This organization set forth to turn 14 technology experts into senior leaders. They recognized that pairing their world-leading technical expertise with power skills—like creativity, storytelling and innovation—was key to building future-ready leaders who could keep driving innovation in the industry. To do so, the organization created a hybrid, action-learning program that would not only introduce the fundamentals of design thinking but ensure they stuck—by embedding learning in real work.
The organization’s multi-module, multi-month program blended internal expertise with external workshops. It began with presentations from in-house leaders, followed by an ExperiencePoint workshop on IDEO’s 6-step design thinking process. Participants then left with homework to conduct real user interviews and met bi-weekly for live micro-learning sessions. Months later, armed with field research, they reconvened for a two-day design sprint—ending in a presentation of 8 low-fidelity prototypes.
The impact of the leadership development program was immediate. Participants were effusive in their praise for the program, while sponsors were impressed by the teams’ breakthrough ideas, which sparked deeper conversations and surfaced actionable solutions. The success of the program inspired sponsors to start running the same program on an annual basis—and even adapt a shorter version for mid-level leaders to further develop a shared framework for innovation across the organization’s leaders.
