Client News - 2009 projects
Read on to find out about the leadership development work Oxford Leadership Academy is doing with some of the world’s leading corporations, including McDonald’s, global telecom giant Telefónica (read the Case Study) and leading paint and decorator multinational Akzo Nobel.
We are proud to continue our leadership team development work with McDonald’s which began in April 2002 when the company was in crisis and their share price had tumbled from $38 to $12. Since then, we have supported the company through 4 consecutive CEOS and one of the most successful turnarounds in history. The McDonald’s share price is now $52 and the company has experienced 65 consecutive months of comparable same store sales growth.
Our successful partnership with Global Telecom giant Telefónica has been expanded following the unprecedented success of our Strategic Culture Change programme. This far-reaching intervention involves a team of 12 Academy Faculty led by Brian Bacon, Rolf Pfeiffer, Juan Carlos Murillo, Jorge Castañeda and Lasse Wrennmark. We are delivering our high impact leadership programmes to the top 1200 leaders throughout the world at the Telefónica Corporate University in Barcelona.
We are also supporting global paint and decorator giant Akzo Nobel following their acquisition of ICI. Managing Director Tex Gunning is leading a strategic leadership development programme to build community, create alignment and ‘Ignite the Spirit’. Beginning with his top management team, the programme continues throughout 2009 within all business units throughout UK, Continental Europe, USA, Canada, Latin America, China, India and SE Asia. This is what Tex Gunning has to say about this work:
Ignite the Spirit Leadership development programme conducted by Oxford Leadership Academy, in cooperation with Future Firm is based on the recognition that we all intuitively know what “great” looks and feels like. We instinctively know what makes a great family; we know how great organizations should look and feel; and we know how great leaders should act and portray themselves. However, in many cases we’re not able to live up to the ideal picture and we face a gap between the current reality and the ideal situation we call “great”. The leadership development training helps us to bridge the gap between what we aspire to and what we actually are.
To understand what’s preventing us from being great leaders, we need to understand what causes those gaps. What are the barriers, what are the patterns, what are the underlying causes that prevent us and our business from being great? The leadership training aims to help us become conscious about what has shaped us, what blocks us and what our underlying motivation and attitudes are that we bring to our leadership. It will stimulate us to become detached observers of our self and to start a conversation with our self. Building a meaningful relationship with our self will support us to define ourselves from the inside out, instead of the outside in. The quality of the relationship that we build up with our self equals the quality of the relationship that we build up with those that we lead. If we are able to lead ourselves, we will truly be able to mobilize those we lead, unlock the potential of the organization and turn it into growth for our business. Together we will build a community which can be characterized as cohesive, inclusive, respectful, trustworthy and inspired. “
Tex Gunning, Managing Director, Akzo Nobel
In 2009 we also continue our work with Unilever, the Girl Scouts of USA and Watson Wyatt.
Our global reach enabled us to deliver programmes in 28 countries in 2008. This will be extended even further in 2009, with major new developments in Brazil with fast moving consumer goods company Nutrimental, which we began in 1998. This is what Chairman and CEO, Rodrigo Loures had to say about our work:
Oxford Leadership enabled us to build a new corporate culture based on trust & collaboration, focused on the development of the whole company in an eco-based way, instead of the traditional command-control and competitive ego-based way, which had previously restricted our growth corporately and personally. The Oxford Leadership approach is a pragmatic way of getting business results by connecting people with spirit, wholeness and learning."
Rodrigo Loures, CEO, Nutrimental Foods, Brazil. Chairman of the Confederation of Employers, Brazil.
2009 is already shaping up to be Oxford Leadership Academy's busiest year to date, and activity is expected to expand and increase into 2010 and beyond.
