Talent Management in the current climate Brewing up ... - Ashridge

ONVERSE
Talent Management in the current climate
Brewing up strategy at Greencore Malt
Culture change at Nokia Siemens Networks
An award winning partnership with Lovells
New frontiers for Ernst & Young
Nature as inspiration
ISSUE 6 | 2009

changing
challenging
developing
Ashridge Consulting
An innovative consultancy with a proven
track record of successful client partnerships:
www.ashridgeconsulting.com
engaging
• developing strategy by engaging the organisation
• changing organisation structure and culture
• developing leaders and leadership teams
• developing and assessing people and performance
• leading and working virtually
A centre for the development of consulting
and coaching practitioners.
All from a world class business school.
learning

a word from the editor
There isn’t much talk of five-year strategic planning at the moment. Events
of the last year have demonstrated the futility of planning moves on a
chess board whilst the very rules of the game are being found wanting:
staying in the game, let alone winning, has become the objective for many
players. There has never been a greater need to engage the collective
brilliance of minds across global organisations in strategic conversations
such as those that underpin many of the client stories within this edition.
Many readers might currently feel that their career plans are bottom of
the agenda for boards and busy HR departments. But, to quote President
Obama’s words at his inauguration: “Our minds are no less inventive, our
goods and services no less needed than they were last week, last month
or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished.” It’s smart organisations
that realise this and focus on the retention of their best people, as our lead
article on Talent Management explains.
Economic and financial news plus rising unemployment are currently
painting a very dismal picture: life in organisations is certainly tough at the
moment. But what is really going on behind the headlines? What is it like
for a leader at the coal face just now? We share our current research of
what’s happening ‘in the thick of it’.
Is the current financial and economic crisis pushing issues of
sustainability lower down the agenda? Sustainable practice can also mean
better profits, as outlined in the article about the Ashridge InterfaceRAISE
collaboration.
Cost, as well as sustainability issues, is prompting an increasing
number of organisations to opt for virtual working, paying attention to
the need to invest in the development of virtual leaders, as illustrated in
the work with Danfoss. This edition reflects the increasing integration of
technology and virtual communication into the design of much of our
work with clients. It demonstrates how high quality conversations can be
conducted on a one-to-one coaching basis, in groups, large conferences
and globally, either in person or virtually.
We hope that this edition of Converse is helpful to you in working
toward a brighter future.
Delma O’Brien
Editor
Editorial team:
Kate Campbell, Delma O’Brien, Mike McCabe
Design: www.redsky.biz
Copyright 2009, The Ashridge Trust.
You may copy and circulate this publication to as many people as you wish.
All rights reserved.
Registered as Ashridge (Bonar Law Memorial) Trust. Charity number 311096.
Ashridge Consulting
Ashridge, Berkhamsted, Herts HP4 1NS
Tel: + 44 (0)1442 841380 Fax: +44 (0)1442 841260
www.ashridgeconsulting.com
Structures & processes
Competitors
Communications
Accountability & decision-making
Purpose
Financial viability
client/coach
relationship
l e a r n i n g
c h a n g e
e x p e r i m e n t i n g
contents
ABOUT US
A growing consultancy
page 4
A day in the life
page 8
Programme news
pages 23, 34 & 35
LATEST THINKING
Talent Management in the current climate
page 5
Surviving turbulence: the creative
brilliance of crowds page 12
‘In the thick of it’ leadership research
page 26
Nature as inspiration
page 28
CLIENT STORIES
Brewing up strategy
at Greencore Malt page 10
Getting together without being
together at Danfoss page 14
Culture change as conversation at
Nokia Siemens Networks page 17
An award-winning partnership
with Lovells page 20
New frontiers for Ernst & Young
page 24
Strategic conversations with
The Cochrane Collaboration page 31
3

2008 was Ashridge Consulting’s most successful year ever with our
services very much in demand and an increasing number of large-scale
organisation change assignments.
The year also saw some significant
other achievements, notably:
• The successful delivery of an
ambitious consulting project – the
world’s first truly virtual leadership
programme.
• The launch of Erik de Haan’s
book Relational Coaching to
critical acclaim.
• The celebration of the 10th
anniversary of our flagship
programme, the Ashridge Masters
in Organisation Consulting.
• The launch of Ashridge
InterfaceRAISE, a collaboration
of our insight into organisation
change and engagement with
the experience and know-how
of global flooring company
InterfaceFLOR – pioneers in
sustainable business practice.
• The development of partnerships
to deliver our programmes in both
Denmark and Abu Dhabi.
4
In a previous issue of Converse we
introduced you to our four practice groups
(Strategy, Talent and HR management,
Change and Leadership) and the consultants
who were leading them. While recognising
that organisational challenges rarely fall
exclusively into just one area, we find that
the practice group structure increases the
clarity, focus and accountability for our
clients. With changing client needs and
developments in our own thinking and
expertise, our practice groups have grown
over the past year – here are the people to
get in touch with:
To ensure that we maintain both our specialist edge and our capability
to support our clients in the best possible way, we recruited three new
consultants: Nick for his sustainability expertise, and Liz and Bruno for their
considerable change experience.
Nick Ceasar
Nick joined Ashridge Consulting to
add his expertise to our growing
sustainability practice and further
the Ashridge InterfaceRAISE
collaboration. He recognised that
“combining the Interface story with
the Ashridge Consulting approach
to change, leadership and strategy
created the essential ingredients
needed to make sustainability an
integrated value-adding experience
for all of our clients”.
He has worked in the area of
corporate responsibility for almost
a decade, both as an adviser
and practitioner. He has advised
numerous large multinationals
and has experience of corporate
responsibility practice in Europe,
the US, Asia and the Middle East.
Nick shares a day in his life in
the article on page 8.
Liz Wiggins
Liz joined Ashridge Consulting
after an international career in
marketing, internal communications
and consulting because she was
“impressed by the calibre and
depth of experience of Ashridge
consultants and was inspired by the
commitment to do the right things
for clients, not what makes most
money – an attitude that sadly not
all consulting firms practise!”
Liz has led and participated
in a wide range of consulting
assignments from strategy
implementation, culture change,
internal communication and
employee engagement, working with
a variety of high-profile organisations
including Microsoft and Oxfam.
She is currently co-authoring a
book on The Theory and Practice of
Change for the OUP.
Organisations in transition/Culture change and renewal
Caryn Vanstone caryn.vanstone@ashridge.org.uk 07880 788279
Developing leaders and top teams
Lindsey Masson lindsey.masson@ashridge.org.uk 07775 946790
Strategy engagement
Chris Nichols chris.nichols@ashridge.org.uk 07738 803410
Philippa Hardman philippa.hardman@ashridge.org.uk 07714 697159
Virtual working
Ghislaine Caulat ghislaine.caulat@ashridge.org.uk 07785 371421
People and performance
Sally Hulks sally.hulks@ashridge.org.uk 07766 813288
The business of sustainability
Anthony Kasozi anthony.kasozi@ashridge.org.uk 07760 171817
Nick Ceasar nicolas.ceasar@ashridge.org.uk 07595 650307
Bruno Dalbiez
When Bruno joined Ashridge
Consulting at the end of 2008 he
knew the organisation quite well.
Indeed, before he embarked on
the first-ever Ashridge Masters in
Organisation Consulting, launched
in January 1997, he was already
a client of long-standing in his role
as Organisational and Change
Management Consultant with
Hewlett-Packard. “My reason for
joining was to learn from, contribute
to, and become part of, a very
special community of world class
professionals with a culture and a
set of values and beliefs as close to
my own as I could dream of.“
He has over thirty years
of international experience in
management and leadership
development, change and
organisation development in global
technology companies.
He brings with him expertise
in a broad range of approaches to
individual, team, and organisation
development and change, including
appreciative inquiry and complexity.
His areas of interest beyond work
are cooking, oil painting, wines and
foods of the world.
Bruno is fluent in English,
French and Spanish and thrives in
multi-cultural environments.

Talent Management
in the current climate:
the paradoxes
As organisations adopt new plans to cope with current
trading conditions and probable long-term recession,
HR and Learning and Development professionals need to
ensure that their organisations protect talent whilst being
lean and efficient. Sally Hulks, head of Ashridge Consulting’s
People and Performance practice, shares some insights
into how to manage this tension.
There have always been some fundamental
assumptions about Talent Management. The
first is that you can choose to do it or not. The
second is that developing talent requires money,
effort and exciting opportunities. The third is that
people hold on to safe jobs in an uncertain world
without being incentivised so to do. So here, at
the outset of 2009, with the UK firmly in recession,
all three assumptions prevail and feed a chain
of events: Chief Executives look instinctively for
financial control and cost minimisation; the results
of any mergers and acquisitions are rationalised
fast with scant regard to opportunity or stretch
assignments for individuals; decisions have
difficult consequences so the decision-making
group gets smaller and meetings become more
secret, communication with employees becomes
‘careful’ and retention through bonuses or
expensive development programmes has already
been curtailed. Bodies are hanging on to the
listing ship and whilst they may be anxious and
mistrustful, it is an accepted truth that nobody
will walk in these dark times.
The issue for HR Directors is how best to
influence this landscape, to manage the part
they play in how messages are disseminated,
how decisions are taken about who stays or
gets moved – when the standard rules and tools
no longer apply. Ashridge Consulting spent two
years studying the area of talent management.
The research, sponsored by Accenture,
Grant Thornton, Lloyds TSB, Network Rail
and Waitrose, provides a framework to help
organisations understand the different strategic
perspectives through which talent management
can be deployed. It is based on a literature review,
20 case studies of organisations and a national
survey of the CMI’s membership. Key findings
relate directly to these turbulent times.
Know what you need
The research suggests that most organisations
define talent through some reference to potential,
in particular, high potentials. What is paid less
attention to is the notion of identifying people
who demonstrate the potential to progress in
the organisation at a given point in time. It is
possible that those who served you well in the
past may not be needed in your organisation’s
next phase. It may also be that some parts of
the organisation need a fundamentally different
set of skills to another. Talent Management
systems can be dangerously static – bound
by complicated decision-making processes,
generic competency frameworks and leadership
criteria, applied across all functions and divisions,
regardless of context – all of which can serve to
identify high potential clones.
>> continued over page
5

A crucial HR imperative is to be able to move
with speed to undertake fresh ‘due diligence’ as
the organisation changes, to make sense of the
critical skills needed to meet the new business
strategy. This may involve also identifying the
pivotal leadership positions that must be covered
in the short and medium term. Paradoxically,
when all is under review or being restructured, the
imperative may become holding on to the stable
contributors – something which past processes
may have served to ignore. HR have a key role
to play before any decisions are taken and it may
be a role which serves to turn the ‘norms’ upside
down. Thereafter all that may be needed is to
convey the message; getting to those you really
need to stay and tell them so – offering some
certainty amidst the anxiety – that can only be
done with confidence when you do know who
you need.
Take decisions
What happens with regard to strategic and
operating decisions is often replicated in
decisions regarding talent. When revenue is a
scarce commodity, overt politics and turf wars
are more likely to play out. The talent agenda
may be owned within local business units or at
organisation level. Neither is wrong, but knowing
which and how, being alert to the game-playing
and party to the facilitation of good discussions
is paramount. The case studies showed that
most organisations saw the need for a more
central ownership approach in order to get senior
management buy-in and strategic alignment.
This can raise operational issues in businessunit
driven organisations. HR need both to be
politically astute yet act with the utmost integrity,
work across the organisation landscape, yet stay
close to the local managers.
Definition and entry point
How broad is the group of people who decides who is talent?
6
Accept that you do manage talent
Every organisation has a talent management
system, whether it recognises it or not. Something
happens to talented people in an organisation,
whether they are being developed and motivated
or stifled and neglected. Hence, deciding to
‘do nothing’ right now will not be a neutral act,
it will have an impact. Even in the good times
some organisations are afraid of defining talent
for fear that it identifies the rest of the workforce
as talent-less. Talent management is about
doing something additional or different with
those people defined as talent for the purpose
of the organisation – be it top performers, high
potentials, senior managers suitable for director
positions or people suitable for critical roles in the
organisation. Having less scope or resource for
‘doing something additional or different’ for such
people should serve to reinforce the need to do
whatever can be done well, focusing absolutely
on the right people. Often it actually results in
not taking any action at all – there may appear to
be no easy development answers and plenty of
anxiety around without adding to it by ‘selecting’
some for special attention. The research found
that, in reality, being identified as talent in UK
organisations means more pressure, enhanced
development opportunities and better promotion;
only 7% of managers believed that it resulted in
resentment amongst peers.
The research asserts that it is the explicit
segmentation of those who are defined as talent
for current and future needs that helps to target
investment, and this may be especially helpful
when investment per se may be frugal. Being
able to identify the right people for that moment
– and the next – matched to the right jobs at the
right time, can be crucial in times of restructuring,
merger and acquisition and can only be achieved
through being nimble in the application of the
process, coupled with some willingness to
DISTRIBUTED DECISION CONCENTRATED DECISION
How permanent is the classification of ‘talent’?
TRANSIENT PERMANENT
How many people are included in the talent pool?
1% OF EMPLOYEES 100% OF EMPLOYEES
How challenging is the criteria for entry into the talent pool?
EASY DIFFICULT
experiment in the handling of development
opportunities. From an organisational point of
view there are times and situations that require
us to deploy the most talented people into areas
that need innovation, entrepreneurial flair and
the capability to take risks: at other times the
opposite is required.
The studies showed that advantages and
disadvantages arise from having a transparent
talent system and suggest that transparency
can increase as talent management becomes
embedded and culturally accepted within an
organisation. Clearly it is important not to raise
expectations if an organisation is unable to
deliver for individuals. Yet delivery does not have
to mean expensive programmes; time and again
people say that it is the stretching, even truly
difficult time in a new role, that really helped them
to learn and develop. 2009 would appear to have
stretching opportunities a-plenty! HR have a role
to play in surfacing these questions and achieving
the optimum fit.
Certainly care does need to be taken with
disseminating talent management practices, as
they inevitably lead to segmentation and this can
conflict with diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Talent management systems can complement
diversity initiatives by ensuring equality of
opportunity in applying and transparency in the
criteria for selection. This can be particularly
evident during mergers or restructurings, by
ensuring that time is taken to really review the
total pool of high potentials, rather than calling
upon the same safe few from the original structure
and spreading them ever more thinly across each
strategic project. Yet at those crucial moments
in an organisation’s history the one missing
ingredient is always time – the pressure to resolve
the appointment of the Top Team or to implement
a new structure is unrelenting. The issue for HR
is finding the capacity to be simultaneously fleet
of foot and yet determinedly assertive, such
that they enable time to think without being the
inevitable block to progress.
Accept that the system is both formal
and informal
The research showed that the informal system
was invariably stronger than the organisation
declared and that people draw their own
conclusions about what is going on. Common
in organisations are the ‘tournament systems’ or
rites of passage: “You can’t be promoted unless
you’ve moved country/ been on the Business
School programme/ had a secondment to
the executive floor”. If an organisation sends
messages via such rites it is important to
acknowledge that and to question whether the
tournaments are still valid for the organisation’s

