Catalyst has recently engaged with a well known clinical statistical research company for driving a high impact leadership development intervention with the middle and junior management teams. Catalyst was responsible for design, delivery and execution of the leadership journey program end to end. The core objective of this program was to choose the best talent within the organization and put them through a highly structured and meaningful learning path to enable them to hone their leadership skills and become effective leaders of the organization creating value for the business as well as the people.

The project was implemented in 2 key phases

Phase 1: In-depth understanding and assessment of the need for the program

Catalyst met the HR & top leadership team and had a detailed discussion about the need for running such a program. An organization wide training need analysis including BEI’s with sample participant groups and their significant stakeholders was conducted by our team to arrive at a true assessment of the intervention required. It was understood that they key focus areas for development included understanding and managing self, communication for better impact, leadership skills for managing others & building trust/ownership, project management and understanding the key concepts of finance (so that they can understand financials impacting their work area & departments better). Further, the delivery of the program had to be unique to ensure engagement from participants and stickiness of learnings.

Phase 2: Design and Execution of The Leadership Development Journey

Given the unique nature of the intervention, Catalyst followed a holistic leadership development approach focusing on individual, team and organization level needs and designing the program accordingly.

The key steps involved in the design and delivery phase of the program were as following :

1. The Program Design – was done in the form of a leadership journey spread over 7-8 months where each of the 3-4 workshops planned were followed by a 30-60-90 day plan including PDP reviews, peer learning sessions and Action learning projects aimed at facilitating real life application of the workshop learnings for the participants so that they see value in the training being imparted.
2. Communication – Catalyst team designed a detailed communication calendar and was involved in the roll out and implementation of the same to ensure that the program is branded well and receives high visibility across the organization aimed at creating top of mind recall among employees for this program and make it aspirational for everyone.
3. Program Delivery – Best in class trainers were engaged to deliver the workshops in a engaging format using game based learnings, role plays, case studies, inventories etc; to ensure Whats-In-It-For-Me connect and complete participation and engagement of the participants so that the training happen in a peer learning and experience sharing pattern so that the key learning outcomes are internalized well.

The program has started on a high, and is being received very well by everyone. It has drawn lot of appreciation in the way it has been designed and implemented.