PIVOT LEADERSHIP

Visceral Learning:A Transformative Leadership Experience

How we helped a well-known Silicon Valley company to develop their leaders while transforming their organization.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- Maya Angelou

In the world of technology, successful companies must stay at least three steps ahead of the competition. Aware of this, the President of a well-known Silicon Valley company was concerned about the future. The organization was undergoing a major strategic transformation, and he needed executives who understood not only how to make a great product, but how to anticipate and understand what future customers would want and need. He knew this required a different type of leader, but at the same time, he worried about the conundrum that many companies struggle with: Did his senior leaders have the bandwidth to learn and develop while at the same time transforming the company? How, he wondered, can we accelerate the growth of our leaders and transform the company to meet our goals?

Designing for ImpactPivot met with the SVP of HR to come up with a solution that would develop the company’s senior leaders and accelerate the strategic transformation they were starting. The solution had to go beyond traditional executive education and impact each participant for years to come. Together, Pivot and the SVP decided to implement a process for the company’s most senior leaders that would mimic the challenges their leaders would face as they transformed the company. The leaders would be divided into three teams, and each team would examine a new market opportunity key to the company’s future. At the same time, the program would help their leaders gain the insights needed to lead the organization over the next five years. The experience would have to connect them to customers and to each other, all while challenging their assumptions.

Selecting the right opportunities to serve as the cornerstone of the experience was critical. There were already a lot of experiments going on within the organization, and the design team wanted to make sure the participants didn’t work on projects that would overlap with other work. The team decided that they would choose projects that were uniquely positioned outside of the company’s core capabilities – topics that were strategically on the agenda, but hadn’t been attended to yet. These ideas would be tangible to the business, but far enough outside the core strategy that the focus would still be on development.

STRATEGIC AGENDA

DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY

ADDRESSED UNADDRESSED

CORE CAPABILITIES

The criteria for choosing leaders to participate in the program was also essential: participants needed to be those who would benefit most from the development, but also add the most value to the strategic issues being addressed. Additionally, the group needed to be diverse and hold the potential to create the future of the business. As a result, 19 high-potential senior leaders from around the globe and across multiple functions were chosen to be part of the experience.

With the participants and projects chosen, Pivot met with the President and the Executive Team to ensure they would be positioned as sponsors and a sounding board for the participants.

Visceral LearningThe goal of the program was to give participants the ability to viscerally experience the world outside of the organization in order to foster innovation. Specifically, they were asked to spot opportunities embedded in the company’s existing capabilities and assets. Having spotted an opportunity or customer need, each team would have a supportive network of executives to help them bring their ideas to life.

The experience would consist of four phases: Gearing Up, Immersion, Stress Test, and Learning Forum.

VISION EXECUTION

GEARING UP

STRESS TEST(CREATE)

LEARNING FORUM(DELIVER)

IMMERSION(LISTEN)

Defining the ChallengeIn the Gearing Up phase, the participants broke into teams and spent three days together, being introduced to frameworks for scenario planning and business model innovation. Each team learned about the importance of embracing an external focus and anticipating customer needs. They then discussed their assumptions and created hypotheses to address their specific challenge.

Challenging AssumptionsDuring the Immersion experience, each team met with potential customers in their target market segment. They didn’t meet customers via a standard focus group or panel; rather, they met their customers on their terms, in their homes. The immersion was designed to be a visceral experience where unscripted conversations happened between the teams and potential customers. Designing meaningful and innovative solutions begins with an intimate understanding of the customer – and as such, each team interviewed customers about their needs, hopes, and aspirations for the future.

Like many smart, talented, and successful executives, the participants believed they already knew a lot about their target audience and, as a result, held many assumptions. For example, one team presumed that 19-24 year-olds, children of the great recession facing college loans and unemployment, would be downtrodden, frugal, and incessantly looking for deals. And of course, the leaders believed that their cool, hip company would be the obvious answer to all of their problems. The reality? The team found that 19-24 year-olds are happy, optimistic, and not at all deal-focused. And what’s more? They thought of the company as just another large institution – old, stodgy, and boring!

The second team had a similar learning curve. They believed they knew exactly what small businesses needed: a one-stop shop that fit all their needs. They got one thing right: small businesses were looking for a reliable partner. But what they didn’t want was a one-size-fits-all solution. They were looking for customized solutions to fit their specific needs.

The third team, which visited India to try and better understand their middle-class customers, realized that they didn’t have the capabilities they needed to compete in an emerging market, and that their assumption of how this target audience might interact with their product was not entirely accurate.

As each of these teams came together to talk about what they’d learned, they realized that, as senior leaders, they were responsible for setting direction, prioritizing resources, and leading the company into the future. But as one participant put it, “We are our own worst enemy. We have assumptions and we solve for those assumptions. But decisions, solutions, and actions should start and end with the customer.” Each of the participants began to realize that in order to innovate, be agile, and lead, they would have to put customers at the heart of everything they did.

“We are our own worst enemy. We have assumptions and we solve for those assumptions. But decisions, solutions, and actions should start and end with the customer.”

With Knowledge Comes ResponsibilityFollowing their customer interactions, the teams created “prototypes” that would meet the needs of their target customers. But the experience didn’t stop there. Since executing innovation is often the hardest task for leaders, the participants were required to take part in the Stress Test phase. During the Stress Test, each team presented their prototype to a cross-section of company employees who would be impacted by their recommendations. The teams were given new tools for communicating and leading change, which they practiced during the Stress Test. Each team heard feedback about what would actually work and how they might be able to execute their ideas to grow the business in new markets. Only after these considerations were taken into account (customer needs and internal capabilities) would they be able to present their recommendations to the President and the Executive Team.

The Impact In the end, the teams used their new customer insights to build innovative, customized solutions that were presented to the President and the Executive Team at the Learning Forum. A follow-up six months later showed that both participants and their direct managers saw lasting change in the behavior of those who took part in the program. Participants walked away with a fresh outlook on the customer and an understanding of the importance of creating solutions that cater to real needs, not just the assumptions of internal executives. Overall, participants were seen as better equipped to lead the company into the future on several key dimensions. The program set the stage for a legacy of leader development and new thinking that remains intact today.

DESIRABILITYWhat does the consumer want?

FEASABILITYWhat is technically and organizationally feasible?

VIABILITYWhat is financially viable?

Solutions must meet all three criteria

Pivot is a strategic leadership boutique that partners with Fortune 500 executives to help them lead, innovate, and adapt to volatile markets and changing industries. Our mission is to develop the best business leaders for the world’s most influential companies because we believe that leadership is the source of strategic advantage in today’s world.

Pivot Leadership621 SW Alder StreetSuite 200Portland, OR 97205-3617Tel: 503.640.5335www.pivotleadership.com

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