future state. By ‘ignoring’ the rites yet allowing
them to persist, organisations end up drawing
from a narrow talent pool which may enable
favouritism, nepotism and ‘old boy’ networks
to dominate, falling foul of equal opportunities
legislation and stifling diversity.
Managing the talent
Where is the ownership of talent viewed to be in the organisation?
Create your culture through your
strategic choices
When people can no longer choose employers
just on the basis of the best financial incentives,
they choose by what a company offers, how
it feels and how well it aligns with their own
needs and beliefs. There is a need to be explicit
about values and ways of working, approaches
to diversity of thought and opinion, the level of
flexibility in working arrangements, role models in
senior roles – to be aware of your message. Even
in a down-turn the employee is a less malleable
resource for the company. Gratton & Ghoshal*
suggest that they are rather a mobile investor
of their own intellectual, social and emotional
capitals and, as such, are ‘volunteer’ employees
for organisations, who view themselves not as
assets, but as investors in their organisations.
Talent may hesitate to leave in 2009, but it may
be circumspect about its investment in staying.
Help managers to manage talent
Once uncertainty sets in, attrition rates may
remain disproportionately high for months and,
indeed, years afterwards. Under pressure, line
managers tend to neglect people, except in
meeting the needs of their immediate tasks.
Sometimes line managers find themselves
supporting people with talent that is greater than
their own. There was a significant correlation in
the survey results between individuals feeling
underutilised and their line managers and senior
managers considering them to be talent. This
may suggest that organisations are focusing too
heavily on weaknesses rather than strengths.
Allowing people to demonstrate their full potential
and performance ability in difficult times should
be an easy win. Managers can also find it difficult
to give feedback to talented individuals – being
talented does not necessarily make someone
easy to manage. Yet, paradoxically, they
LOCAL WITHIN BUSINESS UNITS SHARED AROUND THE ORGANISATION
How many people are having conversations with people about their careers?
INDIVIDUAL LINE MANAGERS WIDER GROUPS OF PEOPLE
How are people developed once they have been identified as talent?
BY AN ACCELERATED PATH BY A DIFFERENTIATED ROUTE
Where is the focus of the organisation’s development activities?
ON STRENGTHS ON WEAKNESSES
need this feedback to grow and, done well, it
contributes significantly to them feeling nurtured
and developed. It is important also that talented
individuals do not expect their line manager to
have sole responsibility for developing their career
path, as this can create significant tensions.
The context of talent
How is talent development experienced within the organisation?
Justify talent management
Even in the good times most organisations
are concerned with some measure of return
on investment (ROI) with regard to talent
management, but the case studies showed that
not many are maintaining records or IT systems
that would give them the data to measure any
returns. The need to have a highly talented
workforce to meet the complex needs of business
in 2009 is a self evident truth: presenting the
business case requires some effort, thought,
even the use of some numbers, but it is a small
price to pay for a potentially enormous return
in both the short and the long-term. Measures
of ROI are best considered when the system is
being designed, so that the evaluation process
is designed into the system itself. Key measures
include outcomes such as organisational
capabilities, strategy execution, organisational
morale, and employee engagement. If you
calculate the return on investment and costs of
talent management – from losing a key player
to the costs of under-performing people – the
argument is self-evident.
In the end there is no easy answer. But
speed in grasping the talent issues at the outset,
communication and consistency of message
to those you are clear are part of your future –
and time and effort in understanding them and
working with their needs – is evidenced to pay
long-term dividends. In matters of talent, return
on investment is not yet a thing of the past, but
remembering that is one of the paradoxes of the
present.
SINK OR SWIM PATERNALISTIC
How transparent is the system in the organisation?
SECRET / OPAQUE OPEN / TRANSPARENT
How competitive is the organisation’s culture for talent progression?
INDIVIDUALLY COMPETITIVE SUPPORTIVE TEAMWORK
How is people’s performance measured in the organisation?
Talent may hesitate to
leave in 2009, but it may
be circumspect about its
investment in staying.
BY OUTCOMES / OUTPUTS BY BEHAVIOUR / PROCESSES
* Gratton L, Ghoshal S, Managing personal human capital:
new ethos for the ‘volunteer’ employee, European
Management Journal 2003 Vol 21:1 p 1-10
7

A day in the life of
Nick Ceasar
8
It’s 8am and I am on my bicycle,
flying over Hampstead Heath,
drinking the fresh air and pedalling
as fast as my smart-casual attire will
allow. It’s been two months since
I started at Ashridge and I have
been missing like crazy my cycle to
work. I only realise how important
my daily ride was now it’s gone and
still haven’t quite managed to find
an equivalent substitute. I vow to
myself to win more London-based
clients, and pedal on.
I am part of the Sustainability
Practice at Ashridge Consulting.
Ashridge has a strong reputation
in this area already, particularly
in research and education, and
part of my job is to support the
consulting effort. One way of doing
this is to start to introduce some
of my networks from the field to
colleagues at Ashridge who show
an interest. Today’s focus is to
explore what we can learn from the
discipline of design: in particular,
the way designers think in order to
inform management practice in the
sustainable context. This activity
is in response to a request from
Hugh, a colleague at Ashridge,
who is committed to finding a
European equivalent of the great
Bill McDonough, architect, designer
and bio-neer.
Rob Holdway bowls though the
door of the RSA’s tiny Gerard Bar
clutching a pack of super-strength
Lemsip. He denies its man-flu and
suggests that combining coffee
and Lemsip will see him right. I
suggest this combination was not
‘designed’ to be used this way but
he ignores my snide advice and
sure enough he is shortly firing on
all cylinders.
Best known as the presenter of
Channel 4’s reality show, Dumped,
Rob is a product designer by trade,
previously a research fellow at the
Royal College of Art and a founder
of the highly successful ecoconsultancy
Giraffe Innovations.
He has the high energy and
conversational rhythm of a classic
entrepreneur and is proud of what
he has achieved. He darts from
subject to subject, ranging from the
construction of the WEEE (Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment)
sculpture that he directed for the
Eden Project, to the unsustainable
choices companies are being
forced to make due to the prices
for recycled materials dropping
through the floor in the current
economy. Having worked with Rob
in the past, though, I know he is
more than just an entrepreneurial
shaper and is also a true completer-
finisher, so I feel happy engaging
with his comfortable banter.
Hugh has joined us now and
is keen to pull the conversation
back from technical detail and to
focus on the bigger questions.
What can we take from design
as a discipline and designer
thinking to help us to inform the
way businesses think about their
context and relationships with
wider environment and society?
The power of design is becoming a
hot topic in the wider sustainability
arena too, with recognition that
as much as 80% of the negative
impact from products or services
results from decisions made at the
design stage. More broadly, there is
much to be gleaned from applying
a design mindset and philosophy
to wider business issues, from
being more intuitive to the continual
questioning of the status quo.
Rob is quick to point out,
though, that actually many
designers are neither following nor
interested in following the path of
Bill McDonough and are often more
interested in pure aesthetic. Take
Philippe Starck’s ‘Juicy Salif’ lemon
squeezer for example: it’s a musthave
on the kitchen windowsill but
if you want to squeeze a lemon....
We acknowledge that we are going

to need to choose our design
partner carefully.
The meeting ends with us
agreeing to find a way to introduce
Rob more formally to Ashridge, with
one possibility being that we jointly
produce a paper on Managementas-Design
for the forthcoming
Business as an Agent of World
Benefit conference.
It’s 3pm and we are now
somewhere on the outskirts of
Notting Hill, following a poorly
printed map and looking for the
design studios for SolarLab.
SolarLab is the brainchild of the
eminent German product designer
Christoph Behling, a designer
with significant experience of
designing expensive luxury goods,
but now with a mission to make
solar photovoltaic panels the
aspirational product of our time.
And he isn’t doing badly either,
with his solar boat in Hyde Park
having just been made the green
emblem for London in Eurostar’s
new advertising campaign. Inside
his industrial unit we are greeted
warmly by a set of well-heeled
good-looking designers and led
up one of the spiral staircases to a
mezzanine meeting room.
This conversation is more
inquisitive and less certain than
“ What we need to do is
re-frame what sustainability
is in people’s minds to
make it the most desirable
option available.”
earlier and it’s immediately clear
that Christoph is a totally different
design animal to Rob. “The problem
with sustainability,” he says, “is
that it’s seen as an alternative. An
alternative is something you buy
or do when what you really desire
isn’t possible. What we need to do
is re-frame what sustainability is in
people’s minds to make it the most
desirable option available.”
When we talk about the
designer mindset, he says, a
designer can never accept that
anything is perfect, can remain
static or can never be improved.
They always seek to renew or invent
and much of this work comes from
the gut more than from the head.
We leave the meeting equally
inspired but less clear on how we
could make Christoph’s work come
alongside our work at Ashridge,
although I promise to send over
some thought pieces on the ethical
issues behind luxury brands and
brand psychology.
Hugh and I part in central
London and I head back to Covent
Garden for dinner with two friends,
one of whom is the company
secretary for a large UK plc. We
talk very briefly about the economy;
his sector is yet to be impacted
significantly by the downturn.
Some of the discussion centres
on a meeting he has in a couple
of days with some SRI (Social
The RSA WEEE Man –
an environmental awareness
initiative to highlight the
growing problem of Waste
Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (WEEE) in the
UK and across Europe.
Constructed from items
such as washing machines,
TVs, microwaves, vacuum
cleaners and mobile phones,
he represents the amount
of WEEE the average British
person throws away in their
lifetime – over 3 tonnes.
Responsible Investment) analysts
from a large financial institution.
It’s reassuring for me to hear that
these rare beasts in the investment
community still have jobs.
The ride home to hilly North
London is tougher than the morning
ride in, although I am enjoying
reflecting on the day’s conversation
and the opportunities that might
exist for supporting clients in their
sustainability efforts. I do begin
to wonder though, if a warmer
alternative to my daily exercise
might not be such an unattractive
idea.
9

Brewing up strategy
at Greencore Malt
Imagine that you’re an MD who’s been asked by a new Group CEO to produce your strategy
for the next four years – within about ten weeks and with reduced resources, following a
major restructuring: quite a challenge! This was the situation that David Wilkes faced in
January 2008. Elizabeth Braiden recounts how he rose to his challenge.
David, Greencore Malt’s Managing Director, was
very clear that external help was needed. In
selecting a consulting partner, he was mindful that
the resulting strategy should be wholly owned by
the management team, so that they were in the
best possible position to deliver it. In spite of his
tight timescale David was determined that the
consultant chosen would be a skilled catalyst,
who could stretch the management team and
get them to think broadly and differently. He also
believed strongly that this would not be a case of
“just looking at the numbers”.
David decided that Ashridge Consulting
offered the right blend of strategy and facilitation
skills, while also sharing the values and beliefs so
important to Greencore Malt, understanding their
need to retain ownership, and improving their
own strategic abilities as part of the process.
Industry context
Greencore Malt is part of the Greencore Group.
It produces high quality barley malt for the
brewing and distilling industries worldwide.
Throughout the period 2004-2006, there had
been overcapacity in the malting sector, allowing
the brewers and distillers to become very
powerful, and thus putting immense pressure on
margins. Barley harvests were also very poor in
2006 and 2007, pushing up the price of malting
barley, the business’ main raw material.
10
Greencore Malt had responded to these
market conditions by concentrating on their core
quality customers while closing three plants,
restructuring to reduce head count, and cutting
back on some export markets, particularly South
America and Africa.
Some of their competitors were unable to
weather the difficult times and ceased trading,
leading to a shortage of capacity in 2007. This,
coupled with the poor harvest, enabled those
that could deliver good quality malt to negotiate
more favourable prices with their customers.
Starting point
Greencore Group has two significant divisions
– convenience food and ingredients. The latter,
reduced in size since Greencore’s withdrawal from
the sugar business, includes malting. Greencore
Malt was largely profitable, and provided a good
cash flow.
The appointment of a new group CEO, keen
to drive the strategies of the different parts of the
business, offered Greencore Malt the opportunity
to demonstrate exactly what they were about,
and bring forward options to further develop the
business.
Where is our energy?
The closures and restructuring had left the
organisation wary of dependence on an industry
that appeared to have some degree of cyclicality,
so energy was high amongst the executive team
for looking beyond the malting business and
exploring other possibilities.
The Ashridge consultant, Dev Mookherjee,
tapped into this source of energy for most of the
first day, using models to explore the possibilities
in both supply chain and other associated
industries, while also keeping the malting
business in focus. By the end of that first day
they had confirmed that they knew a great deal
about their own industry, and could see scope
for further development in what they were already
good at. David Wilkes commented that the day
was “incredibly useful – we all had different views
at the outset, but Dev brought us together to
focus on the same thing – developing in our own
industry.” The Commercial Director added: “We
considered things we don’t normally think about
– we are primarily focused on the day-to-day
and not the big picture.” The Finance Director
commented: “Dev managed to challenge us in
our thinking without judging our ideas.”

