Managing in a Tightly Regulated Environment

Business Issue

A company faced pressure as regulations tightened in the industry. Within this environment, the company needed its newly promoted directors to be functioning quickly in their new roles, and to be particularly effective at working cross-functionally. The directors needed to be able to design and improve work processes within their closely regulated industry, stimulate innovation and effectively manage day-to-day issues while driving toward three to five-year strategic goals. The company understood that its directors were at the core of its management team, and they sought a way to use education to enable this group to excel in their new roles.

Approach

Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE) partnered with the company to design an education program for its recently promoted directors. These directors were upper mid-level managers in charge of a particular product line, small country unit, or sub-function within the company. Duke CE's approach was to design a structured process to help participants understand the significant changes in their accountabilities and to help them diagnose, analyze and plan appropriate changes to work processes. The program also employed a variety of different learning approaches, including a custom-designed business simulation and the Metaphoric Experience™ learning method.

Learning Experience

Duke CE facilitators coached participants as they used the Breakthrough Model, developed by Judy Rosenblum, to diagnose their work environment, identify the strategic goals they wanted to reach and note the skills needed to arrive at this destination. The participants also used a balanced scorecard to translate their strategy to their employees, taking into consideration multiple components of strategy including the CEO's high-level strategy, their company division's strategy, and finally the strategy for their particular group within that division. The directors then had the opportunity to practice delivering difficult messages, knowing that no strategy implementation goes flawlessly. Such skill building and planning prepared participants to act when they returned to their new roles in the organization.

Execution

The program began with individual reading, reflecting and data collection. Participants then gathered for a 3-day face-to-face session. Fifty participants joined from around the world in two groups. This phase included discussions with senior leaders and a metaphoric experience in which directors acted as members of a racing car pit crew. As they worked together on the pit crew team, participants focused on collaborating cross-functionally, coaching and effectively using experts within an organization. In the new and very real context of a pit crew, participants experienced these skills in a unique and memorable way and gained perspective on how to employ the skills in their new roles. The program also included sessions on how to use diagnostic tools related to their specific job challenges, working sessions to apply those tools to their own context, and a custom-designed business simulation. The business simulation served to bring the system problems faced by the directors to life, surfacing not only the characteristics and behaviors of systems, but also the unintended consequences that arise when people do work-arounds. Such effects are often hard to isolate in the work environment, and therefore difficult to understand. Finally, future plans include having participants report back three months later on how they are using the diagnostic tools in the workplace.

Outcome

Participants indicated they found the sessions, experiences and tools very valuable. The program has helped the directors to better serve in their new roles, based on a deeper understanding of their accountabilities as well as greater skills and access to tools, and to manage within the tightly regulated landscape of the industry.

 

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