Accelerate the Implementation of Manager Expectations:
An Immersive Experience for Frontline Leaders
Abstract
A tech startup sought to deepen managers' understanding and application of newly launched Manager Expectations. Insight Experience designed a program bringing the Manager Expectations to life through a highly customized business simulation experience, individual and group reflection, and application activities to practice desired manager behaviors in challenging business situations. Ultimately, 100% of managers who completed the intensive agreed it was an effective training program.
Challenge
In launching new Manager Expectations, the client organization recognized the need for managers to practice their use and embody them in the course of doing work. Without consistent language and training around the expectations, the organization risks management practices that lead to uncertain outcomes for both employees and the business as a whole.
Solution
Insight Experience and the client organization partnered to develop a two-day, in-person Manager Development Program that balanced participant time among learning new content, completing a team-based business simulation, engaging in company-specific application and reflection, and interacting with some of the client organization's senior leaders.
Learning Objectives
As a result of the Manager Development Program, participants develop and learn skills to:
- Prioritize and delegate.
- Communicate and hold others accountable.
- Coach and develop the team while fostering an inclusive environment.
- Align cross-functionally to deliver results.
- Lead through change with proper messaging and empathy.
Design Highlights
The flow and design of the Manager Development Program maps to the client organization’s seven Manager Expectations. By sequencing the seven expectations, the program helps participants see the relationships between the manager behaviors and identify application opportunities back on the job. Day one of the program focuses on the Manager Expectations related to Managing Your Team, and day two focuses on the Manager Expectations about Managing in Context of the organization and external market.
Insight Experience’s Developing New Leaders product was tailored to meet the needs of this organization. The Leader Profile in the simulation model was customized to reflect the client’s Manager Expectations. After each round of decision-making, teams receive an update on their management in terms of the newly launched Manager Expectations.
Additionally, the client connected Insight Experience with an internal hiring expert, resulting in the creation of a new arc of simulation scenarios about the organization's Bar Raiser policy. The design of simulation materials to mirror the templates and formats used by the client led to a valuable and rewarding experience for participants.
One of the most highly rated parts of the Manager Development Program is a reflection and peer crowdsourcing activity called “Real Work Challenge.” Managers share a challenge they face back on the job in relation to one of the Manager Expectations. This activity helps managers understand challenges from a different perspective and consider how their peers would address the situation.
Integrating various learning modalities and protecting time for application and reflection enable participants to make critical connections between the Manager Expectations and how they manifest in their daily work and interactions.
Facilitator-led simulation debriefs are designed to help participants see how the Manager Expectations exist in everyday management decisions. Content such as Stephen R. Covey’s Time Management Matrix, Patrick Litré’s work on accountability, and the Bridges Transition Model are all interwoven with models that teach adaptive coaching and collaboration to equip participants with tools and frameworks to bring the ideas of the Manager Expectations to life.
Simulation Overview
Participants take on the role of a recently promoted manager of a team in a business called Energy Solutions Worldwide Inc. (ESW), a broker of renewable energy solutions. ESW serves energy users (primarily small businesses, universities, and hospitals) and suppliers by creating the most efficient purchasing platform that aggregates supply and demand and acts as an online marketplace for renewable energy exchange.
Participants take on the role of the Manager of the Small Business Segment and are tasked with bringing a new cross-functional initiative to life. The initiative was not planned for or budgeted for at the beginning of the year but has a high level of senior-leader visibility. To effectively launch this initiative, the Manager leads a cross-functional team and is ultimately charged with improving team, customer, operational, and financial performance. They also track and report on market volatility and manage diverse customer expectations.
The company's new CEO and the executive team have highlighted several strategic priorities in their annual plan, which include technology leadership, customer-driven innovation, operational excellence, and "Employer of Choice" (attracting and retaining a customer-focused team in a work environment that encourages diversity of thought, a celebration of individualism, creativity, and teamwork).
History and Results
The program design effectively met the objectives of improving manager competency and networking across the organization, and the program received consistently high feedback from participants. A summary of results includes the following:
- Managers who agreed they have a stronger grasp on how to be a more effective manager at the organization: 100%.
- Managers who agreed that the program prepared them to create personal accountability to commitments regarding the client organization's Manager Expectations: 91%.
- Managers who agreed that the program prepared them to coach and develop people to improve their motivation and performance: 91%.
Sixty days post-program, participants were asked to provide an update on how their commitments to action were going. Below is a sampling of what participants committed to in this follow-up query:
Commitment:
I will start more conversations with the stakeholders to get alignment and understand their point of view. Do better in communicating with my team through change.
60-Day Follow-Up:
I have been able to honor those commitments. I had several meetings with my stakeholder for a new project to understand their needs and requirements. These meetings lead to a change in the roadmap for us. I have had multiple meetings with my team and other folks and help them understand the reasoning behind some of the decisions, especially about the new prioritization and either answer their questions or find someone who could.
____________________
Commitment:
I’m going to commit to using the scale of important vs. urgent and implementing that with my team as well.
60-Day Follow-Up:
Yes, I actually have been using it – I’ve used it for trade-offs with multiple meeting/working group requests and prioritization of which ones I need to attend and take action vs. which ones I can delegate. Equally, we also used the scale in one of our team meetings for everyone on my team to do the same exercise and review their prioritization, and then we reviewed their scales 1:1 to align – super helpful exercises.