Having completed just one day of work
together, energy was now flowing to work on
what they needed to do within their own business.
Various tools were used to challenge Greencore
Malt’s thinking about possibilities. Some were
largely intuitive, others more analytic – scenarios
and DPMs (Directional Policy Matrices) were
particularly valued.
The focus then moved to defining what work
needed to be done before the team came together
again. At this point, the directors admitted that
they tend to be more internally focused than
might be ideal, but were pleasantly surprised that
they knew more about both their customers and
their competitors than they realised. They already
had knowledge they could build on.
So short of time
Having made a good and rapid start, the
realisation of how much needed to be done in
such a short time was even more apparent. At
this point it was decided – reluctantly as far as
David was concerned – that involving other senior
managers in the strategy development process
did not appear to be an option at this point. They
needed to cover some of the tasks the directors
would normally do, so that the directors would
be freed up to complete the tasks laid out at
the workshop. This was not an easy choice
in an organisation employing just 200 people
worldwide but was a price paid for keeping to the
short time scales.
In other ways, the tight deadline had some
advantages. Delegating was easier because
there just wasn’t a choice; urgency to complete
tasks, even unexciting ones, led to work
being completed for the next session with the
consultant. It wasn’t all straightforward. One
director expressed frustration because he never
felt that he could quite do justice to the process,
it was time-consuming, and there were day-today
tasks he just couldn’t delegate.
Pulling it all together
The strategy team came together at Ashridge to
pull it all together. The task seemed impossible
at the outset of this session. The board had set
aside just 1½ hours for the malt presentation,
and that just didn’t seem enough for justice to be
done to all the work accomplished. David Wilkes
was clear: “We need to really engage the board,
get them out of their chairs – do something
different – get away from the seemingly inevitable
PowerPoint.”
In pursuit of this aim, it was decided to ‘tell
the story’ of the work done, including what had
been discounted and why, as well as what would
be developed going forward. Dev proposed using
posters, and while this seemed a real challenge
in the time available, the idea was adopted.
Eight posters were needed to cover all the areas
needed in the presentation to the board, and
every member of the strategy team was proud of
what they had achieved.
Involving Senior Managers
A Greencore Malt Senior Managers’ meeting is
held on a six-monthly basis. One was planned
in a hotel in Cambridge directly before the board
presentation was due to be held in Dublin. This
meeting had the benefit of being a rehearsal, but
the real downside was recognised – it would be
hard for the senior managers to feel that they had
had an opportunity to contribute. There was a
sense at the outset of “You have done it all, do
we need to see it?” After reassurance that their
feedback was genuinely being sought, the use of
the posters worked wonders in really engaging
with the senior managers. David commented:
“As a result of all the work we had done, we had
gained confidence, and felt good about what
we had achieved, and what was possible going
forward. We managed to pass much of this on to
the Senior Managers.”
Winning the accolades
The MD was absolutely delighted by the level of
engagement that the posters and the ‘compelling
story’ achieved with the board. One board
member said that he had learnt more about the
malting industry in the 1½ hour presentation than
in anything else he had been involved in. The
Group CEO described it as “an outstanding piece
of work”.
Without external help
All members of the strategy group agreed that
they could not have produced the strategy
without external help. David said: “We could not
have achieved what we did without Ashridge.
Dev brought a process and a wide range of
models and tools; he brought discipline and
kept us to the process, he called a halt when
necessary, kept our feet to the fire, insisted we
finished tasks when we were inclined to skip bits
– for example when we were ranking countries
and products, we really did need a lot of detail to
get the answers right. He kept our energy high,
and ensured that everyone remained engaged.
He brought a high level of objectivity. However, it
really is our strategy – not Ashridge’s!”
The Finance Director commented: “We’d
have spent a long period of time evaluating each
of our pet favourites if we hadn’t had an external
facilitator to bring discipline. A consultant who
simply facilitated wouldn’t have worked – we
needed the models and the challenge. Dev kept
our ambition there.”
What next?
The process generated not just a clear strategy,
but also a high level of excitement about what
was possible, and what could be achieved. This
excitement is felt very strongly by the team, and
to some extent by the senior managers. It was
admitted that there was still some work to do
in generating similar excitement throughout the
company, but a spirit of optimism that this would
be possible prevailed.
The posters have taken on a life of their
own. They have been modified in the light of
senior manager input, and have been used in
different combinations with suppliers, customers
and staff, in meetings that are being used to get
feedback and improve external knowledge. The
importance of this is evident from the wider range
of directors taking part.
Working groups have been set up to
progress the key themes of the new strategy –
though scarcity of resource has led to external
resources being employed to guide one project,
and another has an Ashridge MBA student doing
a significant piece of work for Greencore Malt.
Finally, there is recognition that the Greencore
Malt directors need to step back from day-to-day
issues and focus on strategic ones on a regular
basis. A new structure for separate business and
strategic meetings has been set up.
What of those tempting diversification
options? Attractive though many of them first
seemed, they were discarded in favour of
‘sticking to the knitting’: reinforcing Greencore
Malt’s existing position and customer base –
which is already firmly established as far away
as, for example, Japan, where Greencore Malt
is used in the popular ‘Kirin’ beer. In pursuit
of further growth, the company will be giving
attention to new geographic markets, particularly
in the rapidly developing new economies where
beer consumption, and hence demand for malt,
is continually rising.
11

In harsh economic times, according to business mythology, senior leaders
need to know the right path; to show the steady hand of experience. They need
to get back to basics. Nothing, in our view, could be further from the truth.
The urge to run for the seclusion of the boardroom is dangerous. Something
far more demanding is called for. In our experience, fully engaged participation
offers the most potent way to build on the collective intelligence and insight
of all your staff whilst at the same time securing the ownership you need to
allow difficult decisions to be made and implemented effectively.
12
Surviving turbulence:
the creative brilliance
of crowds
Daily contacts with organisations
across the globe are telling us
that, in almost every boardroom,
some very tough decisions are
being made. Management teams
are being tasked to cut costs and
find new ways to get cash in the
door. Businesses are becoming
more focused on their customers
and their real sources of business
advantage. They are trying to get
concentrated effort from everyone
and, to some extent, fear is helping
them to get it.
At the same time we notice that
something sinister is happening.
Perceived power is being
concentrated. Decisions are being
taken in the corporate offices and
revealed to waiting and anxious
staff. Many people in businesses
feel powerless. Both the economic
circumstances and the response of
their employer appear to be equally
remote and mysterious forces.
In our experience, fully
engaged participation offers the
most potent way to build on the
collective intelligence and insight of
all your staff whilst at the same time
By Chris Nichols
securing the ownership you need to
allow difficult decisions to be made
and implemented effectively.
Parent-child dialogue
in crisis
A trick is being missed here and
organisations are falling into the
classic ‘parent-child’ dialogue
trap. When a crisis strikes, large
groups of people can become
dependent, looking for a ‘superior’
to sort the problem out for them.
In organisations this takes the form
of groups standing around the
coffee machine or gossiping in the
lunchroom, discussing what ‘they’
– the senior management – are
going to do.
Top management often plays
into the game by taking a parental
stance. The critical, controlling
parent says: “We have to raise our
game, put in the extra effort. We
must all do more and better”. The
gentle, nurturing parent reassures:
“Stick with us and we will find our
way through. We are a strong firm.”
The management team then lock
themselves away and try to navigate
their way through the storm.
What this game guarantees
is that the management team
reinforce dependency. The game
strips the organisation of its most
crucial resource, the adult energies
and abilities of its whole workforce,
who are pushed into a position
of dependent compliance. It also
puts the management team into
the position of having to ‘sell’ their
solution to the staff: “We need to
get buy-in” is a common call. It
is, after all, not uncommon for
‘dependent’ employees to rebel
against their parental bosses.
A route to shared discovery
We believe there is a better way.
In these difficult times, something

more creative and more engaging is
required than a simple flight to the
security of the boardroom sanctum
and the expert consultant.
Over the past months and years
we have been developing robust
processes by which groups of
people can be engaged in strategic
analysis, scenario work and
even (where required) in decision
making. We have developed a
suite of processes that can engage
groups that vary in size from a
handful to several thousand. The
results are striking. By engaging
the skills, energy and knowledge of
your wider team (exactly how wide
is an important matter of design)
you can:
• Harness the collective insight
and intelligence of more of
your organisation. It is obvious
that people beyond the top
team have knowledge vital to
steering a viable course. Your
sales people will have strategic
intelligence you need. Your
production line has insights into
glitches and efficiencies invisible
to the boardroom. Eyes at the
coal face will not be blinkered by
the same assumptions as those
shared by the top team. Finding
a way to bring all the knowledge
of the organisation into the
debate is not a luxury – it is good
risk management.
• Build ownership in the outcome
as you go. The need to secure
‘buy-in’ dissolves. There is
nothing to buy: the organisation
created the solution itself through
its participation. Above all, you
come through the engagement
process with a massive resource
intact. You have not sacrificed
the spirit and energy of your
wider management team in
service of cost cutting and
sales recovery. Instead you have
invited them to build the solution
and have emerged with a wealth
of participative adult energy
that generates widespread
determination to make the plans
happen.
• And all this need not be expensive
nor take long. Much shared
discovery is possible in just a few
days.
Decisions made in secret seclusion will rob you of staff engagement.
Worse still are decisions made by expert consultants and sold to the
organisation as a rescue remedy.
Participation is not democracy. Top managers must decide and
everyone knows this. But if top managers make their decisions based
on the widest and best information they can, so much the better. The
decisions, the energy and the will to act on them will emerge stronger as
a result of a more engaging process.
Any management team can cut costs. But how do you cut costs
without sacrificing brand value or intellectual capital? You can sweat
your assets. But how do you do this without undermining the energy
of your people? How do you take and implement the hard decisions
called for in troubled times while at the same time having the full
engagement of your team to deliver the required performance
improvements?
Ashridge Consulting’s Strategy Engagement practice can help
you to build a more engaged response to business planning and
commercial thinking in difficult times in three ways:
Strategy facilitation: Supporting Boards/executive teams or whole
organisations through a rigorous combination of strategic analysis and
exploration: quickly and productively taps collective organisational
knowledge.
Strategy coaching: Supporting senior individuals on a 1:1 basis
to review strategic options, support decision-making, unstick stuck
thinking, and resolve top level conflicts.
Building strategic capability: Proactive short interventions/
masterclasses to build the ability of people in key teams to think and
act strategically.
13

Getting together
without being together:
helping leaders
enhance the way
they lead virtually
BY Liz Wiggins
More working virtually; same level
of frustration
More and more leaders have been finding that
their teams are located in multiple locations
around the world. They need to find ways of
leading, managing and doing work effectively
without meeting face-to-face frequently;
sometimes without meeting face-to-face at all.
The annual Ashridge Management Index, which
examines the attitudes of global leaders to the
current business environment, bears this out
– as already by the 2007 survey, 85% of the
1500 respondents said they were now working
in cross-functional or virtual teams. Interestingly,
over half said they believed their organisations
were not doing enough to support them in
working virtually.
14
In some organisations the drive towards
greater degrees of working virtually is based
on concerns about their carbon footprint. For
others, the concerns may be more about senior
executive burn out. Unilever restructured in 2005,
creating a global, rather than country, marketing
organisation. That made perfect sense for gaining
greater leverage from product innovations and
advertising and promotion spend. However,
there was an unexpected human cost in terms of
executive burn out and a disproportionately high
number of women opting out of the new global
roles. And now amidst constant doom-mongering
in a recession, pressures to cut costs and travel
less, the need for effective virtual working is even
more paramount.
Yet for many individuals, teams and
organisations, the notion of ‘working effectively
virtually’ is somewhat of an oxymoron. Working
virtually is often seen as the default rather
than the first choice. And indeed, when we
talk of remote management, the very phrase
emphasises the notion of distance and the leader
and the led being far apart. When we use virtual
as an adjective, as in ‘virtual leadership’ there is
the double meaning of virtual as in not real and
insubstantial, as well as done remotely.
Certainly many struggle with aspects of
working virtually. Can you really tackle the big stuff
like shaping strategy or managing performance,
virtually? Can you really do the personal stuff like
coaching and building trust without being with
the other person? How can you have difficult
conversations when you can’t see the body
language and judge the reaction? How can you
run meetings virtually which are engaging rather
than an opportunity for people to have the sound
on mute and catch up on emails? When you’re
just on the teleconference, can you really get a
group to work creatively collectively or do you
have to resort to laborious report backs on what
they’ve done as individuals? One organisation,
Danfoss, decided that the answer had to be yes.
This is their story.
The business case for virtual leadership
Danfoss is a Danish-owned engineering company
and leading manufacturer of domestic and
commercial heating controls, refrigeration and air
conditioning. It produces over 250,000 items per
day in 70 factories in 25 countries, spread across

all continents. With over 23,000 employees
worldwide, working virtually has become the
accepted way of doing business.
Roland Fritsch was leading the Global
Business Services Organisation within Danfoss.
His team was spread from Brazil to Germany
to Singapore, so meeting regularly face-to-face
just wasn’t an option. However, he wanted to, in
his words, “close the gap in not being together.”
That’s why he approached Ashridge Consulting.
Ghislaine Caulat and Sally Hulks’ solution was to
propose a leadership development programme
that would focus on building the skills and
capability required to lead virtually. As Ghislaine
Caulat said: “The leadership programme was
compatible with the nature of the work in Global
Business Services; the nature of the team itself,
the diversity of cultures and the challenges they
were facing. They were dissatisfied with the way
they were not communicating. There was a real
sense that it was not working as well as it could
be and it became clear from interviews with
team members, prior to the final design of the
programme, that they actually weren’t working
virtually, they were exchanging data virtually.”
There was certainly widespread
dissatisfaction within the team with the status
quo. Anne Vibeke Madsen, the HR lead for the
team, believes there was increasing awareness
of the issues with remote management and
remote leadership, with “senior managers
(being) increasingly challenged in exercising their
leadership duties.” As another of the participants,
Bhalachandra Pasupathy, observed: “Everyone
had the same need. There was no alternative to
working virtually so we just had to get on and get
better at it”. That shared sense of frustration and
a desire, and indeed vision, for things to be better
from both the leader and the whole team was
undoubtedly one of the factors that contributed
to the success of the programme.
Leadership development virtually rather
than face-to-face
One of the unique aspects of the Ashridge
virtual leadership programme is that it is not just
about working virtually: it’s all delivered virtually,
giving participants maximum opportunity to
experience and experiment with the techniques
and skills required to create the right conditions
for working effectively in the virtual space. But just
how different is a virtual leadership development
programme from a traditional leadership
development programme?
According to Sally Hulks, one of the Ashridge
facilitators responsible for designing the virtual
leadership programme, there is the same
requirement to tailor the content to the specific
needs of participants as there is for face-toface
leadership development. There is the same
need for establishing a clear link to the business
challenges, a clear design, clear outcomes
and meticulous planning. However, things that
are critical in the face-to-face delivery, such as
providing a variety of inputs and learning formats,
become a thousand times amplified in the virtual
space, so even greater thought and planning is
required. In the virtual space it is more important
to provide not only more varied but shorter
input and to offer more varied ways of engaging
with the participants. “Two facilitators are also
required,” added Ghislaine, “because you need
different voices to give some auditory variety.”
Technology – and tea!
A particular feature of virtual leadership
development is getting used to the technology
itself. “Ashridge explored and evaluated many
different technology platforms, including those
used by current and potential clients,” said
Andy Copeland, one of Ashridge’s technical coordinators,
“but eventually chose Webex because
of features such as the ability to have breakout
rooms for virtual group work.” Sue Jabbar,
another technical co-ordinator, helps participants
learn how to get into Webex and experiment
with different ways of showing slides, annotating
documents and moving into virtual break-out
rooms. “It’s not difficult”, assured Sue, “but it just
helps people have someone to guide them the
first couple of times.” She also always reminds
people to use headphones, covering both ears,
and ensure they are set up with food and drink.
“These seemingly low-level things can just make
a big difference to participants’ experience,”
added the ever-practical Sue, “because the
sessions are very intense – four hours each day
for five days, with follow-up action learning sets
and coaching.” Hanne Overssen, from Danfoss,
also mentioned the importance of good quality
phone lines and being somewhere quiet. “As
you’re in the session for several hours you can’t
have an echo or background noise as otherwise
the irritation gets magnified.” she said.
Facilitator Sally noted that a major difference to
conventional leadership development is the need
to really prioritise around what you can achieve in
just four hours a day: “There’s a different level of
concentration required when listening so intently,
with fewer clues but also fewer distractions. One
of the most important things is therefore to create
the right conditions for the team, checking in,
listening to everyone’s voice”. The importance
and skill of listening well is indeed one of the
greatest learnings participants gained from the
programme, as will be examined later.
Enter stage left
With its established track record of face-toface
leadership development and executive
education, Ashridge has long known the value
of practising newly acquired or honed skills with
actors. So why not use actors in the virtual space
too? Danfoss’ Roland Fritsch found this one of
the best sessions. “When the actors came in
and were so aggressive, it was like having cold
water thrown on you but it opened my eyes
to how to handle the unpredictability of such
situations”, he said. Everyone who participated in
the Virtual Leadership Development programme
was unanimous that this was one of the best
sessions. “That session was fantastic,” said
Hanne, “and has given me the confidence that
I can handle conflict virtually … and because it
was an extreme situation, I learned lots about
myself too.”
Permission to scribble
“One of the basic differences between face-toface
working and working virtually is the possibility
for live co-creation,” enthuses Ghislaine Caulat,
one of the Ashridge facilitators and an expert on
working virtually. “You can write on a slide together
or even annotate publicly on the presenter’s
slide, in a way you could never do when face-toface,
which generates new power dynamics in
the learning process.” This possibility of working
together virtually is explored extensively on the
programme as it shows how virtual meetings
can be opportunities for doing work collectively,
not just reporting back individually, as was the
case before. An additional difference in this type
of programme is that it is participant-focused,
with everyone able to join in and contribute, as
opposed to teacher-focused, where the latter
stands at the front of the room near the flipchart
in traditional face-to-face teaching.
For Ghislaine, another difference is that
face-to-face meetings tend to be seen as an
event, whereas when working virtually it shifts to
an engagement process rather than an eventdriven
process. This is because the process of
communication required before and after a virtual
meeting means that people are engaged before
and after, which helps to consolidate and embed
the learning.
>> continued over page
15

