‘Community’ Award – Gold Award Winner – Best Partnership in the Network
We, along with our friends at Hatch, are delighted to have received the Gold Award for our joint entry in the category of ‘Community’ at the 2024 Consultancy Awards. This Award recognises ‘Partnerships’ and we were thrilled to receive this recognition on 13 June 2024 at an Award Ceremony in London.
Mutuality is one of Sladen’s 5 Guiding Beliefs, and it is modelled so well here in our partnership with Hatch…here is an insight into our story:
In November 2020 Matt Sims(Hatch) met Richard Colley(Sladen) and they quickly realised that with Business Design and Human Design together, real change can happen, which is what their clients were looking for.
What got their hearts pounding was the passion and human-centric approach they both brought to their clients. There was an immediate sense of trust. They recognised good humans with a higher purpose and built their connection around wanting to do something bigger. 1+1 could equal 3, and it could also equal ‘New’.
JOINT PROPOSITION
There were many synergies, and at the same time both organisations brought a differentiator: Sladen, bringing expertise in People Design: leadership development, behavioural change and upskilling. Hatch, being experts in Inclusive business design, bringing Agile, Design Thinking and expertise in delivering complex solutions for clients. At the same time both companies having deep expertise in designing and facilitating delivering large scale collaborative experiences and events.
Within weeks of their first meeting, Richard asked Matt to provide Hatch’s Virtual Event expertise for a 3-day leadership event for a global Pharma client. Further mutual multi-year projects began with other mutual Pharma clients.
THE JOURNEY & INNOVATION:
Some stats: We…
- Met and started working together in 2020
- Collaborated on 3 different clients (major Global pharmaceutical companies) 2020 – 2023
- Have facilitated 200+ client sessions
- Delivered for 2,000+ participants worldwide and in 9 different languages
- Deepened the partnership by bringing the wider Hatch and Sladen teams together both on client projects and internal planning sessions.
- Have continued to refine our approach. Actively learning as we work together
- Ambition to do more together. Now for 2024 – we are embarking on another project shaping and activating the operating model for a 1,200 people global team, whilst upskilling and developing their leadership team.
What did we do? For each engagement we formed a joint ‘Design Team’ made of key stakeholders from the Client, Hatch, and Sladen Consulting worked closely together to agree outcomes and co-design the right interventions to achieve them and achieve the desired change.
There are many benefits to our partnership:
- Our business design and change work is designed with your people in mind as they shape it for themselves
- We then build out the specific skills and behaviours that are required to support and enable the change as one unified process
- Deep learning – our approach applies learning directly and immediately to real business challenges in a live collaborative environment to accelerate upskilling and behavioural shift
- Individual development becomes team development as the upskilling is learned and applied via our CoLab events and not just in the classroom.
Clients tell us that our partnership brings them innovation in the form of · Faster decision making and better solution design through CoLab process · Combining leadership development with change enablement, team building and collaborative decision making · Use of collaboration tools such as Mural in session and in Knowledge/Learning Walls to power up virtual interventions and impact and create a dynamic knowledge base.
OUTCOMES & IMPACT
One example of the impact of what we created collaboratively is:
A client was about to go through a period of significant change. To prepare, the senior VP needed to ensure that her leadership team were ready to lead the change while being fully equipped to deliver on the organization’s strategic objectives. Simultaneously, the workforce needed to develop their soft skills in Prioritization and Empowerment, and for a culture of Innovation to be embedded. Our partnership supported the client by creating a:
- Means to directly link development and upskilling activities with achievement of strategic objectives
- Sustainable model for regular engagement with leaders and the broader community
- Powerful practical toolkit to create more powerful patterns and ways of working, and application the skills developed
- Interactive virtual learning wall to share the learning journey
- Set of best practices and success stories to inspire and grow together.
This was used by 400+ people and is still in use and referred to to solve day to day challenges.
The impact as described by the client was:
- Improved Employee Survey results: We’ve seen a growth in team engagement, ownership and accountability. Significant improvements year on year and many scores above company average
- Stronger global team: An engaged, empowered community of 400 people who feel equipped to take on the challenges they are facing, and are excited about the change ahead
- Empowered Leaders: Our leaders have the appetite, tools and support to drive the business forward and engage their teams in the change that is coming
- Alignment to our vision: Teams are confident in their ability to deliver the business objectives in the year ahead and are ready to harness the energy from our learning journey….
“Very impactful collaboration to support and develop my global team during a tough year. The team is now stronger and fully engaged; we’ve succeeded on all fronts, personally and professionally, and are ready for future challenges. The approach was co-designed according to our needs and executed brilliantly by Hatch and Sladen, across continents and time zones – HUGE THANK YOU!” Senior VP
NEW WAYS OF WORKING
Over time we have developed new ways of working based on the foundation of strong personal relationships between individuals within the two businesses. We recognise each others’ strengths and skills and build on this. Our experts from both teams work directly with the client team, and we connect and collaborate using regular contact points and collaborative spaces. The principals from Hatch and Sladen can step in for each other and ensure a seamless client contact.
