A large multinational engineering company
The Company is a large and longstanding multinational engineering company with 300,000+ employees. The CEO had started a programme for high potentials whereby new recruits were introduced into the organisation and mentored personally by the CEO. The objectives were to fast tracked high potentials and within two years, turn them from experts to business leaders as well as to set up a larger process of gradually populating the organisation with talent in senior management levels. These recruits were placed in 6 months assignments throughout the world. KDVI was called in by the CEO to help bring the cohort (who were dispersed throughout the world) together and to create a learning community.
The goals were to bring the dispersed group of high potentials together as a cohort and provide a space for them to get to know one another, exchange experiences and create a sense of shared journey together. Another objective was to conduct this intervention every year to gradually populate senior management levels.
Multiyear intervention with 2-3 KDVI Faculty, using the KDVI methodology as well as co-developing and personalising the programme to the organisation’s specific leadership needs. This intervention represented a high level of up-front investment from KDVI as it required tailoring and embedding the intervention within the context of the CEO’s broader programme for high potentials. Thus, it was customised according to the participant’s needs and job expectations as well as the organisation’s plans for high potentials.
At the heart of the intervention was the group coaching methodology with client-specific needs built around it including client relationship management, leadership, team dynamics, and influencing without authority. The intervention took place with 11 high potential over the course of 4.5 days and include lectures on leadership, keynote speakers from company, the use of the KDVI instruments for group feedback coaching, and the critical incident method to talk about specific challenges and issues. The intervention culminated with a personal action plan. KDVI intervened with 3 cohorts of high potentials over a period of 2 years.
The intervention allowed the group of high potentials to work with different kinds and levels of people. Participants bonded with each other and did come together as a cohort, they understood the organisation better through shared experiences and learned from each other on what it meant to work in the organisation. Personally, they also gained a better understanding of themselves, and what it meant to be a leader (especially in the transition from expert to business leader) and what their expectations were in the organisation.