What did people gain and learn?
The Danfoss participants were unanimous in their
view that the Virtual Leadership Programme had
been an intense but unique experience which
gave them the skills, the confidence and the belief
that they could be a leader virtually. “The big eye
opener for me was that Ghislaine managed to
persuade me that as a leader you could master
working virtually so that you could discharge most
of your leadership duties effectively,” commented
Hanne Ovesen.
Others identified specific skills. For
Bahlachandra Pasupthy it was the attention to
listening that was the greatest take-away. “It
made me listen so much more carefully than
before. It made me pay attention to silences –
did they mean consent or did they mean people
didn’t understand?” Roland Fritsch would
concur and added the importance of practically
experimenting with conflict resolution virtually
and being sensitive to what triggers arguments.
For Anne Vibeke Madsen it was the theoretical
discussion and practical applications about
building trust that were most salient, and for Seng
Mein Tan from Singapore, it was the techniques
for creating informal ‘coffee’ conversations
virtually that was most useful. She has applied
the techniques with success ever since, holding
a coffee corner conversation twice a month with
her team from seven countries across Asia.
There is no agenda, people just speak about
what is on their minds and it has built a real sense
of belonging, community, trust and connection.
Another participant was able to shift between 35
16
Conclusions
and 40% of his meetings abroad to virtual ones
as a consequence of the programme.
Ghislaine endorses the importance of
listening. “You have to be constantly aware of
the subtleties in your voice. These skills are like
muscles: you need to keep exercising them
but then it comes more naturally,” she says.
The group also learned about creating the right
conditions for developing trust, establishing
meeting etiquettes, techniques for collective
decision-making and awareness of inter-cultural
communication. The latter “really enabled me
to get to know my colleagues better” felt Hanne
Ovesen.
Who does it work for?
Anne Vibeke Madsen’s conclusion was that the
Ashridge work was “the Rolls Royce programme
in Virtual Leadership development.” A lovely
compliment, but it raises the question as to
whether this type of development programme is
right for everyone? Is it right for all organisations?
“This works best for organisations where there is
no way of avoiding working virtually and where
the leader really wants to improve the way
people work and connect together virtually,” says
Ghislaine Caulat. For her co-lead, Sally Hulks:
“It’s ideal for organisations where relationships
are important because they are dealing with high
complexity issues. If the work is very transactional
it probably wouldn’t be worth the investment”.
For Roland Fritsch, the leader of Danfoss
Global Services and the key client sponsor, this
is a programme for people who are already good
and fairly sophisticated leaders. “For me the virtual
The main conclusions from the Danfoss participants in the Virtual Leadership Development
programme were that you really can “get together without being together”, to quote the
leader Roland Fritsch, and leaders can be helped to enhance the way they lead virtually. For
Ghislaine: “At the end of it, participants really know what it means to have a good phone call;
they know how to discuss things properly on the phone and when and how to use email.”
Sally’s advice to a leader considering starting something similar: “If you are going to
do it, you must be fully behind it, be part of it and help us to design it so that it works with
the practical needs of your people, then trust us to do the rest.” Ghislaine is in complete
agreement and adds: “In some respects you have to experience it to believe it, which is why
we now run taster sessions for potential clients. This is something that anyone interested, but
still with some degree of scepticism, might want to consider.”
If you would like to learn more about the Virtual Leadership development programme
or Ashridge’s other areas of virtual working, such as engaging people in strategy
virtually or starting up virtual global project teams, email Ghislaine Caulat at
ghislaine.caulat@ashridge.org.uk
leader is a further developed leader,” he opines.
Hanne Ovesen agrees, and commented: “This is
not something all leaders will master to perfection,
just as not all leaders are amenable to coaching.”
She also mentioned that in the Danfoss team,
a key criteria for involvement in the programme
was having a good command of English, even
though most weren’t native speakers, as well as
having cross-border responsibility and already
being a good leader.
The question around which there was
most debate and fewest conclusions amongst
participants, was whether colleagues actually
open up more in the virtual space? Are people
less aware of status and talk more because they
can’t see and therefore be attempted to second
guess the body language of the leader? Is it an
easier medium in which to participate for introverts
as there are fewer distractions and more paying
attention to each other and to silence? The jury
seems to be out on that but everyone agreed
that the Ashridge facilitators were very good at
creating an open atmosphere so that participants
felt at ease, could trust and could therefore speak
up freely.
However, one certainly shouldn’t think
that this type of virtual leadership development
programme is only something for multinationals
and global teams. Ashridge Consulting ran a
similar leadership programme for the UK sales
force of British Gypsum who, as a consequence
of the development programme, managed to shift
several of their meetings to virtual ones, making
significant savings on travel time and removing a
sense of HQ versus the rest.

CULTURE CHANGE AS A CONVERSATION
Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) is a global telecommunications solutions supplier.
Created by a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens, NSN employs some 60,000 people
and operates in 150 countries. An estimated one billion people are connected
through its networks.
The creation of the world’s second largest
provider of mobile telephony services out of
former subsidiaries of Nokia and Siemens was
always going to be complex. Although the fusion
of Nokia’s networks infrastructure expertise with
Siemens’ experience in fixed telephony made
total sense from a business point of view, there
was clearly going to be enough detail to harbour
many potential devils as the merger progressed!
Fortunately, NSN CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie
made the people aspects of the deal one of
his prime focuses. He was supported in this by
Head of HR Bosco Novak, whose former line
management experience had taught him that
no matter how strong the strategic imperative, if
people are ignored, the result is failure.
As soon as the intention to merge was signed
by both organisations, in the summer of 2006,
the executive board declared its commitment to
Siemens COM culture
building a ‘value-based enterprise’ with a new
culture that would differentiate NSN from its rivals.
“The board recognised that they were bringing
together not just two balance sheets, but two living
organisations, with self-generated values and
cultures,” said Alistair Moffat, the Nokia internal
consultant appointed to the project. He invited
Ashridge Associate Adrian McLean to work with
him in the capacity of external consultant. Rather
than seeing this as a ‘cultural integration’ project,
both framed this as a ‘cultural creation project’.
The NSN culture would reflect the strengths of
former cultures, rather than being an uneasy
compromise or coexistence between the two.
By elevating the importance of joint values
and behaviours, the aim was for these to
shape the design of work processes during the
integration stage: this would be a far cry from an
artificial overlay at a later stage.
The challenge
In practical terms, what sort of culture would
be created for an NSN employee who had
never left their native India, or China? Would
it be predominated by the North European,
more egalitarian, project culture of Nokia, or
the Southern German, more process-driven,
structured culture of Siemens? How would these
cultures morph with local cultures – in some 150
countries? It might be the board’s wish that the
new culture and values should be created by
the people, but how could so many voices be
represented and heard?
Alistair and Adrian worked from the view
that cultures form when people reach a shared
understanding and begin to cooperate together.
This process is accelerated when people
participate in dialogue, debate, assertion,
argument and agreement. It was their experience
and belief that through a ‘company-wide
conversation’, new norms, values and behaviours
can emerge. The four main challenges they
shared with the board were:
• Participation – how to design a highly
participative approach for all 60,000 employees
dispersed over many geographical regions?
• Connection – how could they involve large
numbers of staff in the process of change and
through connecting them, draw together a
richness of insights and views?
• Co-creation – how to achieve a shift away
from concerns about ‘winners’ and ‘losers’
and towards a sense of shared benefits and
opportunities?
• Global integration – as Bosco Novak put it:
“How could the new company serve their
customers in the same way irrespective of
their country of location? This calls for strong
cross-functional, cross-country collaboration,
very often in virtual team environments and it
represents a shift away from a proliferation
of local processes towards a global way of
working.”
>> continued over page
17

The process
Neither Alistair, Adrian nor the board wanted to
define a new culture: their role was to enable
a process that would create the conditions in
which an authentic, distinctive NSN culture
could emerge. The work started soon after the
announcement – a time when culture is normally
ignored and legal restrictions hamper joint work
between merger partners. This design had four
phases:
Exploring the legacy of both cultures. The
first step was to help both companies explore
and celebrate their unique history and qualities.
This was intended to encourage a climate of
exploration and mutual curiosity. Adrian and
Alistair ran separate, one-day workshops for
groups of 30 employees, ranging from vicepresidents
to assistants from each company.
Using an inquiry method based on storytelling,
metaphor and dialogue, these workshops built a
rich sense of cultural understandings. The result
was powerfully summarised through two vivid
graphic metaphors, as shown.
418
Nokia NET culture
Using an inquiry
method based on
storytelling, metaphor
and dialogue, these
workshops built a
rich sense of cultural
understandings.
The result was
powerfully summarised
through two vivid
graphic metaphors.

Expanding the conversation: engaging the
top 300. Using these graphics as a stimulus for
debate and story-telling, members of the newly
appointed executive group were invited to talk
about their cultures and consider together the
features they wanted to reduce, amplify and bring
in to the new business. The group responded
energetically and agreed on the first, tentative,
articulation of cultural values and intentions.
Expanding to a social networking
conversation – the Culture Square. In response
to the considerable challenge of involving the
remaining 59,700 employees in this conversation,
Alistair and Adrian chose to experiment with social
networking technology. Legal constraints meant
that both legacy companies were prohibited from
direct contact with each other until the formalities
of the merger had been completed. However,
two parallel intranet sites were created that
allowed members of both companies to ‘meet’
in cyberspace. Named the Culture Square, the
site was configured as an opportunity for all
employees to comment on the early thinking
from the inaugural meeting of the top 300. How
did people feel about the working set of values
that had emerged from the meeting? What were
their hopes and concerns for the future company
and what would they like to see as the defining
features of the new NSN company culture?
By its very nature, social networking cannot
be controlled. Deploying social networking
as an instrument to facilitate change involved
taking a risk, as the opportunity to express
hopes and fears about the merger could have
led to a negative downward spiral. However,
Adrian’s facilitation of the online conversation
from an early stage helped what started as an
informal, ‘shadow conversation’ which gradually
became constructive and helped build enough
trust for staff to voice their views more openly.
While initially there were only between 150 – 250
contributors, some 7,000 people became regular
readers of the posts; the contributors in effect
became the ambassadors and spokespersons
for different factions and interest groups. As trust
in the process grew, anonymous contributors
became confident enough to identify themselves
and own their views and opinions, leading to a
healthy, open debate.
Rounding up the conversation: the ‘Values
JAM’. Alistair chose to bring this conversation to
a climax using an IBM virtual conferencing tool
called the Jam, that enables thousands of users
“ The board recognised that they were bringing together
not just two balance sheets, but two living organisations,
with self-generated values and cultures.”
to brainstorm specified topics simultaneously
over the internet. All 60,000 members of the new
company were invited to participate in this threeday
global conversation in June 2007. More than
25% of the company participated in this event
and generated a strong sense of participation
and co-creation. Four areas of enquiry provided
the focus for the conversation:
• Getting closer to our customers
• Enabling our people to flourish
• Making NSN different
• Becoming one great company.
The conversation brought the values
discussion to a culmination and generated
an extraordinary amount of constructive
suggestions. These were analysed using various
methods, such as intuitive reflection, tag clouds
and other data mining methods.
The output of this company-wide
conversation was developed further by various
volunteer working groups via a Wiki site. These
groups helped propose and test high level value
statements and behavioural descriptors. Five of
these were eventually endorsed by the board. A
group of ‘Values Ambassadors’ then worked with
process leaders to embed the new values into
organisational behaviours.
The results
It is expected that it will take some five to seven
years to fully develop the ‘Nokia Siemens
Networks culture’. So the initial discussion
groups, the Culture Square and the Values JAM
– in the context of that timeframe – were simply
preparing for cultural evolution and helping
to establish new values-based behaviours
that could be incorporated into the design of
processes involved in the merger. Was this
approach to cultural integration successful? Time
will tell. But early indications are that the impact
of the process was positive. For example, there
was an astonishing level of participation in both
the Culture Square site and the Values JAM.
According to IBM advisers, it is reasonable to
expect that a maximum of 12% of the available
population participate in social networking events.
This statistic was far exceeded as 28% of NSN
registered and 52% of these registrants logged
in. In the immediate aftermath of the Values
JAM, 250 people volunteered to be part of virtual
working groups charged with analysing the vast
amount of data and ideas generated in the course
of this event. There was no formal recognition or
additional time allocation for the analysis work.
This level of spontaneous interest was taken as
another indicator of the success of the Values
JAM and suggested a high level of ownership and
commitment to the material. People believed in
what they were doing and wanted to be involved
in the follow-up implementation activities.
The provision of detailed behavioural
descriptors for each of the values allowed them
to be incorporated into NSN business processes.
One indication of their utility is that, despite
redundancies and financial setbacks, NSN has
so far avoided strike action. In the Culture Square
people have continued to vigorously advocate the
new values and constantly challenged each other
to live up to them. At the same time, a number
of local initiatives arose spontaneously. These
were creative ways of celebrating and affirming
examples of when colleagues were considered
to demonstrate the values in their everyday
behaviour. A year later an Employee Engagement
survey found that 82% of respondents fully
supported the NSN values. From the board’s
perspective, Bosco Novak made the following
observations: “The young NSN values provided
a uniting emotional bond for all NSN employees
that supported extensive change management
activities including those involving customers.
The rapid transfer of large infrastructure projects
into NSN processes was greatly enabled by
the strength of commitment to the new values.
Finally, these benefits showed up in the bottom
line in the form of synergy savings.”
With the benefit of hindsight, would Alistair
and Adrian have approached this differently?
In short, no. According to Adrian: “There’s no
doubt that everyone involved has experienced
an enormous amount of learning. But new
technologies and social networking have
proved exceptionally useful in their facilitation
of spontaneous expressions of concerns and
emotions, resulting in real ownership of the cultures
and values that NSN’s people communicated
and created. The formation of a culture is as
much about the process by which norms,
standards and values are arrived at as it has to
do with the content of the value statements that
are finally agreed. The process, as a form of low
profile cultural symbol, can either reinforce or
contradict the high-profile expression of values.
When the two carry the same message, the
effect can be powerful indeed.”
19

