Kontekst
Alleanza Assicurazioni is an Italian insurance company based in Milan. The arrival of a new general manager sparked a need to develop the performance and potential of middle managers and sales supervisors.
Impact Italia initially conducted a leadership development programme for the top team. This was the first step to building a strategic coalition for the new general manager. After the successful delivery of the programme and with their in-depth understanding of the company, Impact Italia suggested the next step should be to design a bespoke experiential development centre for selected middle managers.
Impact Italia used experiential learning techniques to transform talent, identify potential, and establish individual objectives related to development needs. This approach ensured that participants saw the experiential development centres as an opportunity to learn, and to recognise that they were part of the learning process.
The experiential development centre would:
- Provide the general manager with objective information about managerial capacity
- Help individual managers to understand their strengths and development areas
- Create an organisational development plan for managerial improvement.
Impact Italia began by evaluating Alleanza Assicurazioni’s current competency framework through a series of 1:1 interviews with key stakeholders, including the general manager. This involved hosting a half-day focus group with the top management team. This consultative process generated alignment on which managerial competencies should be used in the development centre.
It was agreed that the main goal of the three-day experiential development centre was not only to assess each manager’s competencies but also to focus on their motivation to take responsibility for their own development process and performance improvement.
Elements included in the experiential development centre were: role playing, sales presentations, critical reasoning, practical exercises, and psychometric measurement. Critical to the success of the experiential development centre was a detailed feedback session that included individual performance reports and personal development plan discussion.
The project was rated highly by the organisation and the original audience was extended to include the sales supervisor population.
Over three years, Impact delivered the experiential development centre and created individual personal development plans with 400 employees within Alleanza Assicurazioni.
The experiential format ensured that the programme was engaging and popular with the participants, who felt that the event empowered them to manage their professional development.
Impact provided Alleanza Assicurazioni with a detailed report and recommendations on managerial potential, including a database with personal competency scores and distribution of the population in quartiles. This knowledge of the available strengths of their managers and sales force has enabled Alleanza Assicurazioni to develop a more informed business strategy.