Case Study
Leader Development - looking to the long-term
It's great when you get to work with a client who really understands that investment in developing people is a long-term, incremental process, and not some artificial quick fix. Who understands that you need to keep testing, refining, redeveloping your programmes to adapt to changing circumstances, and to build on what you've already learnt. And who understands that change has to run throughout the culture of an organisation.
R&R Icecream, the UK's biggest icecream manufacturer, is one of these great clients. We deliver a rolling programme of leadership development that cycles around the following process:
We've had some awesome feedback over the years about this programme, much of it appearing naturally from the online systems greated to allow peer groups to keep in touch and to continue learning from each other. For example, a few verbatims from the 2010 course:
- "Within hours since our last training session completed, I have asked my immediate manager to review my performance which I mentioned at the last part of the course. He said he is happy with my performance and given me few more projects to start with. He agreed to review my performance again in next six months time. Just the beginning....." Jijo George
- "I have been trying to improve my goals regarding planning since returning from our last meeting. I keep reminding myself to tackle the not so easy jobs first and concentrate on those high importance, highly urgent tasks. Not to take the easy option of doing the simple straight forward low importance ones because they are nice to do. Once I had been doing this for a while I have found that because the important/ urgent jobs were more challenging I felt more reward within myself for doing them, now it almost seems preferable to tackle those before the simple tasks because of that feeling of accomplishment." Steve Bennetts
- "It was a great opportunity to attend the leadership training. Simon is a leading example of motivation and inspirational to others. Nice to see content in this new site design. well done." Jijo George
- "Hi guys, I had put a message on the old forum but if no-one got it, just wanted to say a big thank you again for looking after Steve and I, so well during our visit to Yorkshire. I had a very valuable day in learning and on a personal level just spending time with top quality work colleagues! I feel extremely happy knowing our sites up there are in good hands. As to my development, I trust it is improving. Communication wise I now have greater confidence in it and find myself trying to past this knowledge on to others in other team’s here. Sometimes however I find my clarity of communication is not as good as I'd wish (I get lost in waffle and lose my way!) if anyone has any advice/ tips please let me know? I guess like we have talked about sometime silence is golden." Steve Bennetts
- "Thanks os much for the greatly enjoyed 2 days at camp hill with you and the rest of the staff. It was really time well spent and a lot of insight into management. Back at crossgates, engineering department is very short staffed so much that we are currently operating with 2 engineers pers shift, and on my shift i have one other engineer which makes it very difficult on the delegation aspect." Hilarious Katsere
- "I had my review meeting with Clare (my manager) last Friday. I was so amazed, because the first thing she told me is that she noticed a really big changement since the leadership training. She saw me really more confident, talkative, smiling, good mood, motivated, having an easier contact with everybody and doing better in the leadership of the team." Lucile Bonnaire
- "I have noticed that i am spending more time asking my team if they understand my requests, i can look back on the week and am happy to say that on many occasions i have found myself taking time to show someone how to do something rather than just telling them, then asking the question - are you ok with what i have just done?, or do you understand what i have done and why? before the course i didn't take the time to explain" Robert Brooke
- "Firstly, thanks for the two days training with you. It has started the ball rolling with my development as a leader. I think its safe to say that i was probably one of the quietest people on the course, but i'm often quiet, especially when there are more people about." Oliver Burrill
- "The frist thing is my mind to tell is a BIG THANK to everybody!! The training was absolutely great: the courses were really interested and well explained. I learnt a lot of things about communication (visual and not being afraid to ask questions), leadership (show motivation and take the lead) and management (the wheel), i need now to put in application." Lucile Bonnaire
- "Hi guys! I have been trying to improve my communication using our ways of transmitting info! I have used our production plan for the week and broken it down to show my guys all the distribution we have on this week. It includes all timings, references and products. I am hoping this will make the process more transparent to them. I have used diagrams, written info and tried to talk them through the process, inviting feedback as we go." Steve Bennetts
- "Thanks to every one involved to arrange this training. We really enjoyed the two days session. The training wouldn’t have this much effect if it was only an indoor theory section. The very last bridge building exercise proved we still needs to improve a lot and get into practice a lot. Hopefully we will practice it during next few months." Jijo George
- "First of all, BIG THANKS. I promised to do a team work review with the team.However, nature of this week's product prevented me from geting all team together(17 people),so I did team work review with some of the team members, who working at the stations we strugling most. It went done well.People were surprised,that I was asking them how we can improve our performance,not just telling them what to do. I heard some really good ideas, and not so good." Andrius Markevicius
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