An award-
winning
partnership
By Chris Nichols and Alison Jones
The overall learning process for Lovells’
population of Senior Associate lawyers
has been acclaimed for its innovation
and impact by participants and observers
alike. It won The Lawyer HR Award 2009
for Innovation in Talent Management,
and was finalist in two others: the 2008
Managing Partners Forum awards, where
it received second place for innovation;
and the Financial Times Innovative
Lawyer awards 2008, where it was highly
commended by the judges.
20
With over 3,300 people (including
350 partners) operating from 26
offices in Europe, Asia and the
United States, Lovells is one of the
world’s leading international law
firms, advising many of the world’s
largest corporations, financial
institutions and governmental
organisations. In 2007 Lovells
created a new career framework
for its lawyers globally, including
the introduction of the role of
Senior Associate. This role reflects
the increasing responsibility of
lawyers for being more than just
excellent technical experts. At
this level, lawyers are expected to
have acquired their specialist legal
expertise and to be developing
into fully rounded business
managers, with responsibility
for client management,
business development, financial
management and participation in
the development of junior team
members.
To support the launch of the
new framework, Lovells wanted
to offer Senior Associates a
development event that would help
them make sense of their new role
and start to equip them with the
skills they would need to make the
role a success in their own part of
the firm – both for themselves and
for the business.
A learning conference big
enough to fill the magnificent
Grand Hotel in Eastbourne,
England, is quite something in
itself. But add to that 150 of
the sharpest young legal minds
engaging in an action learningbased
‘working conference’.
Support that by a global virtual
action learning process over the
next six months. Then you have
an alchemical event!
Alison Jones, Head of People
Development at Lovells, began
a conversation with Ashridge in
the Spring of 2007, as part of a
competitive process to select a
partner with whom to design and
deliver an innovative learning event
that would be part of a substantial
change in the approach to learning
within the organisation. Alison
recalls:
“Ashridge stood out during the
pitching process in two ways. First,
they had understood our verbal
brief really well and had done a
fair amount of thinking before they
came to the pitch meeting. The
second, and probably the most
important, stand-out was that
they then talked through with us
their initial ideas in such a way as
to start to engage the group in the
process of co-creating the design.
This was very important because
the group to whom the pitch was
made included a number of our key
stakeholder partners – people who
would be influential in the buy-in we
needed to make the programme
a success, and who themselves
had no experience of this kind of
learning. Ashridge were able to
give this group an understanding
of how the programme would be
designed and delivered, as well as
confidence that Ashridge were the
right people for us to partner with.
“From my personal point of
view, I was excited to be working
with an external partner who
was genuinely willing to push the
boundaries and attempt something
ambitious and innovative. Their
willingness to work closely with the
in-house learning team and other
internal experts and partners was
also critical to our choice.”
A core steering team was
formed, with colleagues from
Ashridge and Lovells meeting
together on three or four occasions
to undertake initial design work. The
sessions at Ashridge were a mixture
of analysis and creative imagining,
resulting in display boards filled
with potential design elements.
Ashridge also undertook several
rounds of inquiry work, exploring
with both potential participants and
other stakeholders.
The result was a clear intention
to respond to the inquiry findings –
which had emphasised the need
for choice, activity, learning from
experience and the opportunity for
network building.

‘Creating your future’:
The event and feedback
The traditional structure of legal
learning events commonly involves
plenary sessions and discussion
groups with expert input and
sometimes a case study approach.
In line with the ‘work hard, play
hard’ culture of the legal profession,
events usually involve long days of
intellectually challenging content,
followed by social networking
opportunities.
The design intention was to
change this pattern: to create an
event – entitled Creating your Future
– that maintained the important
intellectual challenge, but which
brought personal choice to the
forefront, to encourage participants
to take personal responsibility for
their own learning. The design also
sought to maximise the potential
for networking, rather than leaving
this to the evening activities. We
wanted to help Senior Associates
create for themselves a sense of
community, particularly across
regional and specialist boundaries.
This had two purposes; so that
people could develop their own
professional identity further; and
to enable them to represent the
firm externally to clients in a more
fully informed way in support of the
firm’s strategic intent.
The resulting design was a
working conference that minimised
plenary time, maximised choice
and placed a great emphasis on
elective sessions delivered by
Lovells’ practitioners, alongside
provocative sessions presented by
the Ashridge team on interpersonal
skills, teamwork and self
awareness.
The design emphasised the
centrality of self awareness and
personal ‘sense-making’, aided
by recurring meetings of the virtual
action learning sets throughout the
conference. Highlights included:
• A World Café session, where
participants were free to explore
a dozen or more ‘market stalls’ of
expertise and information. Stalls
were staffed by both Lovells
and Ashridge and covered
issues such as Understanding
Your MBTI Profile, Exploring
the Economics of Lovells and
Becoming a Partner.
• A choice of ten electives, each
running multiple times, allowing
individuals to pursue their own
learning needs, and ranging from
the experience of becoming a
leader in Lovells through to stress
management and personal
impact.
• Action leaning sets, assisted
by an experienced facilitator,
for personal and group sense
making, in which group members
shared their experiences of the
‘stalls’ and electives they had
visited and challenged each
other in applying the ideas from
the sessions to their new role
in Lovells. The sessions often
resulted in participants deciding
which elective to attend next.
• There was also a keynote
contribution from author George
Binney – a specialist in ‘expert to
leader’ transition.
Underlying this design was
an intention to introduce the
participants to complexity thinking
and its challenges for them as
senior players within a legal firm,
with increasing responsibility for
client relationships, decisions
about business direction in their
specialist areas and contributing to
the overall direction of the firm. The
centrality of self awareness and
inter-personal relationship as a core
attribute of being able to work with
ambiguity and complexity stood at
the heart of the conference.
Reflecting on the event, Lovells’
Alison Jones said: ‘“The sheer scale
of this event and the complexity of
the design was a huge challenge
for us, both of imagination and of
logistics! This was the first time
that we had brought together a
whole peer group from across the
global firm. This was a powerful
experience for people. We had
wanted to give the new Senior
Associates a strong experience of
themselves as a cohort, to start the
process of encouraging them to
think in new ways about their role
in the firm and their personal and
career development opportunities.
We found that they valued the
opportunity to meet together as a
whole group and to network with
their peers from other parts of
the firm. This was particularly so
for participants from some of the
smaller offices.
“We had intended to create
an impact that was very different
from the sort of learning experience
our associates had had before, so
the fact that we received a range
of responses was not a surprise to
us. During the course of the event
we found that participants varied
considerably in their willingness to
engage with what was on offer.
“I actually learned a good deal
more than I rather cynically
expected to; I found the
conference … to be
extremely helpful.”
>> continued over page
21

On the whole there was a high
level of energy and enthusiasm,
with participants actively seeking
out the choices they had made
and responding very positively
to the commitment, thought
and experience that had gone
into every aspect of the project,
and in particular the openness
demonstrated by Lovells, Partners
who had given their time to share
experience and know-how with
associates.
“There was also however a fair
amount of questioning of various
aspects of the process and the
offering, and it was hard therefore
to judge at the time the degree of
‘success’ of the event. I think this
was actually a positive sign – it
meant that we really had created
something genuinely creative
and challenging for participants
and for those of us attending and
contributing in various ways.”
The virtual action learning
process
After the conference, continuing
learning was supported through
the provision of virtual action
learning sets (VALS). The design
envisaged that the groups – which
had met by phone for the first time
just prior to the conference – and
had then worked quite extensively
together during the event – would
‘meet’ virtually by conference call a
further four times over a six-month
period. The aim of the VALS was
to continue the peer support and
challenge for the application of the
new learning.
During a virtual action learning
session, which would typically
last for approximately four hours,
participants in a group of five to
six would get the opportunity to
reflect on their learning and discuss
a specific issue (or preoccupation)
arising in the context of their efforts
to apply this learning while working
as a Senior Associate. The process
is an intense one of challenge and
support obliging people to reflect on
their mental models and behaviours.
The process is facilitated by an
Ashridge consultant.
In practice, it proved very
difficult for the VALS to meet
successfully, owing to the way a
legal practice works. Dates and
times put into the diary would
often have to be cancelled at short
“I learnt a lot from the
experience as well as greatly
appreciating (and enjoying) the
opportunity to meet and interact
with many of our colleagues
from other Continental Europe
and International offices;
the conference also shed light
on my own abilities and how
to develop as a lawyer and
stakeholder in the firm.”
22
notice, as client demands called
lawyers away unexpectedly.
Other members persevered.
Some groups continued to meet
successfully for their allotted
four sessions. We found that
these groups did not stick to the
expected ‘rules’ of virtual action
learning as had been expected,
but in cooperation with their
facilitator developed their own
ways of working – reducing session
times from four to two hours, for
example.
Ashridge virtual action learning
pioneer Ghislaine Caulat reflects on
the experience: “In retrospect I think
that we should have offered virtual
action learning on a voluntary basis
for people wanting to deepen their
learning and develop virtual learning
networks around the organisation.
Most participants felt that they had
to say yes to this process without
really knowing what they were
embarking on.”
One year on…
The learning from the
conference has continued, both
in the Senior Associate group and
more widely across the firm. Alison
Jones recalls:
“We now have the perspective
of a year from which to look at the
impact the conference had. We
have used the learning we gained
from that programme to great
effect in our in-house development
programmes for more experienced
associates and partners. I think
there are three elements that have
been most successfully adapted
into other programmes:
• Choice: Offering a range of
electives has become a standard
part of our programmes.
• Size: The conference really
confirmed my belief that
bringing together large groups
of participants adds enormously
to the richness and energy of the
experience. This has an added
benefit to our business where
the ability to ‘cross-sell’ our
global services to clients is key to
business growth.
• Partner participation: Integrating
our more senior people into
both the design and delivery of
the programme is something
we now do routinely and it has
added immeasurably to the
credibility and effectiveness of
the programmes. It also has
the added benefit of providing
opportunities for Partners
themselves to learn alongside
their associates.
“Creating your Future has
influenced the way we design and
deliver development programmes
to our people at every level. I think
that the work we did with Ashridge
on that programme has helped us
to create a very distinctive approach
to career management and people
development in our firm.”
Overall this has been a fantastic
project to be part of – and one
marked by mutual creativity and
mutual learning throughout. We
particularly celebrate the boldness
of the Lovells’ team in embracing
such innovative working – as was
recognised in the placing of this
project in the FT and Managing
Partners awards. But above all
we acknowledge how Lovells has
joined with Ashridge Consulting in
the genuine partnership of learning
together from both the elements
of this project that worked well
and from those that have been
a challenge to us both – this
willingness to embrace uncertainty
and to learn from it as a project
moves forward, is at the heart of
genuine innovation in practice.

One of the aims in founding the Ashridge Masters in Organisation
Consulting (AMOC) in 1998 was to create a community of like-minded
practitioners. If attendance at the celebration of AMOC’s tenth anniversary
was anything to go by, success has been achieved in full on that score,
since well over 100, out of a total of some 200 invited alumni and current
participants, made the date a priority in their diaries. They returned to
Ashridge for a celebration dinner, to share stories, memories and
even make music.
Working at the edges of possibility –
the anniversary of the Ashridge Masters
in Organisation Consulting
The Monday conference
programme was highly participative,
with contributions from AMOC
alumni and current participants on
the Ashridge Doctoral programme,
around the theme Edges of
Possibility. Contributors shared
stories from their practice, grounded
in the AMOC philosophy.
One of the many paradoxes
inherent in AMOC learning and
thinking is that change in the
future is often brought about by
real interest and awareness in the
present. This point was stressed
by one of the AMOC founders Bill
Critchley, as he opened the day
with a summary of the challenges
that were faced ten years ago and
the obstacles and successes along
the way.
Over the years, the AMOC
programme has developed an
increasingly coherent philosophical
basis, rigorous inquiry processes
and deepening attention to reflective
practice. AMOC has always been
at the leading edge of thinking
around organisation development
and consulting and its challenge is
to stay at that frontier in a grounded
way, without alienating clients who
might be suspicious of reflective
and participative approaches.
A notable milestone in the
development of AMOC was the
publication in 2007 of the book
Organisational Consulting: a
Relational Perspective, a collection
of theoretical essays and practice
stories by participants and faculty,
edited by Bill Critchley, Kathleen
King and John Higgins. Also in 2007
the first participants embarked
on the Ashridge Doctorate in
Organisation Consulting (ADOC).
Where AMOC focuses on putting
theory into practice, ADOC
participants seek to contribute
to the field of consulting theory
by conceptualising what they
are learning, through a profound
inquiry into their practice. This parttime
programme was established
in direct response to the request
of AMOC alumni who wanted
to continue their learning with
the support of a community of
practitioners.
For some time this growing
community of practice has had
links with the US participants of
Case Western Reserve University’s
MSc in Positive Organizational
Development. Further links are
being explored with the Consulting
in Groups and Organisations
programme at the Universities of
Leuven and Hasselt in Holland.
Programme Director Kathleen
King said: “It was a great day, a
wonderful opportunity to reflect,
share and celebrate. We came
together under the headline Edges
of Possibility. Being at the edge
is exciting and a bit scary on
occasions for us and for our clients.
However, the joy of discovering
quite what is possible is a fantastic
reward.”
For more detail about
the Ashridge Masters in
Organisation Consulting,
see www.ashridge.org.uk/
amoc or call Julie Britten
on +44 (0)1442 841386.
23

