When managers get promoted, they often don’t get the support they need, when they need it. Getting them on a course can take time and by that point they may have got into poor habits. With the Manager Fast Start Programme, New Balance are able to put their new managers onto the programme on the day they are promoted and in just 6 weeks they have built the capability and confidence to become successful new managers.
The challenge for New Managers at New Balance
New Balance love promoting managers from within. However, with this happening at anytime and anywhere, NB recognised that they needed to support those managers during their first few weeks. In addition, previous experience had taught them that simply giving people access to e-learning was not enough to build the confidence new managers need around having some of those challenging conversations for the first time. NB needed a way to get their new managers up to speed quickly and build great habits from the start.
Why New Balance Chose The Experience Works
The New Balance EMEA L&D Manager had already come across what The Experience Works does to enable people to practice and described it as “The best way to pragmatically develop people’s soft skills”. She recognized that only practice really changes behavior and that practice needed feedback from a trained professional. When we told her about the Leadership Sprints product, she immediately saw that it would meet her need to get new managers up to speed quickly and so we called it the “Manager Fast Start Programme”, because that’s exactly what it did!
How The Experience Works Responded
The Leadership sprints product combines some simple video-based e-learning with practice.
We have identified the 6 key conversations that new managers need to build their confidence with. They are: giving feedback, coaching a team member, dealing with poor performance, well-being, managing at a distance and the upward conversation. The new manager gets invited to an online portal, where they are given access to about 30 minutes of great video content, covering some of the key concepts for each of the 6 conversations; they then book their 1-1 PRO session and choose their scenario. When they have their session, they have a full hour, with a trained Practice Coach, to try out that conversation, get feedback and do it better. By the end of 6 weeks, they are ready to handle any crucial conversation that comes their way.
The Results
Immediately before and after each session we ask four questions on how Knowledgeable, Confident, and Prepared they feel for this type of conversation and how they feel about the Outcome. In just one-hour confidence has been boosted by 34%.
- I can’t help but feel that the training that I undertook prepared me in the best way possible to achieve the intended outcome. Although the scenario was different to some of the ones practiced in the manager fast start programme, I was able to take common practices from all those in creating a safe space, building trust and utilising those techniques.
- Was just a note to say thank you! Although we don’t want to have these types of conversations, I’ve never had to have this type of conversation before so was a little nervous going into it. But now that I have had this conversation and through its success, I feel that it has made me more comfortable in being able to address these types of conversations in the future!”
- Alejandra is a fantastic coach and is great person to work with. She gives great feedback and pushed me out of my comfort zone to think about how I would have a difficult conversation in real life. I like that we did things a second time as it helped me to improve in specific areas such as end resolution.
- Fantastic. Really enjoyed this alot and learned alot about how to give feedback. Very well structured and informative really clear on how to grow and get more confidence in feedback.
- Another great session!. Allowing the space and constructive feedback to then run through the scenario a 2nd time round to achieve a better conversation as a whole.
And this is what our client said
Tovah Wilde, Talent Manager, “I have loved working with The Experience Works. I really do think their approach is both innovative and actually changes performance. Being able to give all new managers the opportunity to go on Fast Start has been brilliant and I know from talking to them that it has really boosted their confidence in those crucial first couple of months.”