business simulations were an ideal solution for mimicking all the benefits of gathering in-person for development training with all the benefits of not leaving one’s home or office.
While many IndustryMasters simulations emphasize business acumen skills and allow for opportunities to directly apply that new learning within the sim and to their real-life job, this solution needed to address other challenges as well, specifically, cross-functional collaboration, fluency around the organization’s evolving strategy and practice in more effective decision making.
Each of these ambitious goals was achieved with a simulation in which participants assumed leadership roles of a regional management team managing a business similar to their own for three simulated years. The conditions of their simulated business reflected their real world dynamics, trade-offs and interdependencies, allowing participants to witness the impact of decisions on an accelerated time scale. A balanced scorecard covering several company-wide performance measures tracked their results against competing teams.
Live online coaching sessions supported the learning and desired behavior change. Facilitators provided continuous feedback, pushing teams to analyze their performance, identify and address key challenges and, ultimately, understand the why and how of working well together.
THE RESULTS
Our client praised our ability to rapidly deploy, our scalability, and our adeptness at delivering a strong virtual experience that resulted in an outstanding development opportunity for their participants. Participants overwhelmingly highlighted “the relevance and applicability of the intervention to their roles,” the “ability to transfer knowledge gained back to their daily business,” and the “effective working, discussion and relationship development between them.”
Now, during a global pandemic and whatever new “normal” we must adjust to when we emerge, we at IndustryMasters feel particularly well equipped and experienced to manage virtual leadership training deliveries without leaving participants feeling they’ve missed out on anything an in-person session might have offered.
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