A large conglomerate headquartered in Malaysia faced the dual challenge of slowing growth and dwindling employee engagement. Instead of creating a program to educate leaders on innovation practices and engagement approaches, the CEO charged his business unit heads to identify two growth teams from within their organizations to work on a 160-day project to identify new opportunities for growth that would engage and motivate employees and return the business to top line growth.

Duke Corporate Education (Duke CE) partnered with the company to launch a summit where the CEO issued his challenge and the business unit heads worked with their respective growth teams to identify an initial set of growth opportunities. The growth teams were coached in innovation and guided through a series of four focused workshops designed to move from concept to cash. The intervention culminated with a Shark Tank experience where the EXCO selected two initiatives to move forward.

Within six months two of the concepts identified during this initiative were brought to market, delivering profitable growth during their first year. Surveys reflected program participants had higher engagement scores than their peers who had not been participated in the experience.

Asian Conglomerate: Center Leaders Drive Growth 01