Leading Global Automobile Company

New Business Leaders (NBL) was one of our client’s ‘Leadership Development Center’ initiatives. Others were ‘Capstone’ and ‘Experienced Leader Challenge’. All supported the organization's goal to develop leaders at all levels. Two main features of NBL were EDI’s ‘Action Learning’ approach and our delivery model for recruiting organization executives to serve as ‘Leader-Teachers’.

NBL consisted of three distinctive phases:

Phase I: This took place one month prior to a week-long, residential workshop. Each New Business Leader participant identified and developed a "Quantum Idea Project" (QIP) to help transform the organization into a more consumer-driven, shareholder value-driven organization. They presented that idea to their peers and instructors on the first day of the workshop and perfected it during the subsequent residential phase.

Phase II: Over a five-day period, participants were provided with tools and instruments to turn their idea into a full-fledged project including insight into its financial and performance impact on the organization. To assist in this process, organization executives lead sessions on topics ranging from business acumen and managing change to leadership fundamentals and ‘influencing up’ in the organization, beyond their standard business functions.

Phase III: Emphasizing the value of learning by doing, participants had three months following the residential workshop to get their project rolling. During this period, they devoted a minimum of 40 hours to the project's initial implementation. Of course, they encountered many obstacles, yet overcoming these barriers taught real-world strategies and tactics to sharpen goals, surmount resistance and take corrective action. The best of these projects were reviewed by higher management to assess their organization-wide potential.

As stated above, EDI designed the program and conducted the sessions for over 16 months with teaching teams involving two organization executives and one EDI consultant. Two Leader-Teacher training programs were conducted, a very detailed Teachers Guide was prepared and a team of 6 seasoned consultants delivered 50 sessions in the US, Brazil, Germany, the UK, Australia and Thailand.