How Enterprise LEADER Works
To understand how Enterprise LEADER practically works, take a look at the example YourCo.
YourCo have 90 employees including the CEO, CFO, and three additional members of the senior management team (SMT).
YourCo is performing OK, but the CEO and SMT know there are a few issues bubbling under the surface -- most notably:
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Dis-alignment between the senior executives and the rest of the workforce
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Internal communication problems which are leading to internal politics
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Strong competition from a new entrant in the market
Margins are getting thinner
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The company has lost a few key staff in the past six months.
The CEO wants to reinvigorate the company and knows the culture of YourCo needs to improve. YourCo purchase a site licence of Enterprise LEADER which covers all 90 employees and executives.
Here's The 10 Step Approach YourCo Follow
1. Kick off letter
The first step in rolling out Enterprise LEADER is for the CEO to send a letter to the entire organisation explaining the idea behind Enterprise LEADER.
In the letter, the CEO explains that Sarah (one of the senior management team) will be acting as a mentor and leading the first mentor group.
2. Choose the initial group of Mentees
Sarah chooses Sally, George, Michelle, David and Amanda to be in her group. These are managers and team leaders from various departments who will become mentors themselves as YourCo rolls the program out to the rest of the company.
3. Initial meeting and agree a schedule
Sarah arranges an initial meeting with her five chosen mentees. She explains why they were chosen as the first group, what the mentoring process is, and what is expected of them.
Sarah and her team agree a schedule to go through Enterprise LEADER and set dates in their diaries for when they are going to meet. To keep things simple they agree to study one session a week over 20 weeks.
4. Listen to program
Each member of Sarah's team is given the choice how they want to study Enterprise LEADER. Sally receives the program in MP3 format and listens to it on her iPhone. George accesses the multi-media version of it through his computer, Michelle listens to the program on her MP3 player, David through the company’s Learning Management System and Amanda receives a CD-Rom. Sarah as the mentor chooses to use her smartphone to listen to the 20 audio mentoring sessions.
It is important that each person can access the audio mentoring sessions at a time and place which suits them — and in a learning format which best fits their learning style. Some mentees study them at work, some at home and some on the move.
5. Complete the Workbook exercises
As part of each audio mentoring session, each mentee is asked to complete a series of written exercises which are made available to them through workbooks. The workbooks are a key part of Enterprise LEADER and provide a structure for the group face-to-face sessions.
6. Meet for group face-to-face mentoring sessions
Every Friday at 11am Sarah brings her whole team of mentees together in a room where they discuss what they've learnt from the mentoring sessions, the ideas they have generated and what they can apply from the programme back into their work.
Because each mentee has already studied the same material during the week and completed the written exercises, they are full of ideas on how to use the learning, and new ideas for the benefit of their company.
These mentor sessions also give Sarah the chance to see another side of her team, and understand the different talents of each team member.
For the final five sessions, each of the five mentees take turn in leading the mentor group. This is good preparation for them to lead their own group.
7. Review CEO for a day ideas
During these sessions mentees are asked what suggestions and ideas they would put forward if they were CEO for a day.
For Sarah, this means that from her group of just five employees, each session generates 25 new business growth, profit improvement, cost saving, and new product innovation ideas. (Ideas which were already in the workforce, but with the help of the audio and face-to-face mentoring sessions have been identified, captured and discussed.)
8. Final Presentations
At the end of the 20 sessions, Sarah's group are asked to make a final presentation to summarise what they learnt in Enterprise LEADER and present some of the best ideas they took away from the course. Working in two teams, the mentees present back to the whole senior management team. The CEO can clearly see the difference in thinking of the mentees and the impact Enterprise LEADER has had on their approach to business.
9. Rollout to other groups
Once the initial group has been through Enterprise LEADER, it is time to roll the program out to the entire organisation. In YourCo, the initial group of mentees become mentors to their own teams. They repeat steps 2 to 8.
10. Create a Chief Enterprise Leader
To keep the principles of Enterprise LEADER alive, YourCo nominate Sally to become its first Chief Enterprise Leader. Sally holds this position for six months, and during that time comes up with new ideas -- such as a company wide blog written by the CEO, an internal 'Facebook' like site for employees who can share more information about themselves, and an offsite meeting for employees of YourCo where the SMT take time to explain the vision and goals of the company. After six months, another employee becomes the Chief Enterprise Leader.