PROVIMI

Building a common leadership culture to engage people after new acquisitions

Challenge

In 2009, PROVIMI was undergoing a very important change with no less than five

companies merging together to create the PROVIMI group. Each company had its

own history and its own strong culture. As such, the newly formed group needed a

sense of unity bonded with a standard glue. In order to create one culture and be

prepared to face future challenges, managers need to become more resilient and

agile, especially in their interpersonal communication. As such, PROVIMI wanted to

implement a new set of managerial practices and behaviors, in order to optimize

team functioning and develop individual leadership behaviors. The combined effect

of these new shared practices was to increase the managers' competency to

handle changes in the organization and to bring everyone up to the same level of

management.

The main goal of the "Leadership Development Programme" (LDM) was to

develop a common and shared leadership culture that unified and engaged

employees. The focus was to work on key managerial behaviors, and on personal

development in order to thrive in their business environment, as well as be more

resilient with regard to change. The program was built with 3 parts separated

by a year each, and with different objectives: 1. working on key behavioral

management skills and sharing good practices - 5 days2. following and reinforcing

the development of the first program - 4 days3. working on personal

development, sharing, and anchoring the behavioral skills acquired by the Provimi

managers - 4 half days. Starting from the top and showing exemplarity to the whole

company, it all began with a workshop for the board members based on two main

axes: to optimize the performance of the leading team and develop individual

leadership skills. The program was created as an evolutionary journey, where

managers would progressively grow. First of all, basics were introduced so that

everyone was brought to the same level. It started with the fundamentals of

management, including how to encourage performance and how to manage

difficult situations. The next step was to reinforce and develop team building and

spirit, and the development of coaching behaviors. The last step was designed to

tackle individual situations and anchor the behaviors into managers' daily lives,

with smaller groups and increased attention to detail.

From 2011-2016, the program trained 83 participants in France in 53 sessions.

One of the "Leadership Development Programme's" outcomes was creating a

common language and a shared feedback culture between managers. Overall, the

observable impact can be described as a real change in the way people

communicate: they understood themselves and others better and collaboration

increased. Some people also completely changed their behaviors after the training,

and were less afraid, took more risks and opened up to others."