Context

International leading company manufacturing and distributing industrial components - 70 years old - 2.300 people - Revenues: €240 m - EBIT: €37m - Head office located in Paris, France - 11 branches on three continents.

Challenge

Federating the Top Management and the 250 executives of a group located on 3 continents (America, Europe, Asia) and promoting a common culture after a period of M&As. A training program was organised by group of 25 executives over three years (2004-2007) through one week sessions. Each participant follows successively the following modules: Control Management, Productivity, Cultural Differences, Reactivity, Project Management, Quality Control, and Management & Leadership.
Two days were dedicated to Management & Leadership.
The program took place in the suburbs of Paris, in a wonderful castle, a favourable place exacerbating creativity and oxygenation.

Methodology

Before the mission, we managed to organise a visit to one of the factories and some meetings with some future participants in order to get to know the environment of the company. Then, we proposed a 2-day ‘Management & Leadership’ training session to the Board.

The first day of the training started with an original 'building exercise' which allows everyone to engage in the training process. It is a good way to start a session by acting. This exercise has become the 'common experience' of the group.

From this exercise, issues validated by the hierarchy were developped during the two days. They were :
• the role of a manager
• the managerial behaviour
• the manager’s styles
• goals management
• effective communication
• negotiation and crisis management
• change management
• management & leadership.

During the whole training session, each participant had the opportunity to share illustrative examples with others, to give feedbacks, to work in workshops, to bring new ideas, to play new games, to make something creative, to pass some personality tests. This way, each type of personality could enjoy the day and to put up with the proposed concepts.

In the afternoon of the second day, a member of the Board illustrated the inputs of the seminar by sharing an experience with the participants: the successful negotiation process of a $50m significant commercial contract carried out on the American ground by a bi-cultural team. The faced difficulties and the proposed solutions were mentioned in all transparency.

The second day ended by a ludic exercise: 'draw what our session calls to your mind'. It is a good way to stimulate both emotion and intelligence.

Result

__ • A successful cultural mixture__ : participants have learnt to know and to respect each other
__ • A better perception of what the culture of the company is__ through discussion which took place on the basics of the company : the right to err, the duty to take benefits from all experiences, the right to say “no”, modesty as a value.
__ • A better knowledge of oneself__ : my role and my style as a manager, thanks to tests and exercise by binomial.

-> The whole process is valuable to the group, and the year 2006 was extremely positive : booming sales, expanding market share, twice as big investment as it was in 2005. The human, modest, professional and respectful style this company has adopted is successful for the group and valuable for all employees.