They appointed a Programme Champion internally to drive communications about upcoming sessions (in addition to the info automatically sent to every participant).
Inspire Case Study: SAGA Plc
Saga Plc is home to a range of products and services exclusively for the over 50s, including insurance, holidays, money and the UK’s best-selling monthly magazine. With over 5000 employees and a turnover of £337m, they are based in Folkestone in the UK.
Saga are a champion of age in the workplace. They’re a dynamic and forward-looking business with a clear, single-minded purpose; to create exceptional experiences every day and be a driver for positive change in our markets and communities.
Situation
As part of Saga’s ongoing leadership development programme, they were looking to introduce a different kind of learning experience as part of their L&D strategy; one that brings the outside world in. One that would provide their leaders with an understanding of what is happening in the outside world, to inform their business’ change journey.
As a result, they selected 40 members of their leadership team to participate in the Wavelength Inspire programme back in February 2021.
Bringing the outside world in for Saga's leadership team
Each month Wavelength Inspire provided their leadership team with live, curated access to some of the world’s most progressive organisations and accomplished leaders.
From iconic disruptors like Airbnb, to the CEOs of Unilever and IKEA, Inspire provided them with unrivalled access to global practitioners. No academics or gurus, just real leaders their team could relate to, putting Saga in the very best place to shape their own future.
The dedicated online portal provided Saga participants with access to extensive pre- and post-event materials, podcasts and recordings of each session, plus concise, edited highlights and a written synopsis of each session.
How SAGA made the best use of Wavelength Inspire
Saga also introduced some practical measures to ensure they made the best use of the Inspire programme, to develop the bond between their cohort and get maximum impact and participation from individuals and the group.
They also appointed a Sponsor of the group who would tune in themselves and could understand the content that was shared and how it could then relate back to their organisation and the group.
They set up a WhatsApp Group connecting all their participants.
They co-ordinated a time for all participants to tune into the live sessions together. In fact, only illness or holiday were excuses not to do so!
During the recordings, their cohort used WhatsApp to communicate key take outs and to drive conversation).
At the end of the session, they immediately arranged a 30 minute debrief, to land the learnings and get input from the whole group on key takeaways and how they could consider implementing any aspects in their own business.
The ’Sponsor' would come onto the call with not only their own key reflections, but also ‘The Disruptive Questions’ to ask the group.
They then got their group to break out for 12 minutes, to reflect on the disruptive questions and then each group nominated one person to present back for two minutes.
Not only did Saga use the programme as ‘a cultural book club’, but it also had a great additional benefit of breaking down silos as the same group of people would come together collectively every month for a couple of hours to learn, reflect and share.
What SAGA said
You managed to do that difficult thing of getting people to think more broadly about their profession, sharing fresh thinking from other companies and weaving this into a stimulating and entertaining narrative – great result!
Aravind is an inspirational example of how to do good business and do good at the same time. This trip is built in that image, feeding your brain and your soul in equal measure. I can’t recommend it highly enough. The impact will
stay with you for years!
For me, the most significant impact has been a personal one. I have never felt more inspired by the experience and many have observed a huge lift in my confidence and leadership presence.
Adrian’s presentation to my top team was truly excellent. He speaks with such authority, gravitas and insight about the key issues in leadership and business - service, innovation, disruption and resilience. The leadership team at Metro Bank are very busy people - so if we give up our time to listen to an outside speaker it better be good. And Adrian was very good indeed.
Wavelength's application, thinking and diversity of learning from leaders was transformative. Our peer group on the USA programme was first class and relationships were built across the globe. The application of what we learnt at an executive and board level was invaluable.
The USA programme worked extremely well and gave my team and I a great opportunity to connect with many entrepreneurs, businesses and ideas. We now approach innovation differently at Tesco from both an organisational and cultural perspective.
Innovation is what we, as a company, pride ourselves on. Our ability to think differently is what keeps us ahead, so going into the trip that’s what I was looking for. A new perspective. And I got it. The programme’s unique structure gives us genuinely immersive experiences inside a broad spectrum of extraordinary companies. We witness first-hand how the best-of-the-best operate around, for example, product development, customer experience or people and culture. The focus is on interpretation of principles over execution, in order to stimulate fresh thinking that can begin to shift the dial from the very first day we return to HQ. If you’re not operating from the outside in, you become very isolated in your thinking. Looking at companies that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re doing day to day helps to make that mindset shift.
We couldn’t have asked for a better concept. The speakers have been of the highest calibre and quality, the discussions are powerful, rich and thought-provoking and one of the added bonuses has been the variety of other
organisations going through the experience and the chance to share in our own breakouts.
Adrian really engaged and inspired our leaders. Along with the support he has provided through Connect and Wavelength USA this has moved on our thinking about leadership and purpose massively. He did a tremendous job at bringing together lessons from a really broad range of highly successful leaders. The blend of examples and stories helps people to absorb the ideas and think about application. And the session was also really entertaining!
Wavelength Inspire
Find out more about Wavelength Inspire and how it can impact your business.