Taking Insightful Action
Whether the challenge is bench planning and professional development through a formal leadership assessment and coaching process, helping the disparate parties of a team build harmonious relationships within a global organization to ensure they work together as effectively as possible, or creating a customized 4-tier leadership development curriculum, Incite Strategies is demonstrably action-oriented.
Our case histories, or Action Profiles, demonstrate how some of our insights have been applied to deliver outstanding solutions for our clients' human resource management goals and strategies. See for yourself how your organization can be re-energized by our success-proven practices, programs and recommendations. In the domain of human resources consulting, Incite Strategies understands above all else that the proof is in the performance.
In this section, we invite you to see us through the responsiveness of our actions.
Action Profile #1: Bench Planning and Talent Management
Scenario: A Fortune 50 company with employees located throughout the world needed a consistent approach for assessing and developing their high-potential employee pipeline.
Response: The company hired Incite Strategies to complete a thorough Leadership Assessment on their top 30 high-potential employees annually, followed with intense individualized coaching to optimize each individual’s personal development.
Proposition: Can an organization hire a third party to systematically assess their high-potential talent so that their bench strength is developed and a formal succession planning program is implemented?
Action: Today, Incite Strategies is an embedded part of the process providing third party assessment services on an annual basis. The consistency of assessment provides a value-add not only to the employee as a powerful sign of recognition, as a way to enhance key retention, and as an intensely personal development opportunity, but also provides the company with a process and a structure for identifying top performers, and planning for optimal organizational success.
Action Profile #2: Developing Critical Assessment Skills in HRMs
Scenario: Recognizing that strong assessment skills are perhaps the most critical skill for a Human Resources Manager to possess, this client wanted to provide an interactive, hands-on workshop steeped in the practical aspects of completing a full-scope leadership assessment. They wanted their HRMs to be confident in how to form hypotheses and interpret data when assessing talent, and to be comfortable delivering constructive feedback and coaching.
Response: The company asked Incite Strategies to become its provider of assessment training focused on improving the skill sets and competencies of experienced HR professionals globally.
Proposition: Can assessment be taught? Can experienced HR professionals benefit from further developing a skill such as assessment? Is it possible to teach and utilize this assessment technique across a global audience of HRMs?
Action: Incite Strategies continues to deliver the Assessment Workshop globally focused on improving and upgrading the assessment capabilities of HR leaders around the world. Every year, Incite Strategies works with hundreds of HRMs to assess thousands of high-potential leaders across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Australia. What a fabulous opportunity to assess talent from across the globe truly making Incite Strategies an expert in international assessment and the nuances of global leadership.
Action Profile #3: Hiring for Promotion, Not Just Position
Scenario: A company’s business operating leaders demonstrated strong on the job operational performance, but were weak on assessing internal or external candidates for promotion or hire. In this case, the organization’s leadership planning was at stake. Too often warm bodies were put into roles out of impatience, instead of taking the time and making the investment to hire or promote the right individual.
Response: Incite Strategies was brought in to deliver Interview and Assessment Skills training with a focus on delivering applicable skills to operating leaders on how to assess talent across the spectrum for ‘can do, will do and fit.’
Proposition: Can business managers be taught how to hire for promotion and potential, not simply for position?
Action: Incite Strategies embedded new skills in upper management on how to assess talent to make the best hiring and placement decisions. The end result? Providing skills that led to more effective interviews using an assessment technique and stronger identification of top candidates. Feedback was tremendous. Two such comments: “Every business leader needs to have this training” and “This is the most practical and valuable training I have ever received.”
Action Profile #4: Creating a Customized Leadership Development Experience
Scenario: A Fortune 100 global firm wanted to find a company that could create a customized leadership development curriculum which focused on their specific needs and issues. They did not want an off-the-shelf solution which wouldn’t resonate with their leadership team.
Response: The company hired Incite Strategies to research, recommend and develop a four-tier leadership development curriculum that created impact with each participant.
