1. An Example Case Study for NewCo Telecom
“Enterprise LEADER Has Been a
Catalyst For Change For Us... It’s
Helped Us Change The Way Our
Employees Think and Act... and It’s
Helped Us Become Much More
Customer Focused and Competitive.”
For Ashoke the CEO of NewCo
Telecom, the start of the year
brought its fair share of commercial
challenges. These included:
1. Tough competition: NewCo
Telecom (NCT) is in one of the most
competitive marketplaces, facing
strong local and overseas competition.
2. Old monopoly mindset: NCT is a
former state owned enterprise,
previously the primary land­line
provider. Being a former monopoly, it
still has many employees whose
mindset remains entrenched in a
non­commercial
way of employee
thinking. This makes it harder to
compete in tough hyper­competitive
commercial environments where competitor companies have significant
budgets for marketing and customer acquisition and in some cases superior offerings (i.e. LTE).
3. Low staff turnover: Given the countries economics and the historically well paid positions of NCT employees,
staff turnover at the telco is low. This makes it hard to bring fresh ideas into the organisation and make the switch
in thinking and culture from a state­owned
to commercial enterprise.
What Next For NCT After an Expensive and Failed Change Program?
Over the previous 18 months, NCT had tried — unsuccessfully — to introduce a program of change and address
its core issues.
With the help of a large western consulting company, NCT spent a significant amount of time and money trying to
change the mindset of employees and culture of the company to make itself more competitive.
Sadly, the results were not there and the CEO found himself at the start the year at an HRD conference, still
looking for fresh ways to address his people challenges.
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2. Discovering Enterprise LEADER
By pure chance, over lunch on the 3rd day of the conference, Ashoke found himself sitting next to Richard Parkes
Cordock, a UK based entrepreneur and creator of an enterprise­wide
coaching program called Enterprise
LEADER. Enterprise LEADER is used by companies around the world to improve the performance of their teams.
Ashoke quickly discovered that NCT’s managers could use Enterprise LEADER to coach their own employees in
essential themes such as customers, teams and personal leadership.
Ashoke learnt that Enterprise LEADER comprised of MP3 coaching materials, a printed workbook, and a rock
solid implementation methodology which included group face­to­face
coaching sessions (led and facilitated by
NCT’s own managers, and comprising of teams of around 5 to 10 employees).
Amroze Technology = NCT
Ashoke also learnt that the content of the MP3 sessions told the story of Amroze Technology and the troubles it
faced. These are problems which NCT faced too, such as being relevant to its customers, attracting and retaining
customers, improving communication between employees and teams, creating high performance teams, making
employees accountable and developing self­confident
‘customer focused’ employees.
Enterprise LEADER and a Customized Version for NCT
Over lunch, Richard explained to Ashoke how and why Enterprise LEADER works.
Richard was also able to download a sample version of the mentoring program as an
Android app on Ashoke’s phone.
Ashoke liked the idea of his managers becoming mentors and coaches — he too
believes it is the responsibility of his managers to get the best from their own teams.
Ashoke also liked the idea of customising the Enterprise LEADER app, and creating
a NCT specific branded app, containing the 20 session MP3 audio mentoring
program, together with written transcripts of the program in English, Sinhala and Tamil.
Since NCT has a large proportion of younger employees, using tools and technology they are familiar with
seemed to make perfect sense. They liked the fact that they could use their smartphones, YouTube, Instagram
and Yammer (a corporate Facebook alternative). Enterprise LEADER and its methodology lends itself to using all
of these tools.
Learning From Other Customers
When Ashoke returned to his office, he took time to learn more about Enterprise LEADER and read in detail the
case studies from the site www.enterpriseleaders.com.
One case study in particular resonated with him. This was the story of Haylor, Frayer and Coon, a US based
insurance company, who had rolled Enterprise LEADER out to over 250 employees.
NCT had just over 2,500 employees, and it was clear that using the same scalable approach and methodology,
NCT could achieve the same transformational results as Haylor.
It was also clear from all the case studies on the www.enterpriseleaders.com website that the content and
methodology of Enterprise LEADER worked, and so the risk of using the program was low. It really was down to
NCT themselves whether or not they achieved the results they wanted. Their destiny was in their own hands, not
the hands of an expensive 3rd party consulting company.
Coaching 2,500 Employees!
Ashoke invested in an Enterprise LEADER licence for initially for 2,500 employees, and also retained the services
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3. of Richard Parkes Cordock for a short while to help transfer knowledge and get the project started.
NCT already had a project team in place from the previous unsuccessful change project, so this team was able to
plan out the implementation of Enterprise LEADER and build the NCT specific customer Android app which would
be key to distributing the course content.
