Case
Learning Experiences Design, Culture Design, Facilitation
Leadership @Kelly
This is a case about developing skills and qualities and deepening Kelly Services' leadership culture.
Just as culture is not defined by decree, people are not born leaders, they become leaders!
It wouldn't be fair to start this article any other way than: doing the Leadership @Kelly program was awesome! They were amazing partners, open, flexible, fun, available, trusted the process and believed that building it together would make it richer and more impactful.
The (first) challenge
As part of its change process, Kelly Services challenged Way Beyond to design a long-term program that would allow the Lead Managers and Managers team to experience and to learn the art of leadership, aiming at the following:
work more in cross-cutting teams and less as "islands";
promote a leadership style that is based on delegation and decentralization of responsibilities and power, allowing teams to have more autonomy and responsibility;
improve communication and relations between areas and departments;
know your people well, increase retention and design succession plans.
The challenges that followed
The pandemic thought it was going to turn us upside down and it wasn't wrong! But together we managed to take advantage (and well!) of the unpredictability. A major revelation had to do with the investment issue. The program, which had a high initial investment, related to logistics, travel, and rental of work spaces, moved entirely to the online format, which resulted in significant and unexpected benefits: the quality was maintained, the program had a great impact on people and the costs were substantially reduced.
In February 2020, we kicked off Leadership @Kelly: a program to develop leadership qualities and competencies, at Kelly Services. The uncertainties created by the pandemic context led us to extend the program, which ended on April 7, 2022, with the presentation of the work developed by the participants, over more than two years of duration.
Rewriting this program was one of the first and most demanding, interesting, and fun challenges 2020 brought us concerning our work with partners! While hypothesizing that such a program would "never" work as well in an online format, we dived headfirst, together with Kelly Services, confident that only if we lacked the people would we choose to discontinue the program.
We adapted content and formats to an online version, reorganized calendars, and designed a program composed of three phases: #1 Knowing and Designing, #2 Learning to Learn, and #3 Celebrating.
Getting to Know and Designing.
Precisely because we do not know, in advance, what the best solution is, we try to make a real difference, designing our programs and projects in partnership with our clients.
For this, at a first stage, we thought it was important to get to know Kelly's reality, namely its people and culture, in person and in a deeper way. We were far from knowing that the professional and the everyday spaces would be practically intermingled and, still in the physical format, we made the following diagnosis with the help of key informants.
The people
38 leaders
4 interviews
To access individual perspectives on the organization's culture and their role as leaders.
38 questionnaires
We used our Public Identity Questionnaire, which allows each person to get a consolidated record of what others think of them.
1 focus group
To learn about leadership contexts and provide a space for conversation about the same topic and the scope of the program.
1 workshop
The "Designing Leadership at Kellly" workshop simultaneously served to launch the program and to create space for participants to give their opinions and to contribute to its final design.
Learning to learn
Prepare to live the desired leadership
At Way Beyond we believe that culture is not created by decree, and even less can it be lived when it is not shared, understood or when it is imposed. We started, then, from what we discovered in the research and diagnosis phase, and from what the leaders expressed they wished to achieve with this program.
With Lead Managers
We designed a program to support reflection and identity building for the team of Lead Managers. During the first workshop, still in our Braamcamp Street office, there were two major revelations for the team: using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, as a methodology, helped participants realize that, after all, they weren't what you'd call a team, and that realization was a wake up call to the importance of aligning and creating an identity that is recognized by themselves and others, peers and teams.
We continued, now with digital intermediaries, with the exploration of themes related to leadership at Kelly (different duration and methodologies, adapted to the interests and needs of the leaders and the conditions in which we lived):
Leading through Culture and alongside the Team - focusing on the personal knowledge and on new perspectives of the culture, vision and mission of the Leader at Kelly
Master difficult conversations - so that people stop avoiding them and promote them to create greater closeness and to prevent potential conflicts
Coaching for Development - with the purpose of working with the participants, through Coaching , on fundamental concepts and distinctions related to leadership
Communicating with impact - enabling awareness, sensitization and the development of communication skills that allow for greater closeness, trust and safety, through listening, presence and curiosity about others
Individual coaching processes - with the purpose of leveraging and supporting the 9 Lead Managers in their journey and, according to their Personal Development Plan, of consolidating the reflections and changes made conscious and necessary, after the clarification and definition of collective and individual commitments
With the Managers
Project "How to make Kelly the next best place to work". Through methodologies inspired by design thinking, we organized the project in 3 sessions of 4h, corresponding to the phases of Inspiration, Ideation and Implementation, having been constituted 5 working groups.
It would be untrue if we did not say that at times it seemed too ambitious for everyone, "closed at home", to define and explore possible solutions to the different challenges posed by the question "How can we help Kelly to...?":
contribute to the personal and family well-being of employees
recognize more and better your employees
improve the reception of new people
contribute to the employees' physical and emotional well-being
enrich the professional/career development of the employees
The sessions were challenging, fun and revealed the virtues and adaptability of everyone. Between sessions, the groups were equally committed to making sure they gathered the necessary information.
After the three working sessions together, each group used up to an hour and a half, in a single follow-up session, or in several, depending on what they wanted, to prepare the presentation of each of the challenges, and the corresponding solutions, to the Management and Human Resources teams.
At the end of the day, we know we overcame setbacks, we trusted the process and everyone's dedication and willingness to make Kelly the best place to work! The teams were tireless and generous, the results reflected that!
Celebrate
How to do what we want to be.
On April 7, 2022, we returned to the place where this partnership began to take shape! We softened nostalgia, we celebrated successes, we shared good practices. Above all, we had fun having a real conversation about how we want to contribute to a full experience of the desired leadership.
“O projeto Leadership @Kelly teve um forte impacto nos nossos líderes, tendo desafiado a visão de Liderança de cada participante. Sem dúvida que encontrámos na Way Beyond o parceiro certo para nos ajudar a inovar neste campo.”
“É com um sentimento muito positivo, de expectativas cumpridas e superadas, que chegamos ao final do projecto Leadership @Kelly. Um caminho percorrido em verdadeira parceria com a Way Beyond e com a certeza de que os objectivos iniciais foram vividos por todos, sem excepção, com enorme dedicação e envolvimento. Uma experiência extremamente mobilizadora e positiva!”
And the day after tomorrow?
Chronicles of a continuing relationship
We are not exaggerating if we say that we end up different than when we started! And since culture and leadership require continuous attention and care, we are convinced that this partnership does not stop here and that there will be room to design more future and create rituals that contribute to sustain defined and desired practices and commitments. Thus, leadership culture will indeed be about creating contexts in which people and teams want to continuously improve while achieving results.
Thank you, "kellys"! Together we have the "verve that makes anyone greater"!