24
New
frontiers for
Ernst & Young
Reports of demographic trends in recent
years have raised awareness of a potential
shortage of suitably qualified and experienced
leaders in the future. As a consequence, career
development initiatives and talent management
have often tended to have as their focus young,
aspiring high potentials who can be groomed
into future leaders. Further along the career
cycle, executive coaching has become a badge
of office for those who have ‘arrived’ into senior
leadership positions.
There are of course exceptions to these
generalisations: but what constitutes effective
development for those who have ‘been there
and done it’? Their experience is invaluable: they
have managed through and survived recession,
they know their industry and sector inside out
and have built up respect and followers in their
organisation. On the other hand, the world is a
very different place, with few certainties about the
future. Old rules don’t necessarily still apply. These
senior people have changed too, during their
leadership and personal journeys. They may well
have very different personal and career objectives
now, compared to those that motivated them
years ago. But they still relish challenge and want
to feel motivated in their work. The recognition
of these issues by Ernst & Young 1 resulted in
the New Frontiers programme for experienced
partners 2 , led by Ashridge Consulting.
Ernst & Young is a global leader in assurance,
tax, transactions and advisory services. As part
of an integrated but phased approach to partner
development, the New Frontiers programme
offers partners a chance to pause and renew
their thinking about their leadership role and their
personal contribution to Ernst & Young and its
staff. The world in which Ernst & Young partners
are leading the organisation forward is one of
unprecedented uncertainty, change, diversity and
huge opportunities. The best leaders will not simply
rely on old world views, so they are welcoming
the opportunity – provided by the programme
– to be stimulated by fresh perspectives, new
ideas and encounters. The first cohort of
carefully selected participants experienced the
programme in 2006, drawn from 15 countries
and a range of business areas. They have proved
excellent ambassadors for the programme: after
four years, over 100 partners have shared the
New Frontiers experience. The programme was
instigated by the Partner Development Leader
for Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA)
Judith Gunneweg. “Learning and development
spending in professional services firms tends to
be very focused on the ‘early’ career and heavily
technically oriented,” she said. “The fact that
we were prepared to support and sponsor this
new programme illustrates just how flexible and
inspirational the firm can be. Even in the difficult
economic climate we are experiencing in 2009,
support for the programme is ongoing, due to the
wide recognition of its value.”
Mid-career renewal
Around the age of 45, people’s careers can
benefit from an ‘emotional growth spurt’. There
is acceptance of one’s own personality and a
feeling of being in control at work that give rise
to feelings of self-fulfillment and an ability to reach
out to others. That’s the good news. Not so good
is that in mid-life, feeling comfortable with what
is familiar, together with habitual behaviours, can
lead to flagging energy. This can be addressed in
a stimulating and supportive environment – which
the New Frontiers programme sought to generate.
Not that it is in any way a ‘remedial’ programme
– far from it! Programme Director Martyn Brown
was keen to emphasise: “This is not about helping
people plan a long wind-down to retirement. Quite
the opposite: it’s about helping them realise the
impact they can have when they reposition and
reform themselves and renew their energies
for the here and now, with lots of learning and
experience behind them. It’s about realising their
networking potential too. By this stage in the firm,
they may have to stop to think about it but in fact
they know scores of people both in Ernst & Young
and in client organisations.” By the end of the
programme, most participants comment that they
have had a profound experience that has reshaped

“ … by far, the most thought provoking, emotionally
challenging and inspiring experience – personal and
career goals were reshaped and are being actioned.
I am feeling re-energized and have a refreshed
sense of purpose.”
Howard Martin, Global Sector Leader, Consumer Products
their future and that of the firm. To quote one:
“The transformation in all of us has been pretty
amazing. Watch out for these people and the
impact they will have!”
The programme brings together groups of
international peers from across the world. That’s
no mean task, given that Ernst & Young employs
135,000 people in 140 countries. New Frontiers
is reinforcing an international network that shares
not only the global challenges for the business,
but a personal experience of the programme. They
attend not as participants, but as co-contributors
consistent with their responsibility to ‘put back’
into the organisation and act as ambassadors
for the role of partner. Prior to the programme
each partner has an interview to consider their
personal position in their career journey. Individual
coaching is available throughout the programme
and between the three modules, action learning
groups meet.
Riaz Shah, EY’s Global Learning & Development
Leader says: “This is an important intervention for
our senior leaders and has had direct benefits in
terms of the way they are dealing with clients and
with their responsibilities in the practice, as well as
enhancing the spirit of partnership amongst the
participants. We are now seeking to make New
Frontiers available to all our partners worldwide as
part of our global partner offerings.”
Sustainability, resilience and legacy
So what does the programme itself offer?
It addresses three main issues: sustainability –
the latest thinking around change, stability and
continuity; resilience – the capacity to adapt and
respond; and legacy – as an identity, rather than
as a monument or epitaph! The first module,
of three and a half days, enables participants to
review their own history and current situation
before exploring notions of ‘new frontiers’ in terms
of life and careers. There is no hiding behind the
rest of the group, as the challenge is very personal:
‘What is your passion, what will your legacy be?’
They are immersed in experiences centred on
the arts and creative processes – such as music
and theatre – to learn to embrace uncertainty
and create a fulfilling future. With the help of a
Royal Shakespeare Company-trained director
they take part in theatre-based sessions that
enable them to explore new skills of dialogue and
drama, and with top musicians explore how music
can stimulate a different way of sense-making.
Out of their comfort zones initially, participants are
able to develop new horizons and world views
through both the metaphorical and experiential
aspects of the artistic world. The learning is explored
in small action learning groups where participants
get an opportunity to test new wisdom. They
prepare the ground for the next module through
scenario work.
The second module, of three days’ duration,
explores the wider context, trends and challenges.
Just what are they committing to in the next phase
of their career? What is the world in which they
are operating? Partners get immersed in exploring
the implications of several different scenarios of
possible futures from their current point of view and
from new perspectives. They have an opportunity to
hear from organisations that have chosen innovative
ways to adapt to their complex environment, such
as InterfaceFLOR. Action learning groups, plus an
experience of ‘Open Space’, enable participants
to integrate their learning as well as mobilising
shared enthusiasm and commitment for change at
the group level. They explore with musicians how
apparently ‘chaotic’ improvisation can make sense
in the developing structure of a jazz performance;
and its wider implications for organisational life.
On to new frontiers
The final module puts individual as well as
organisational and global perspectives in context
with each other. After immersion in an experience
around the mythology of leadership, they prepare
and deliver an expression of their own New
Frontiers journey, followed by a celebration dinner.
The action learning groups enable participants to
return to their life as a partner and plan for the future,
equipped with new insights, clear intentions and
supporting feedback from others. And the effects
on the business? “Through this programme, we
simply have offered an opportunity to grow better
leaders who act more as mentors (coaches) for
their colleagues and staff and who entertain better
client interactions because of this journey,” said
Judith. “Individuals benefit, the business benefits
from a surge in energy and the learning experience
helps partners to build bridges with the younger
generation coming through the firm.” In addition to
continuing along the Ernst & Young lifelong learning
path supported by action learning groups and/or
coaching, past participants on the programme are
taking the initiative to organise reunions to nurture
and sustain the learning and networking.
“The New Frontiers programme is a fantastic
experience. It’s expanded my personal horizons,
gave me the confidence to change and new
reasons to come to the office every day. It is also
an experience that connected all participants,
and I am sure will automatically connect us with
previous and future participants. There is an
Ashridge fraternity emerging!”
George Momferratos
Transactions Services Leader in EMEIA
1. The views reflected in this article are the views of the
author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of other
members of the global Ernst & Young organisation.
2. ‘Partners’ refers to partners of the respective member firms
of Ernst & Young Global Limited.
25

In late September 2008, the
unthinkable became a reality
with the announcement of the
collapse of Lehman Brothers. This
was probably the tipping point
of the ‘Credit Crunch’ into a fullblown
‘Economic Crisis’. Few
people anticipated the scale and
reach of what happened next.
‘Uninterrupted’ economic growth
abruptly changed to a global
economic slow-down and decline.
What was different this time was
that there appeared to be no ‘safe
havens’, where investment could
be redirected into other sectors or
other parts of the world. Mature
and developing markets, whether
from the East or the West, are now
all in this together.
The media has presented us
with a series of headline-grabbing
stories around the losses of the
banks, the collapse of High Street
names, financial crisis in the
automotive industry and rising
unemployment figures. These
headlines and the uncertainty
they confront us with have stirred
up anxiety and fear across the
world. There is a noticeable lack
of confidence in the financial
system, stirrings of civil unrest,
anger at what is perceived as ‘bailouts’
for bankers who caused the
26
‘IN THE THICK OF IT’
How are leaders and their
organisations experiencing
the economic crisis?
By Kevin Power and Andrew Day
Since early December 2008, Kevin Power and Andrew Day have been
researching into how leaders and their organisations have been affected
by the economic crisis and how they are responding. They are at a midpoint
in the research and this article presents a brief ‘snapshot’ of some
of the early insights that are starting to emerge.
crisis whilst ordinary citizens bear
the brunt, and a strong desire to
allocate blame. We are all affected –
if not economically then emotionally
– by the anxiety that has been
released within society and our
organisations. It is understandable
then that many people are now
questioning their own values and
sense of purpose. Some feel that
perhaps the world of business will
never be the same again.
What is really going on
in organisations?
In an attempt to get behind the
headlines and statistics, we have
been talking directly to leaders who
are currently ‘in the thick of it’ as
they navigate their organisations
through the current market
uncertainties. At the time of going
to press we have received over 75
responses to our on-line survey
and completed interviews with
over 40 leaders and senior people
in leading organisations drawn
from automotive, manufacturing,
professional services, banking/
finance, leisure, energy, business
support, telecommunications, and
commercial property sectors. While
the focus is on firms headquartered
in the UK and Europe, contributions
from subsidiaries based in the
Middle and Far East have
been included to gain a global
perspective. In these conversations,
we have been asking:
• How are organisations and
leaders experiencing the
economic conditions?
• What have been the specific
challenges confronting their
business?
• How are they responding?
And how are other people
reacting in their organisation?
• What is it they are doing as
leaders that is having the most
impact and what are they
learning along the way?
• What is giving them the most
strength or hope in the current
climate?
To supplement these
interviews, we have distributed an
online survey to our clients and
wider contacts and to date, we
have had detailed responses from
another 50 senior managers.
We shall be publishing our
findings later in the year, but are
already able to share an outline
of what we are discovering and
some initial insights that we shall
be seeking to validate as our work
proceeds.
What are we discovering?
Our research is discovering that
whilst the media has significantly
influenced the way we are
responding, it inevitably only deals
with what is newsworthy – the
drama and despair – which is
just one aspect of the full picture.
We are certainly hearing stories
of organisations that are in a very
difficult position and one or two
that could be described as being
in crisis. We are also hearing,
however, stories of creative change,
innovation and remarkable levels of
commitment and resilience. In the
midst of these challenges, many
of our participants have been
expressing a sense of energy and
excitement about their current
experience. Unusually, they are
being forced to deal with the here
and now, given that the future is
likely to remain unclear for quite
some time.
It is evident that each
organisation’s experience is
unique. The full impact of the
economic conditions is influenced
by: the context of its industry
sector or market, the financial and
ownership structure, its competitive
position in the market, product
or brand strength and historic
performance. Internal factors, such
as culture, attitude to risk, sense
of empowerment and leadership
capability, also shape how people
are experiencing the economic
crisis. We are therefore cautious of
making sweeping generalisations
or simplistic statements about
the implications of the economic
environment.
The economic realities
In broad terms, organisations’
reactions to the economic impact
on their business vary on a kind
of continuum. At one end of the
continuum, the business is ‘staring
into the precipice’, with a loss of
confidence shown by a collapse
in share price, or a withdrawal of
further funding. As one person
put it: “We are battening down the
hatches and weathering the storm
as best we can. We are reducing our

workforce in line with reductions in
turnover. It’s a simple equation: 30%
downturn equals 30% less staff.
And there is more to come.” In the
middle somewhere, organisations
are still anticipating the impact and
doing what they can to reduce their
exposure to the downturn. At the
other end: “We are doing OK and
still growing but we are monitoring
the situation very closely. We have
developed a number of scenarios
and will react accordingly. There is
still the possibility that we can see
some profitable opportunities in the
medium term.”
At the centre of the leadership
experience is the challenge of
dealing with the uncertainty of their
current environment. Perception is
everything and this can change from
day to day. So one day it feels like
the business might be stabilising,
then the next day new information
could change this sense of hope
back into a state of despair. Of
course in some instances, the
impact has been very immediate
and very tangible. For certain
sectors, such as the automotive
industry and its supply chain,
volumes have dropped by up to
40% – 60% in some cases. Those
who remain employed have to
work with even less and somehow
find innovative ways of working that
can still respond to what remains of
their customer base. Improving the
customer experience and getting
back to a meaningful purpose is
what keeps them focused and
ready for the upturn.
Leaders in our study also
attributed their organisation’s level
of exposure and ability to withstand
the economic downturn to the extent
to which they had invested both in
developing organisation capability
and maintaining a competitive cost
base, relative to the competition.
These organisations had a track
record of continuous improvement,
proactive cost management,
restructuring, and redeployment
of people which enabled them to
draw on existing knowledge and
expertise without resulting to panic
measures. They are finding that their
Hope for swift recovery dashed
Sharpest decline in global
economy for more than 60 years
relative strength and flexibility in
comparison with their competitors
is increasing because they are able
to respond, take action and invest.
How are leaders making
a difference?
Whilst we observed considerable
variation in leaders’ responses
to the impact of the economic
environment, we are able to discern
four patterns of responses which are
helping to sustain an environment
of resilience, confidence and hope.
These patterns are:
• Being fully ‘present’ in the
organisation: relating to people
and providing direction to ‘contain’
employees’ anxieties, as well as
creating energy for innovation and
proactive action. This includes
staying with (rather than avoiding)
the anxieties and despair of the
situation to allow new possibilities,
ideas and strategies to emerge.
• Creating trust: through constant
communication, transparency
and demonstrating a concern for
people (even when the news is
‘bad’). You have to involve people
US economic collapse
Bloodbath on the High Street
EXPERTS WARN 50M JOBS
TO BE LOST AROUND WORLD
Did media cause
recession?
Global markets
in free fall
in the process of change and be
candid about the severity of the
situation.
• Sense-making: staying
‘in conversation’ with valuable
customers is essential if you want
to make sense of how markets
are changing and what new
opportunities are emerging.
This is also about staying close,
by sharing information and testing
assumptions, with other key
stakeholders such as partners,
front line staff, shareholders and
suppliers.
• Creating a collective spirit: an
‘esprit de corps’ which appeals
to core values of the organisation,
setting out the collective challenge
and providing encouragement with
a sense of hope.
BANKERS MUST BE
HELD TO ACCOUNT
Share prices
tumble to their
lowest ever levels
3,000
join ranks of
unemployed
Where our participants
described situations in which these
leadership patterns were absent,
we heard stories of division, denial,
blame, resignation and fear. In these
situations, leaders were perceived
as having locked themselves away
to focus on the next round of cost
cutting and survival at all costs.
We acknowledge that we are
undertaking our research in a highly
dynamic environment. Even though
these are snapshots of a sample of
organisations in one period of this
economic cycle, there are trends
that are starting to be identified
and lessons to be learnt. Findings
and updates will be published in
full on our website over the coming
months: www.ashridge.org.uk/
research-inthethickofit
To participate in this research
or get the final report
contact: jacqui.sparks@ashridge.org.uk
27

