Accenture brought our original approach to leadership development to the task of delivering a cutting-edge and focused pilot program for EIL over eight months.
Accenture and the program management group at EIL teamed up to design and implement the program, named “Aarohan,” which means “to ascend.” To begin, they chose 26 managers to participate in the pilot.
Sponsorship came from the highest level of the organization—the company’s chairman and managing director launched the program with an organization-wide communication.
Next, the program team applied Accenture’s Desired Culture Survey, a Web-based benchmarking tool for assessing an organization’s aspirational culture. The team also interviewed executive management to discover the leadership needs of the organization vis-à-vis its strategic goals.
The team developed a broad set of innovative tools and methods, including coaching support, self-evaluation instruments and group workshops, to meet the first three of these objectives and create a holistic learning program. To develop team leadership as well as individual leadership capabilities, “action learning projects” were a critical component of the program.
The pilot rolled out in two phases: a two-month participant self-reflection phase and a six-month development phase. The self-reflection phase identified each participant’s development needs and established a strategy for meeting those needs.
The development phase then began in earnest. Over the next six months, the participants worked individually and in teams on action learning projects, implemented their individual leadership development plans, interacted with their personal coaches, joined in on immersion labs to gain from the experiences of successful leaders at EIL and participated in action labs.
The action learning projects were the heart of the program. In creating the pilot, the Accenture and EIL team had worked with senior management to craft the set of action learning projects that would expose participants to critical business issues with the potential to positively impact the organization’s growth and performance, such as setting up a joint venture in an alternative form of energy.
At the program closure session, chaired by EIL’s chairman and managing director, participants noted their deep sense of accomplishment. As one participant stated, “Practicing while performing, being conscious of one’s own behavior, really helped in improving performance.”