The Big Expedition
Driving a high-performance culture which delivers real and lasting change
NKD worked closely with daa, challenging their leaders to see beyond their established ways of working and managing human performance. They were equipped with the tools to engage their teams in fresh ways, and inspired to use a new style of performance conversations to create a genuine high-performance culture.
The Challenge
Our extensive research uncovered some blocks within the business. These barriers were preventing DAA’s leaders from realising their teams’ potential and being able to deliver the organisation’s key objectives.
The Solution
We created an experiential learning workshop called the ‘Big Expedition’ to bring to life the journey the business needed to go on. All the participants were given the chance to explore real people challenges and work with their peers to create new and innovative ways of solving them.
They also explored a new way to inspire their teams to perform, and keep on performing, using NKDs breakthrough THRIVE approach.
At the end of the journey participants left with an understanding of the mindset they needed to adopt, the types of opportunities they need to exploit and a strong resolve to make this a reality.
The Theme
The Big Expedition concept took leaders on a journey of self-discovery about their personal leadership. The theme carried through in both metaphor and the immersive physical environment we created for them. Building on the success of The Big Expedition, we set about helping leaders to form new ‘high performance habits’ using the methodology, language and tools we designed for them.
A series of follow-up workshops and “check in” conversations hosted by the DAA team created a forum for leaders to share success stories, and meant the initial uplift in performance was sustained.
The Result
14% increase in performance management scores
Watch the film below
Transcript
DAA is an airport management company.
We also have a significant retail business as well.
We’re an organisation that’s changing pretty much by the day. We’ve got a lot of challenges, and a lot of opportunities ahead, because we’re becoming a global organisation.
This event is called The Big Expedition. It’s a 15-month development programme that we have designed to roll out to our people leaders across DAA. It’s really about working with people leaders to make sure that they use the right skills, the right approach to realise people’s potential back in the workplace.
I’ve been involved with The Big Expedition from the very start, so from the word go we worked very much together on the programme.
It wasn’t just NKD giving us a programme. We were able to have challenging conversations, and NKD were equally comfortable coming to us and saying you know, think about this, this is another piece of research. NKD wanted to get into what did the organisation value, what did the people in the organisation value, what were they trying to achieve?
This is our second major change programme that we’ve worked on with NKD. For me it’s the only way, you know, the methodology that you follow, so the high-level design, the detailed design. From the research, the design, Discovery phase, we felt like two companies working together.
A lot of the feedback we get is just the pure quality of the materials in the programme. So they walk into a training environment that they’re not expecting. They’re seeing all of the branding, the materials. It’s more than just what they look and feel like, it’s just what value they add to the development and learning journey. So, the materials were really, really, really high quality. Both from a creative point of view, but also a very pragmatic approach in terms of actually embedding learning.
The one thing that I really, really am inspired by is the journey, the mapping out of that. The flags that we put up after the end of the modules, again, it just adds to the whole environment.
It is very useful in that it highlights that it is a journey that we’re all on together. It’s a bit of a game changer, I would honestly say to you.
I think I was blown away by the amount of expertise that you have, but also the resources you have, because it just meant that at every stage of the programme you delivered on what we asked for because I think certainly when you’re delivering a programme like this, I think it’s very important that the programme itself is very practical and that it suits the organisation, not an off-the-shelf programme.
And that’s one thing you can say about this programme, it’s very much bespoke.
The material is tailored specifically to how we operate and work within a DAA environment Some of the tools we’ve been given, they’re quick, they’re easy to use. And it’s good to put into practice in a hands-on environment rather than just reading off a PowerPoint presentation.
I think what the activities did was they brought some fun. They definitely brought that interaction piece. It broke down barriers, got people coming together. It embedded the learning as well.
I think the big highlight is the professionalism of NKD. NKD kept us on track. The importance of having that structure and the logistics behind, I had never seen that before, because it was a huge amount of work to get done.
NKD’s approach is very customer-centric, and I teach customer service selling, so to see a company actually look after you from start to finish is fantastic.
What I’m most proud of on the programme is the fact that what we’ve done is exactly what needs to be done in the organisation. And also, that the content is absolutely perfect for the audience that we’re putting through it.
Everyone in the organisation, regardless of whether they’re a people leader or not, would benefit from attending The Big Expedition. This is different. This is organisational change. This is about putting people, managers, leaders at the heart of organisational change. You can really feel that.
At the start I’d say to the team, I want a world-class product that will travel. Now we have a world-class product.