A few months ago I found myself
part of a rather odd conversation
over coffee at a climate change
conference. A senior executive of
a utility company, previously something of
a sceptic on the quiet, said: “Well, it looks
like this climate change thing really is real.”
To which someone who had recently set up
a carbon mitigation business said without a
hint of irony: “Thank God, imagine if it weren’t,
that would be a disaster!” I’m not joking and
neither was he. That little exchange summed
up a couple of things for me: a dawning
realisation of the profound effects we are all
having on the natural world and the need to
choose carefully when deciding who can help
us do something about it.
Ashridge holds a long-standing interest in
sustainability and corporate responsibility, with
our Centre for Business and Society recently
celebrating its 11th anniversary. But our most
recent response to the urgency so many of us feel
in our professional and private lives is in our newly
launched collaboration, Ashridge InterfaceRAISE.
28
Nature as
INSPIRATION
By Adam Faruk, Associate Director,
Ashridge Centre for Business and Society
Interface is a quite remarkable company from a
sustainability perspective and we’re sure we’ve
chosen well.
As I’ve gone outside Ashridge talking about
this new venture some have asked: “Why
Interface?” For those of you yet to meet Interface,
it is consistently identified in global surveys of
sustainability experts as the company most
committed to sustainable development.* And
believe me, sustainability experts are a pretty
cynical lot, having come across more greenwash
than you can shake a corporate responsibility
report at.
Interface’s reputation comes from being as
interested in profit as any other company while
holding an ambition for itself that seems all the
more extraordinary, coming from a manufacturer
of something as humble as a carpet tile. It aspires
not only to be a sustainable company (in its terms,
to take no more from nature than it puts back),
but to join with others to become restorative (to
share learning and collaborate to undo
the damage that threatens us all). And
that’s where Ashridge with its experience
in organisation change, strategy and
leadership, and maybe you, come in.
Together Ashridge and Interface have put
some considerable effort into designing ways for
organisations to examine the evidence around
climate change, resource depletion and other
forms of environmental degradation, and then
explore the link to reputation and business value
to look at these issues without prejudice, think
them through in the circumstances specific to
each organisation and go on to take action. And
we aim to offer a route through the stifling doomand-gloom,
guilt and defensiveness that so often
characterise our responses to sustainability
issues, to work instead with opportunity and realworld
examples of sustainable business practice
from a range of sectors.
Not just a carpet tile . . .
Evergreen Lease TM
and ReEntry TM
are two such
examples that recognise the need for industry to
work with the natural world rather than continue
to exploit it as if there’s no tomorrow.

Evergreen Lease TM
is one of a range of
products that offers Interface customers
imaginative ways to become part of an industrial
system that takes nature as its inspiration. It
starts from the proposition that when someone
buys flooring, it’s not the flooring per se they
want, but all the ‘services’ it provides.
“Evergreen is based on the idea that you,
the customer, don’t really want a carpet tile.
What you really want is the colour, warmth,
acoustical properties, comfort and all those
other desirable characteristics of a functional,
aesthetically pleasing, modular floor.”
Nigel Stansfield, Senior Director, Product Design
and Innovation, InterfaceFLOR
…but a floor service
With Evergreen Lease TM
, that’s exactly what you
buy. You buy the services of a floor without ever
having to own the floor tiles. But this is more
than a conventional service offering of the kind
that can be seen in a number of other industries.
The ecological mindset that created Evergreen
Lease TM
means there‘s a necessary interest in the
entire product system from resource extraction,
to manufacture, use and post-use. The typical
take-make-waste system of production and
Product life cycles inspired by nature
Simplified
take-make-waste
product system
Model closed-loop
product system
materials
acquisition
consumption is elegantly and repeatedly rerouted
with closed loop cycling and recycling material
(see figure below). In this eco-industrial system as
in nature, waste is food for something else.
Closed loop production
ReEntry TM
, another Interface product, is similar in
that it offers those who do own their floor tiles
(the great majority of even Interface’s customers)
an opportunity to think again and a way to divert
worn-out tiles from landfill which of course is the
unconscious assumption for most people in the
purchase of most products. Instead they are put
to a productive, ecologically considered new use.
ReEntry TM
is indeed well named it offers another
point of entry for customers into the same
closed-loop system as Evergreen Lease TM
albeit
at a later stage in the product life cycle. So what
in practice are these closed loops and what is the
thinking behind them?
The rationale is:
• Industrial systems will need to mimic natural
systems and be designed to cascade material
from one use to the next – it is now clear that
society can no longer afford the profligacy and
damage resulting from the current linear, openended,
take-make-waste industrial systems
pre-production production
waste and emissions
recycle or energy recovery
• To aid this shift to an ecologically inspired
system of production and consumption,
products should be designed for disassembly
• The constituents of a product that has come to
the end of its useful (first) life should then either
be food for nature, that is made available to be
broken down by a natural cycle and assimilated
back into nature without harm or…
• Returned to a ‘technical cycle’ so these
resources once again become a useful input
to an industrial process with a minimum
degradation (that is, recycling rather than
down-cycling).
And that’s what Evergreen Lease TM
and
ReEntry TM
aim to do. Depending on location,
Interface recovers used floor tiles and does one
of three things:
• Repurpose – puts them to a new use, including
reusing them in circumstances where quality
standards are not as high
• Recycle – uses them to manufacture more
carpet tiles and other products
• Recovery for energy – incinerates them to
generate energy that, for the most part, would
otherwise come from fossil fuels.
use disposal
repurpose
landfill
emissions
Remain within
industrial systems
(repurpose, recycle,
energy recovery)
Released into
nature
(food for nature,
benign emissions)
>> continued over page
29

“For an increasing
number of us – whether
from the private, public
or not-for-profit sector,
making products or
offering services –
intelligent business
growth that decouples
consumption as we
know it from economic
activity is the
inescapable challenge
– and opportunity –
of our time.”
30
Local solutions
The option chosen is determined according
to local circumstances. Ecological impact,
cultural acceptability and, just as important,
the practicalities of getting things done in an
infrastructure set up for the disposal rather than
reuse of material are all considered.
“ReEntry TM
could mean repurposing, recycling
or generating energy from waste. Which option
we choose varies from country to country
across Europe, and comes down to ecology,
the economics and cultural acceptability.”
Karin Laljani, Senior Vice President, Market
Strategy and Sustainability, InterfaceFLOR
“Initially ReEntry TM
was repurposing, but now it’s
about recycling and creating technical cycles.
We not only take back our own product, we’ll
happily take someone else’s too.”
Nigel Stansfield, Senior Director, Product Design
and Innovation, InterfaceFLOR
Sustainability and you
The rejection of even the idea of waste has
resulted in substantial business benefits for
Interface. Cumulative avoided costs from waste
elimination activities since 1995 are calculated
to be more than USD $372 million, but much
of the value for the company has come
from positioning itself for a future ever more
constrained in available material resource and
in building a reputation as innovative, forwardlooking
and trustworthy. (The thinking amongst
many customers and stakeholders seems to be:
If you’re careful and responsible in the way you
look after the environment, you’re more likely to
look after me too. † ) There’s a great deal more
to say about both the tangible and intangible
benefits, but to many this all sounds like a better
way to do business. And there’s no flight of fancy
here, it’s happening now.
If you’ve found these examples and the ideas behind them intriguing, let us know. We are working with
organisations with such questions as:
• How could your organisation go beyond improving efficiency to start to design with ecology
in mind – to eliminate waste, ensure emissions are food for nature or at least benign, and
preferentially use renewable energy?
• If you were to recast your business as one that provides services in closed-loop systems rather
than a provider of products, what would that look like? What would the costs and benefits
be? What would be the process for exploring this with some seriousness and who should be
involved?
• How could you use your good intentions, commitments and demonstrable progress as a basis
for conversations and building trust with key stakeholders?
For an increasing number of us – whether from the private, public or not-for-profit sector,
making products or offering services – intelligent business growth that decouples consumption as
we know it from economic activity is the inescapable challenge – and opportunity – of our time.
As well as consulting with organisations on strategy and change, we’re offering intensive twoday
executive workshops or simply the opportunity to join a community of interested organisations
who want to learn from each other.
Participate in one of our senior executive workshops... Ashridge InterfaceRAISE is offering a
series of introductory two-day workshops employing an action-oriented, strategic approach to
becoming sustainable in business. For more information on forthcoming programmes visit:
www.ashridge.org.uk/bos
Or join a community of practice… Together we’ll explore approaches to sustainable
business practice and look to identify those that offer the greatest chance of success. Bringing
Ashridge’s expertise in inquiry-based culture change and strategy, and experience in sustainability
and corporate responsibility, we’ll use an action research approach to share learning and
collaboratively develop a body of evidence that ultimately could be published. Contact Adam
Faruk, email: adam.faruk@ashridge.org.uk, if you’d like to become involved.
* See for example the Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts 2006 www.globescan.com/sose_overview.htm
† See www.interfacesustainability.com/metrics for more information.

?
Imagine you are the CEO of a global organisation of several thousand
medical and healthcare specialists and you want to engage them as widely
as possible in a conversation about your shared future. That is challenge
enough.
But what if, at the same time, your organisation is one of the
most virtual organisations on earth? You employ only a handful
of staff, while everyone you need to consult is an independent
associate (over 15,000 of them putting forward their skills in service
of your cause) and spread across the globe.
You may not be aware of The Cochrane Collaboration, but your life could
easily depend on its work. It is a leading global organisation in evidencebased
healthcare. Their meta-analytical studies of medical and healthcare
research inform practice and policy worldwide.
In early 2008 the leadership of The Cochrane Collaboration faced a
challenge. They needed to embark on a periodic strategy review of the
organisation. The collaborative nature of the charity demanded wide
consultation in the process. Its membership of professional researchers
and scientists also required a review based on a sound methodology with
analytical rigour at its core. Yet the resources available to consult widely
were extremely limited. With a tight budget and scarce professional resource
available, CEO Nick Royle turned to Ashridge Consulting.
After a few initial conversations, it was evident that traditional consulting
approaches would be too costly, and that The Cochrane Collaboration
would need to undertake the bulk of the work in-house. The role of Ashridge
Consulting would be to act as strategy coach, co-designer, supporter and
critical friend to the leadership and in-house review team.
To discover how this might look in practice, it was decided that an
initial two-day workshop would be held at Ashridge, to explore the remit
for the review – and to allow a proposal to be made to The Cochrane
Collaboration’s governing and decision-making body, the Steering Group,
to which the CEO reports.
Initial meeting and project design
By the time of the initial meeting, Nick had secured full-time leadership for
the in-house team. Jeremy Grimshaw, Director of the Canadian Cochrane
Centre and Professor at Ottawa Medical School, was granted protected
time to lead the project. His budget allowed him to second 75% of the time
of Mary Ellen Schaafsma, Executive Director, to join the team. In April, Nick
and Jeremy came to Ashridge for two days of co-design work. This was
the first of just three face-to-face involvements with Ashridge consultants,
who aimed to use a ‘light touch’ approach based on coaching and virtual
working practices.
Stepping lightly into
strategic collaboration
In this article, Philippa Hardman and Chris Nichols, co-leaders
of the Ashridge Consulting Strategy Engagement Practice, talk about
how they supported the leadership of global healthcare charity
The Cochrane Collaboration, to engage over two thousand people in
a conversation about choices for the future of the organisation.
We supported and challenged Nick and Jeremy as they explored the
themes that would enable them to steer the process over the coming
months. The critical issues at this stage were:
• Gaining clarity on what a ‘good outcome’ from the review would look
like, from the perspective of Nick and Jeremy as its leaders, and from the
perspective of the Steering Group as their ultimate client.
• Making initial decisions on the areas of inquiry that would be essential to
the review: what would be the areas of questioning.
• Making decisions on which internal and external stakeholders to involve
in inquiry into each area of questioning, in recognition that it was unlikely
to be possible to involve everyone in everything – at least not in direct
conversation.
• Uncovering blind spots and stuck patterns in thinking that might otherwise
limit the review by bringing challenge and creativity to initial assumptions.
• Framing an approach to the method of engagement and consultation.
• The Cochrane Collaboration is a vast virtual network and, as such, has
regular regional and thematic meetings, while also being very familiar with
conference calls and web-based working: a key decision was how best
to use technology to collaborate as effectively as possible with the global
constituency.
• Developing the formal project plan and budget for the Steering Group
– and a working agreement to steer ongoing cooperation with Ashridge
Consulting.
Jeremy Grimshaw commented: “I found that this session provided me
with different conceptual lenses and ways of thinking about The Cochrane
Collaboration; and the review, informed by business and organisational
science was (and continues to be) important.”
It was a full and busy two days of creative conversation, resulting in the
project design. Core to the design was a series of inquiry conversations that
emerged as central to the work:
Throughout this design phase, the group had in mind a central event
in The Cochrane Collaboration calendar, the annual Cochrane Colloquium,
which in 2008 was in Freiburg, Germany. This week-long event is a major
scientific gathering, bringing together worldwide specialists in just about
every field of medicine and health. The Strategy Review core team planned
to hire exhibition space at the Freiburg event, to create a physical invitation
>> continued over page
31

for participants to come along and join in the strategic exploration. In
addition, the event was expected to provide Nick and Jeremy with ample
opportunity to join various meetings of The Cochrane Collaboration regional
groupings and therapeutic specialities, again to engage the widest possible
group in the strategy conversation.
Bringing the lines of inquiry to a suitable point to allow the creation
of a powerful ‘market stall’ for Freiburg became an important goal. The
design was for conversations to be pursued over the coming months
through a combination of virtual work and meetings. The virtual work took
the form of online surveys and email conversations, and a large number
of phone interviews – all conducted by The Cochrane Collaboration team.
In addition, being a scientific organisation, various entities within The
Cochrane Collaboration family hold conferences, meetings and symposia
around the world to discuss their areas of speciality. Nick and Jeremy used
their attendance at these pre-existing events to conduct formal and informal
rounds of face-to-face inquiry.
A critical decision at this point was the degree to which web technologies
should be used in the process. Initial conversations had explored the
possibility of creating large scale synchronous web-conferences, using
internet technology platforms such as WebEx. Offering initial propositions
and provocations by podcasts with accompanying Wiki-pages, were also
considered – allowing widespread asynchronous collaboration. Reflecting
on the culture and practice of The Cochrane Collaboration, however,
it was noticed that the organisation conducts its business successfully
through much simpler virtual technologies: phone, email and the sharing
of e-documents. So a design decision was made to reduce the technology
investment and invest instead in wider use of The Cochrane Collaboration’s
existing ways of virtual working.
Seven threads of conversation
32
Structures & processes
Competitors
Communications
The summer months: airmiles and phone lines
During the April to September months, Jeremy and Nick continued to crisscross
the globe, attending a wide array of The Cochrane Collaboration
internal gatherings in Italy, India and the UK, amongst others.
At the same time, Mary Ellen and Jeremy took to the phones and the
internet, engaging stakeholders both within The Cochrane Collaboration
and externally in inquiry conversations. Gradually, working papers appeared,
recording the emerging themes from the calls and meetings.
Throughout this process Ashridge Consulting provided strategy
coaching support. The Cochrane Collaboration, though disciplined in
research, did not have widespread experience of strategy dialogue, and so the
Ashridge Consulting team helped in the development of ‘inquiry protocols’,
steering briefs to guide the telephone and face-to-face interviews being
conducted globally by the Canadian team. The underlying methodology
used was the semi-structured interview, a carefully constructed sequence
of main lines of inquiry, supported by guidance on supplementary questions
to probe responses. The interviewer had the discretion throughout to
follow the energy and interest of the interviewee, guided by the underlying
structure.
Ashridge acted throughout as methodology guardian, offering challenge,
for example, on the methods of interpretation and data coding so that the
biases of one person did not cause data to be over-looked or miscoded.
A peer review arrangement was proposed, allowing at least two pairs of
eyes to be involved in the interpretation, to help richness of data to be
maintained and biases noticed and handled. This process was aided over
the summer by the arrival in The Cochrane Collaboration’s Oxford team of
Lucie Jones, who was released from other duties to assist in the data review
and analysis.
Accountability & decision-making
Purpose
External & internal coherence
Financial viability

