Microsoft Diversity Project

Global diversity

The HR Director asked us to use our critical thinking skills to help make sense of the fact that they had no women on their Romanian Board and one at the next layer of management. After listening to the thoughts and ideas of a selected group of female change agents we were asked to help construct a change journey. Thus we developed and piloted a curriculum for diversity development (that can and has been extended from women in business) that was so successful that it was adopted as global best practice. The Romanian business both increased the number of leadership level female executives and simultaneously became one of the company's highest performing subsidiaries.

• Date: January 2020
• Client: Threads
• Category: Illustration

GSK Street Kids Project

Transformational change

The client decided that they were tired of traditional approaches to team-building and sought to do something that would have more connection and impact to the society around them. Many training companies were invited to pitch, but ultimately they chose to co-develop a project with us to have their executives working with street children. We organised a sports day, a documentary film about life on the street, we took over the management of a restaurant and put on a show at the national theatre. The impact upon both executives and children was profound. The usual corporate rivalries were displaced with a desire to collaborate. Reading groups, football teams and personal mentoring emerged and two eighteen year olds (leaving child support programmes), were found their first jobs, even bringing in other companies to help.  Meanwhile motivation and performance grew significantly, whilst staff turnover dropped dramatically.

A film about the project was shown at the clients annual global HR conference, where some delegates cried. The programme was awarded Best HR Project and Most Innovative Business Project of the year and adopted as a template to be used all over the world.

• Date: January 2020
• Client: Threads
• Category: Illustration

Rawabi Holding

Transformation in the desert

Asked to deliver a Team event in the Saudi desert for 100 executives, from across a large petrochemicals group, Andrew Taylor, accompanied by 2 Romanian outdoor instructors flew in. Consecutive events were held with the management team, key workers and then both together. At the final event the strengths and weaknesses of the combined team were laid bare. The CEO, who was present, immediately saw the impact and value of our work and asked to work more closely with us to develop new models of management and leadership. The net result was that the organisational development manager who brought us in was promoted, significant changes were made and the business is flourishing.

• Date: January 2020
• Client: Threads
• Category: Illustration