Enabling Managers to Enhance Firm Performance

Business Issue

A global technology company had many engineering professionals entering into managerial positions. In order to be successful in their managerial roles, these professionals needed to develop strong business acumen and leadership skills. These skills would enable them to affect change in their business lines and in turn enhance the performance of the firm. To equip these professionals with the needed skills, the firm sought the expertise of Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE) to design and deliver a global program to a large volume of managers distributed around the world.

Approach

In response to this need, Duke CE partnered with the firm to design and implement a management development experience that would raise the general business acumen of the workforce, arm managers with the leadership skills needed to become intrapreneurs within the firm, and allow teams of participants to complete change projects that have significant impact on the businesses they serve. The challenge for Duke CE was to create a continuous learning experience that would reach managers around the world and engage them for a sustained period of time.

Learning Experience

The approach was to design a program combining face-to-face activity and on-line education to create a set of learning events that served as vehicles for change throughout the organization. Programs are delivered in four regions- North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, and have been delivered in 28 countries to date. Each run of the program enrolls 35 managers who have general management responsibilities in one of the firm’s many businesses. A program run lasts ten months to a year and consists of three residential workshops of five days each. In each program, managers receive a business-focused curriculum designed specifically to help them as they manage their business line. In each program the managers also identify real strategic issues and problems that are affecting their businesses or portions of the corporation and then form teams composed of members across geographies and internal boundaries to attack these problems.

Execution

A kickoff workshop begins the program, a second workshop occurs roughly four months later, and the program culminates in a third workshop at the end of the ten-month period. A learning community is created at the beginning of the program and a rich, actively facilitated web environment ensures that learning is continuous across the ten months and that the participants remain well-connected to one another and to the developmental agenda represented by the program. The web environment, set up by Duke CE but now maintained by the company, has also served as the platform for communication and improvement of the strategic team change projects described above.

Outcome

Duke CE has delivered more than sixty of these ten-month programs for the firm and has affected 1500 managers. Programs continue to be delivered around the world. The bottom-line impact of this program has been impressive. The change projects resulting from the program are frequently implemented throughout the organization. A manager in one line of business was able to implement a capital investment process that saved the company millions of dollars. The program has been so well received by participants that it is over-enrolled for the foreseeable future and senior management has maintained its funding while other development activities have seen budget cuts. Duke CE’s efforts have played a vital role in enabling the firm’s workforce to perform as stronger managers and in turn affect change within their business lines.

 

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