SUCCESS STORY
This large accounting firm (just outside the big 4) promotes a large number of people into manager roles each year. They move from being primarily focused on “doing” to having to learn quickly to become effective and efficient managers. Those involved are very intelligent and the individuals have proven themselves in the early part of being a manager and now that role develops even further. Their Academy programme helps them understand that transition. JA contributes the business development (BD) part of the whole intervention and builds on a number of key areas related to them becoming great managers.
For some of these people, especially those in regional offices, business development has been part of their “upbringing”. For most, the whole concept of doing BD is scary and often does not fit their image of what being a professional is. Addressing that confidence issue in a challenging, yet safe, environment is the key to success.
Stage Two of the Academy programme is a three-day intervention that blends a whole range of learning experiences. We developed a series of sessions to build on the non-business development elements they are exposed to. That has helped create a whole range of connections so the participants understand how to use their learnings across a range of situations. We then tell them about the deep research which says what the best do and then get them to apply that to two complex case studies. Next, we used visualisation techniques to further develop their view of how things can be different.
The beauty of the design is it appeals to all. Each person relates the outputs to where they are in their own business development journey. We blended both selling and pitching using the same detailed case studies that are highly contemporary. This blend of knowledge transfer with “having a go” in a safe, supportive and challenging environment means confidence levels increase dramatically. A recent evolution of the programme has been a new internally focused negotiation simulation where the delegates have to apply their newly acquired learning about negotiation to an internal business challenge that mirrors what they do every day.
The key here was building the confidence to ask challenging questions and give managers the skills to spot and, most importantly, develop opportunities. And then to take those opportunities to a different level, thus qualifying-in the most promising ones.
A number of participants reported that they immediately applied the skills. In one case, that was the following day and resulted in spotting an opportunity for ~£90,000 worth of new work which was then further developed into a new assignment for the firm.
The sessions we run, and the whole intervention, get very high ratings. The programme is seen as key to catalysing manager development. It safely provides exposure to strategic challenges from which creative solutions are generated and then pitched to senior partners further builds competence and confidence. As an indication of the power of those, a number of the suggestions pitched have been successfully implemented.
What the client says:
“The great thing about JA is they bring external and internal perspectives that they weave together thus helping us better interact with our clients.”
All the work we do is based on deep experience and we utilise the most comprehensive research sources to ensure that whatever we do will deliver results.
Our broad experience means we can quickly make interventions that are pragmatic and built on what the best do – and often brought to life with real case illustrations.
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