Leading People at a Global Pharmaceutical Company

Case Study

The Challenge

In direct response to an Employee Feedback Survey, a global pharmaceutical company committed to improving employee engagement scores. The company identified leadership skills, particularly people focus and recognition, as critical factors in driving increased levels of engagement.

The company’s first step was to create seven key Leadership Commitments that set clear expectations of what it meant to be a leader at every level—from first line through to executive. While there was a growing awareness of these commitments in the company, they had not yet been embedded into everyday work and behaviors. It was clear that a coordinated training effort would be needed to truly incorporate the Leadership Commitments into everyday leadership.

Therefore, the company was looking for a partner with both the capability to deliver globally and the creativity and innovation to design a truly experiential program. AchieveForum was selected to create a 1-day program to embed the Leadership Commitments across a global population of first-line leaders, due to our breadth of facilitator network, experience in coordinating global deliveries, and depth of research content.

The SolutionThe Leading People program was explicitly not Management 101—the participants could be first-line managers of any tenure and with any level of responsibility. The aim was to help participants explore what the Leadership Commitments looked like in practice and to develop self-awareness around their own leadership style and behavior.

In collaboration with the company, AchieveForum designers built a learning experience centered around simulations of common leadership situations. This allowed participants to try out behaviors in a safe, supported environment and leave with practical action plans to apply back in the workplace.

The solution was built over three phases: an engaging prework to begin reflection; the 1-day workshop to explore; and follow-up work to apply the learning.

The program objectives of Leading People were to:

The RolloutDue to the scale of the program—a potential audience of thousands of line managers around the world—the company engaged AchieveForum to project manage the rollout in a number of key ways:

• Selecting, onboarding, and making quality observations of facilitators to deliver the programs

• Sourcing and selecting venues

• Managing the participant communication

• Providing onsite coordination support for the programs

One of our key challenges was balancing the need for global consistency with regional variations. We achieved this by using the methods appropriate to the local learning culture to achieve consistent global outcomes.

For example, the feedback from APAC programs showed that it was imperative to set clear expectations and outcomes ahead of an experiential activity. In EMEA and NA, it was more effective if participants went straight into the activity without any explanation.

• Increase first-line leaders’ understanding of how demonstrating the company’s Leadership Commitments can help them to be effective leaders

• Increase the participants’ sense of personal accountability for good people leadership

• Create a common understanding of what it means to be a leader at the company, authentically living and applying the Leadership Commitments

127Programs delivered

28Countries

11Languages

3,844Participants

AchieveForum additionally supported the company by building out a stakeholder management plan for liaising with key people in the regions to ensure our facilitators had even more detail about the context for the program.

The ImpactPost-Event Evaluation

Leading People

Participant Manager

87%* 85%*

Behavior changes made/observed

4.3/5

Overall Average Program Score (out of 5)

© 2017 AchieveForum

2015-6 Long-Term Impact: Types of Behavioural Change

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Participant in %

Manager in %

Long-Term Impact

At AchieveForum, we empower people to lead successfully in turbulent business landscapes. From in-person instruction to digitally enabled experiences, we are the human touch that drives leadership success, not just leadership know-how.

© 2019 AchieveForum

www.achieveforum.com

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Long-Term Impact: Comments

“Development discussions with team members are

more fruitful and the level of engagement of the team

has increased.” (Line Manager)

“Really a good partnership, very transparent, open, and honest. Really helped to identify potential improvements to design, to

facilitation, to deliveries, to communication. Allowed us to be agile. Good pick-up of where there were issues. It’s been a pleasure!”

(Senior Stakeholder)

“I have taken more interest in my people, getting to know them

personally, and I try to show more empathy to

build trust.”(Participant)

“By pushing decision making down to the

lowest appropriate level, my group has become much more efficient and my employees are more engaged due to increased responsibility.”

(Participant)