Proposition: Could a curriculum be developed that resonated with each participant because it was so clearly developed with their business in mind? Would participants engage fully in the course and view it as an experience that would change the way they viewed themselves as leaders, and more importantly, lead to sustainable action and change when they returned to work?
Action: Incite Strategies developed a customized ‘experience’ that targets leadership across all levels of the organization, from entry-level to executive. Each course is based on the same fundamentals: it is interactive, based on self-awareness, and driven by dialogue. Course feedback consistently tells us that these ‘experiences’ have forever altered, in a very positive manner, how individuals view themselves as leaders, and how effective they are at sustaining positive change when they return to business after the program ends. The skills learned are put to use, not put on a shelf.
Action Profile #5: Delivering a High-Impact Development Program to Drive Retention
Scenario: Facing tumultuous times, a competitive landscape, and a looming retention issue, this client wanted to develop a series of ‘personal development’ workshops which would be delivered that employees would view as a company-sponsored event aimed at their personal career development.
Response: Incite Strategies created a series of 90-minute "lunch and learn" workshops with the goal of providing applicable tools designed to help employees manage their own careers.
Proposition: In the craziness of a traditional workday, would employees actually make the time to take advantage of an opportunity to focus on their personal development? Would employees realize the value and benefit of this company-sponsored benefit and would it drive good-will?
Action: The sessions were an overwhelming success and as ‘the buzz’ grew, subsequent sessions were increasingly attended. The goal was to provide interactive workshops focused on personal development that would resonate very personally with each employee. Topics included ‘Managing Your Personal Brand,’ ‘REAL Communication,’ ‘Leveraging Your Network,’ and ‘Incite on Leadership.’
Action Profile #6: Utilizing the HBDI to Build Team Effectiveness
Scenario: A Fortune 50 firm wanted to kick off their operating year with a series of ‘team building’ events designed to enhance the effectiveness of their functional and operational leaders and their teams. Each individual team committed to spending a day together focused on improving their ability to work together. The company was cautious that the ‘team building’ event had to deliver substance, not fluff. In other words, the end result had to be steeped in business application which would drive appropriate behaviors relevant in the business community.
Response: Incite Strategies created, launched and delivered a series of one-day HBDI Team Effectiveness workshops with these groups. The dialogue which ensued was critical to optimizing team performance as the relevance of each individual to the overall group effectiveness became heightened.
Proposition: Could a team building event be created that would receive an overwhelming response from each participant as being an incredibly valuable use of time – a day that would surely change the way the group worked together and certainly impact their effectiveness immediately?
Action: Incite Strategies worked with each group to drive a dialogue and increase awareness about the preferences of each individual on the team, as well as provided tremendous insights into the biases and preferences of the team as they worked together collectively. The feedback was tremendous. Not only was there an immediate impact on each individual's performance, but also on the overall ability of the team to work together, make decisions, drive change, and contribute to the bottom line.
Action Profile #7: Working Smarter - Unifying the Organization with the HBDI
Scenario: Seeking to create greater communication and continuity both within and between organizational teams, this organization had successfully deployed the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument on a selective basis. HR now wished to expand the benefits of HBDI training company-wide to provide a common platform on which to discuss organizational and individual capabilities.
Response: The client asked Incite Strategies to build upon the work they were currently doing utilizing the HBDI in selected pockets of the organization and expand it to be utilized as an enterprise-wide instrument.
Proposition: Could HBDI training with Incite Strategies succeed in establishing a common language/framework that would provide insight not only to each employee, but also to the entire organization, in terms of how they approach their culture, communication and change?
Action: Incite Strategies implemented an HBDI training and activity plan that enabled the company to create a common platform of language and goal identification from which to communicate. Employees became better able to understand each other’s respective contributions and work together more harmoniously. The organizations’ inherent leadership styles are now valued for the unique contributions that each style brings. As a whole, the organization is much better equipped to understand their organizational strengths and development needs and has a process for approaching major business issues and strategic imperatives.