NCT also already had a web based learning platform in place called Saba, to which they uploaded a multimedia
version of Enterprise LEADER for those who wanted to access the coaching program on their PC rather than
phone.
Getting Started
To get the project started, Ashoke let the entire NCT workforce
know that they were going to embark on a company­wide
coaching
program, and that every employee was going to experience
coaching over the next 9 months.
He also made an arrangement with local University to ensure that
everybody who completed the program, either as an employee or
manager/coach, received a certificate of achievement, helping them
add an extra qualification to their CV.
Creating Hundreds of Small Mentor Groups
NCT had literally hundreds of little mentor groups running over the next 6­9
months, with managers leading their
teams through the 20 mentoring sessions.
Initially, there were raised eyebrows by some employees, but very quickly, everybody started to embrace the
mentoring sessions and even look forward to them, as it gave them a chance to share their ideas, opinions and
experiences. They felt like they were being heard, especially by senior management.
CEO for a Day Exercise and Yammer
One of the core takeaways from Enterprise LEADER is a particular exercise where employees suggest what
changes they would make if they were CEO for a day. This exercise alone generates thousands of business
growth and cost saving ideas. To capture and organise all the ideas, NCT implemented an internal social media
platform called Yammer (a Facebook styled collaboration tool for corporates).
In real time, employees could see the ideas and suggestions other employees made, and Ashoke and the other
senior management team had access to a ready­made
body of business growth/cost saving/product
improvement suggestions. These were ideas which came directly from employees (who are closer to the
customer than the senior management are).
Final Presentations and YouTube
As the 20 mentor sessions came to an end, each group of employees was asked to create a short presentation,
outlining what they had learnt during the coaching sessions.
They had a free licence to express themselves in any way they wanted. Some created songs, some created short
mini­dramas,
some showed their learning by creating a quiz show. Others prepared more formal and traditional
presentations.
All had fun, and the presentations (which were often given to senior management) were highlights of the program.
Each presentation was recorded on a camera phone and uploaded to a private company YouTube page for every
other employee to watch. This created a real buzz in the company.
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4. Enterprise LEADER ­A
Catalyst for
Change
Enterprise LEADER was a catalyst for change for
NCT. It gave NCT a common language, a shared
direction, a renewed focus on their customers —
and more importantly it gave them the tools to
compete in a hyper competitive environment.
As Ashoke said, “Enterprise LEADER gave us
what we were looking for. It worked
for us for three main reasons:
1. We owned the process: It was our managers who coached their own teams. This
level of ownership was important. Change has to come from within, and this
approach allowed us to make that happen.
2. The content of Enterprise LEADER was rock solid: Using the backdrop and
case­study
of Amroze Technology was perfect for us. Amroze allowed us to reflect
on our own company, by first looking at another company. I know when our people
listened to the MP3 session, they often forget they were hearing about Amroze,
and thought they were listening to stories about NCT.
This story­based
way of transferring knowledge is very powerful. It is quite
similar to learning a new language (which indeed our employees were; they were
learning the language of business). Language learning programs are always based
around a story, as this approach is more memorable and engaging.
3. The methodology of Enterprise LEADER just works: I know when Richard first
created Enterprise LEADER he thought it would be a personal development program
used by individual employees, but he soon discovered it gave more
transformational results when used by teams as a coaching program.
It is the methodology behind Enterprise LEADER which really unlocks the potential
of teams. This methodology includes how to use the workbook, how to run a
coaching session, how to generate ideas, how to get the most from the final
presentations — and not to forget the importance of branding the program and
having a NCT branded android app.
All of these elements together just work and made it easy and enjoyable for
everybody involved."
As Ashoke continued... “at the end of 9 months, we have seen NCT transform from a
company with a monopoly mindset entrenched at its core, to a new dynamic
workforce: one which sees the future, respects the competition we are faced with,
and knows how hard we have to work to attract and retain customers.
We have an innovative workforce, who are always looking for new ways to add value
to our products and services, and looking for new ways to grow revenue and shrink
costs.
Along the way, a few people have left us, but that is never a bad thing. Not
everybody was right for the new NCT. Over the past 9 months we have identified
some real stars in NCT, some real untapped talent who have been given the
opportunity to shine. These are real gems.
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5. Interestingly enough, as a hidden benefit of Enterprise LEADER, we’ve even seen
some people’s spoken English improve, as they’ve been able to listen and learn
English along the way!
For a company like NCT, we might be expected to draw on the expertise of large
international consulting and business transformation companies like McKinsey and
PWC, but in the end, we took a different, lower cost approach to change. We
harnessed technology (smartphones, Youtube, Instagram, Yammer) and we harnessed
the power of our biggest asset, our people. I think we made the right choice as
demonstrated by our improved financial results, customer acquisition and
retention levels and employee engagement levels.”
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