Ashridge’s support over this period took the form of phone-based
coaching, usually in set conference calls every four to six weeks, and
through email comment on protocols and methodology. The co-design for
the critical pre-Freiburg coaching event at Ashridge, due for early September
2008, was also done virtually.
By the end of the summer, over 2,000 people had been engaged in
the strategy conversation. Hundreds had been contacted in surveys and
questionnaires, and over 1,000 people had visited the Strategy Review
pages on The Cochrane Collaboration website.
Preparing for Freiburg: the September meeting
By September, attention was turning towards Freiburg, with the Colloquium
looming in early October. The team met again at Ashridge for a second
face-to-face facilitation and coaching session, with the dual aim of making
sense of the inquiry so far and deciding how to present this data to optimise
the inquiry at Freiburg. Above all, there was the challenge of designing the
Strategic Review ‘space’ in a way that would engage people in the story so
far, and draw them into joining the ongoing conversation.
The initial part of the two-day event focused on finding the emerging
story in the data. The Ashridge Consulting team used a variety of group-work
devices, including illustration and ‘fish-bowl’ conversations to draw out the
differing perspectives that The Cochrane Collaboration team had gained.
The group then created display boards based on the emerging stories, each
board becoming a summary of what had been found in the inquiry so far,
and what had been raised as further questions to be pursued.
Overnight, the meeting room was transformed into a mock-up of the
Freiburg exhibition space – a six metre by three metre booth, complete with
furnishings as close as possible to the dimensions offered by the exhibition
company handling the Freiburg event. The aim was to allow The Cochrane
Collaboration team to get a feel for working in the space, to allow them to
visualise the flow of people visiting the booth and therefore to create the
right invitation, in the form of exhibits, questionnaire response sheets and
conversations to engage in the most effective way. Gradually, during the
day, the storyboards from the inquiry to date became a series of rough
exhibits, designed to inform and provoke.
Reflecting on this stage of the work Jeremy Grimshaw
said: “The planning meeting allowed us to clarify our
specific aims and planned ways of working for Freiberg,
to mock up the materials we needed to prepare and to
visualise the space and flow-throughs of the booth.
It was remarkable how our real experiences
in Freiburg were anticipated at the
planning session.”
Freiburg and beyond: the road goes onward…
The Colloquium at Freiburg proved to be a great success – with both the
booth and the numerous presentations and discussions creating great
engagement with the strategic thinking process. Reflecting on the event
Mary Ellen observed: “What became really clear at Freiburg was that this
Strategic Review was not necessarily revealing new information, but bringing
existing thoughts and concerns out into the open to be discussed. It was
quite liberating to realise this – I think for everyone, and it injected a hopeful
feeling that the future of the Collaboration will be strong.”
Jeremy noted: “Challenged by Ashridge, we explored ways to make the
activities in Freiburg engaging and fun. The Review team wore delightfully
dayglo green shirts so we were always visible. We took photos of anyone
coming by the booth and developed a photomosaic montage to demonstrate
the face of The Cochrane Collaboration complemented by badges: ‘I am a
face of The Cochrane Collaboration’. Signage was in over 20 languages and
we engaged colleagues from around the world to ensure that participants
could talk to someone in their own language about the review. We did a
session linked to the AGM of The Cochrane Collaboration that, a number
of participants enthused, made it ‘the best AGM ever’. Finally we got over
the idea to participants that this was their review and that they had to take
responsibility for ensuring that their voices were heard during the review and
for taking forward actions resulting from the review. Going into Freiburg, I
was extremely nervous but within 24 hours we knew that this was the right
approach for our organisation (although our voices didn’t recover for at least
a week after the event).”
After the event, the team met for the third time at Ashridge to make
sense of the story so far and to plan for the final rounds of inquiry, to take
place over the winter months.
So what has everyone learned from this process? We reflect: “It has
been a wonderful journey for us all, and it goes on. Some of the most
important learning has been about the process of participative strategy and
just what is possible with modest means. By stepping away from traditional
assumptions about consultant-led interventions, drawing on a mix of
strategy coaching techniques and virtual working, we have been able to
support The Cochrane Collaboration in working at the frontier of large-scale
engagement work.”
As this article goes to publication, over 3,000 people have been
engaged in conversations, visited the website, called in at the Freiburg
booth or have otherwise joined in the exploration of the strategic future of
The Cochrane Collaboration. Very shortly, decisions from this work have to
be made, and participation will not mean democracy. The Steering Group,
assisted by CEO Nick, will reach decisions on the working intent for the next
stage of the organisation’s development. It will do so briefed on the basis of
the widest possible insight that the energies and minds of the organisation
can offer.
Above all, it will then be able to invite the participation of the organisation
in the knowledge that this is a strategic decision that has emerged and has
been informed by its community: a community that has developed its own
connection to the strategy and has moved beyond traditional ideas of ‘buyin’.
Here there is nothing to sell. The global community that is The Cochrane
Collaboration has hand-crafted its own strategy – with just a little support
from its friends.
33

Partnering and Consulting
in Change programme:
building skills and
confidence in tough times
Participants on our innovative Partnering and Consulting in
Change (PCC) programme met just a few weeks ago for their
first module. A redesign of the highly successful Consulting
and Change in Organisations programme, PCC deepens the
emphasis on change partnering issues, in recognition that the
programme’s typical participants – project managers,
OD practitioners and internal and external change agents – are
increasingly involved in partnering with multiple stakeholders
and working across complex change initiatives.
As a group of practitioners and
‘consultants to the consultants’,
Ashridge Consulting is renowned
for a highly experiential approach
to learning in all its programmes.
Highly interactive, the Partnering
and Consulting in Change
programme offers participants
many opportunities to practise
and enhance their approach
to partnering and consulting.
PCC participant Paul Stafford,
Principal Learning Consultant
with Her Majesty’s Revenue and
Customs said of the first module:
“The innovative programme
design encourages the sharing
of experience and best practice.”
He is looking forward to later
modules when participants move
from practising to consulting with
real Ashridge clients. Inge Wels of
Vijfhuis Consultancy, agrees: “PCC
is turning out to be an inspiring
and challenging experience. The
well-balanced mix of learning
interventions and the high quality
conversations with and between
participants creates an open and
stimulating environment with lots of
opportunities to learn and share.”
As always at Ashridge, we
were able to offer participants
the benefit of highly focused
attention within a supportive
and stimulating environment.
“I appreciated the one-to-one
34
support of the programme
leaders Billy Desmond and Martyn
Brown, as well as their ideas and
challenges”, added Paul.
Matthew Gitsham, another
participant, sums up his experience
so far: “I really value not only the
innovative learning approaches and
brilliant input from the programme
tutors, but also learning from the
really high-quality participants.
The programme is giving me a real
opportunity to reflect on what I do
and I have come away with lots of
new ideas to experiment with.”
Chris Shaw, Business
Transformation Consultant for
BT and a participant on PCC’s
predecessor vouches: “Given the
increased emphasis on internal
partnering, and the dramatic and
unprecedented nature and pace
of change, I can see that the new
PCC programme really meets a
growing and important need.”
The next cohort of this
modular programme will start
on 15 September.
Contact Juliet Fulcher on
+44 (0)1442 841168 or email
juliet.fulcher@ashridge.org.
uk for more details.
www.ashridge.org.uk/pcc
c h a n g e
e x p e r i m e n t i n g
client/coach
relationship
l e a r n i n g
DEVELOPING
COACHING
EXCELLENCE
Eighteen participants of the first cohort
of the Ashridge Masters in Executive
Coaching (AMEC) will fulfil all their
aspirations of coaching mastery –
picking up their MSc at the graduation
ceremony on 2 May at Ashridge.
The ceremony will mark the successful
completion of two years of intensive work
into their coaching practice: participating in
workshops and supervision, submitting to
the rigorous Ashridge accreditation process,
conducting enquiry and research and
completing two dissertations.
One of the successful graduates is
Christina Wanke, an experienced executive
coach and consultant with her own company
in Switzerland. Christina says: “On this
programme, it becomes essential to reflect on

your activities as a coach in such a way that
you distinguish between contributors to the
process: your client, the client organisation,
yourself, and the developing relationship
between you and the client. Coaches need
to try to be as clear as they can be on how
they inform their work by bringing their own
person and personal background to it. It
requires a depth and intensity of reflection that
I have not experienced on any other coaching
development programme.” She continues:
“I have gained not only a sound basis for my
coaching practice, but also a recognisable
academic quality seal, which is a considerable
advantage in the coaching sector.”
Says Erik de Haan, the Director of both
the programme and of the Ashridge Centre
for Coaching: “We launched the programme
in 2007 in response to the emergence of
executive coaching as an established and
distinct profession within the international
field of individual and organisational
development – our aim was to raise the
standard of coaching both professionally and
ethically. We are very proud to complete the
full cycle of the programme and see the first
cohort come through.”
The second programme has 20
participants and recruitment is underway for a
third cohort starting in May this year. ‘AMEC 3’
is looking like another highly experienced and
professional group.
The short coaching programme Coaching
for Organisation Consultants is now available
in Denmark through our collaboration with the
Danish Centre for Leadership.
We continue to contribute to the latest
thinking in the developing field of executive
coaching, presenting our research to the CIPD
HRD Conference and addressing the European
Mentoring and Coaching Council conferences,
the Academy of Executive Coaching and the
CIPD Coaching at Work Conference.
Erik de Haan’s book: Relational Coaching
– Journeys Towards Mastering One-to-One
Learning was launched last year to critical
acclaim. David Megginson, Professor of HRD
at Sheffield Hallam University described it as
“a deeply considered work of scholarship,
which is also an intensely practical manual.
The best coaching book of the year, by far.”
It presents a radically different way of
looking at coaching that puts the relationship
from the perspective of the coachee at the
centre of focus, providing the executive coach
with insights to help improve their practice, and
showing the key ingredients for effectiveness
in helping conversations.
OUR PROGRAMMES
Partnering and Consulting in Change
You are a project manager or OD practitioner working in partnership with different stakeholders
and across increasingly complex change initiatives. This programme is a highly practical forum –
offering you insights into change approaches, leading edge theory and practice in an applied and
experiential format. It is interactive and flexible with many opportunities to practise and enhance
your approach to partnering and consulting.
The next cohort starts 15 – 18 September 2009.
For details visit: www.ashridge.org.uk/pcc
Ashridge Masters and Doctorate
in Organisation Consulting
You are an experienced OD practitioner or consultant looking for a combination of significant
personal learning and theoretical challenge. This two-year part-time programme consists of
workshops, interspersed with action learning, practical assignments and a final dissertation; the
doctoral stream continues for a further two years. You will benefit from the leading-edge thinking
and business practice experience of faculty and peers and gain a highly reputable qualification.
The next cohort starts January 2010.
For details visit: www.ashridge.org.uk/amoc or www.ashridge.org.uk/adoc
Ashridge Masters in Executive Coaching
You are a coach, seeking to develop yourself to your full potential and gain highly sought-after
accreditation for your coaching practice. This programme is based on a foundation of business
experience, psychotherapeutical and behavioural knowledge and quantitative research. The
initial Coaching for Organisation Consultants programme is followed by workshops, coaching
supervision and a dissertation. During the programme you are assessed to become an Ashridge
accredited coach.
The next cohort starts 21 May 2009.
For details visit: www.ashridge.org.uk/amec
The Business of Sustainability
You are a senior executive or strategic decision maker, wanting to explore the commercial
opportunities and challenges that sustainable practice can bring to your business. This
workshop will give you practical insights and lessons from other organisations; enhanced
understanding of the issues, opportunities and urgency for sustainable business practice;
and enable you to put together a strategic plan to begin to engage your organisation.
The next cohorts start 18 – 19 June and 29 – 30 October.
For details visit: www.ashridge.org.uk/bos
Coaching for Organisation Consultants
You are a consultant working with a number of client organisations, or as an internal OD
practitioner. You already work as a coach and wish to broaden and deepen your coaching
experiences and skills. This programme is a stimulating blend of coaching practice and
psychological theory. Its highly interactive and experiential approach focuses on the coaching
relationship and how this can be used within an organisation to make a real difference.
The next cohorts start 15 – 16 June and 19 – 20 October.
For details visit: www.ashridge.org.uk/cfc
Virtual Action Learning Facilitation
You are an action learning facilitator or coach who wants to develop your potential to facilitate
virtually. Based on research as well as on the approach and models used in our own successful
practice, this programme will enable you to discover the real potential of this powerful format
and become a confident and successful facilitator of virtual action learning.
The next cohorts start 2 – 4 June and 14 – 16 October.
For details visit: www.ashridge.org.uk/valf
35

ONVERSE