The question is how to equip employees with the skills to handle complexities such as creating innovative solutions to emergent problems, understanding new markets, and pushing back on the "status quo." In our experience, social entrepreneurs can be extraordinary role models in this regard. They too have struggled to operate in complex environments, and have developed the skills and expertise to overcome these challenges. However, the core skills they need are different. Access to finance, designing operational processes and systems, and building strong, talented management teams are just a few obstacles that many cite.
We've worked with a growing number of companies to pair future leaders with social entrepreneurs so they can teach each other the skills they've honed.
Take Allianz, a German financial services company. In 2009, Allianz built Social OPEX, a unique leadership development program, which utilizes Allianz's process-based methodologies (a refined Six Sigma process improvement approach for a financial services company known as Operational Excellence, or OPEX) and their employee's business skills to help social entrepreneurs tackle critical issues related to scale. Allianz employees are paired with social entrepreneurs for a five-day intensive workshop following a mandatory training session that prepares employees for their assigned projects.
Juergen Weber, the vice president of Allianz4Good, the central hub of the company's sustainable development activities, says that the program pushes Allianz managers to be more entrepreneurial as they are directly exposed to change and innovation. Achieving the project goal within five days requires them to balance results and trust. "The program helps to prepare our employees for complex challenges in the future," he says.
In the past three years, over 120 Allianz employees have partnered with social entrepreneurs on 45 projects around the globe. The program has enabled the entrepreneurs to access new funding sources, solve complex process-based issues, apply Allianz's expertise to other internal challenges, and explore new business-building initiatives with the company.
"Through our partnership with Allianz we were able to access £150,000 of funding to carry on with our social franchise model. The funders had increased confidence because of our involvement with Allianz " says Lily Lapenna, Founder of MyBnk.
Allianz Group is now rolling out Social OPEX to a range of operational entities, including those in the UK and Asia. As testimony to its success, the program has received a net promoter score of 87%, which is well above the 75% threshold for companies garnering world-class loyalty.
If you want to pair your managers with social entrepreneurs, here are a few things to consider:
Prepare: Invest in preparing your participants in advance. Allianz's mandatory pre-training program highlights the unique dynamics of the social sector — which are different than those of the business market they are used to.
Integrate: Don't put the sole responsibility of the program into the hands of your Corporate Responsibility team. Make sure the program has a senior sponsor and is integrated across the company, ideally in the corporate university or leadership development departments. At Allianz, the program was initiated and supported by the company CFO. Program management is split between the corporate university, the OPEX internal consulting team and the Corporate Responsibility department.
Recognize: Reward employees for their participation by recognizing the skills and capabilities they're building. At Allianz, participants receive a certification in the Social OPEX methodology. Employee demand is growing for this type of program and participation has many non-financial benefits to the employee including enhanced motivation, personal fulfillment, and skill development.
Monitor quality: Don't assume everything will run smoothly. Allianz assigns an OPEX coach to each team for quality control. This helps mitigate any issues related to the project, the methodologies, and team dynamics before and during the workshop.
Empower: Support employees that want to continue a relationship with the social entrepreneur beyond the formal training period. Explore how you might build on the skills and experiences learned and apply them back into the business.
Building the right relationship between these two entities, with different personalities and cultures, requires upfront management. Establishing the right relationship parameters (i.e. identifying key project outcomes), and ensuring each party understands the challenges and skills the other party has to offer is critical. When it works, and it almost always does, it can address the key skill gaps these groups face and ignite a strong and lasting relationship between the two organizations.
Source:hbr.org
No comments:
Post a Comment