npowerTurnerArupGroupamaSchool ExcellenceBizcre8DigiCarsEmployment Engagement AwardsYes 4 YouthIDF Capital
We’ve worked with npower senior leaders on a one-to-one basis in groups of 5–30 for workshops and training, and created events for over 3000 people at their national conference.
Training
Their brief was to deliver a training programme that is exciting, engaging and intelligent to bond the team and support their aspirations to create great ideas for their customers.
We brought new methods of thinking to the npower team and enabled them to experiment with behaviours and thinking techniques that unlocked new ideas. When you are a focused, busy and a professional person, it is often difficult to rise above the issues and invest time to think. It’s a challenge to remain objective and constantly seek fresh perspectives.
We took them out of their environment by conducting the training in external venues like schools and community centres. The teams created new ideas for their customers and also for themselves; new ways of working together to problem solve. Several of the ideas that were developed have gone on to be among npower’s most successful propositions. Energised and inspired by their own fresh and creative thinking, the team was then challenged to share this new way of working with others. We created viral creative thinking!
It worked! And here’s feedback from the delegates:
“I am happy and proud to be part of npower.”
“Great! Really motivational and fun, and I learned so much.”
“Excellent! So much better than all the previous conferences.”
“Great work, senior management!”
“After 20 years in other companies, npower feels like a breath of fresh air…”
“Thanks for making me feel proud!”
Events
Their brief was to create an operational staff conference that is different, fresh and stimulating. When tasked with creating a conference that engages 3000 of their staff, members asked us to avoid a series of “talking heads” in a conference hall. They asked: “How do we get the key messages about living our brand values across in a fun, engaging and memorable way?”
Remember the Confucius saying:
“Tell me something, and I will forget. Show me something and I may remember. Let me do it, and I will understand.”
Working with the planning team on the conference, think facilitated a number of creative-thinking sessions where the team were encouraged to use thinking techniques to break the old rules of what a conference is. We worked on metaphor and enabled the team to explore; what other situations are there where people have to get together and engage in lots of new experiences? Like a trip to the zoo, doing circuits in the gym or what about a theme park?
Imagine taking all the brand values or key messages that you want to convey in a conference, and creating a zone of interactive activities to support each one. What would those zones be called and what activities would there be?
This thinking created some really exciting and fresh thoughts, and we went on to create a conference that wasn’t a conference! Since when is a conference not boring? When it’s at a theme park!
The emotional response from the analogy is fantastic: What thoughts and feelings arise when you think of a theme park? Fun – Excitement – Anticipation – Surprise – Learning!
Turner has 130 branded channels in 27 languages in more than 200 countries. Their brands include CNN, Cartoon Network and TCM, and we’ve worked with their teams in Atlanta, Mumbai and the UK.
When one of the most exciting and creative organisations in the world asks if you can support them in their ambition to ensure that they spread innovation and creative-thinking best practice throughout their organisation, then you know you’re doing something right!
They read our book ‘think’, heard of our work, and knew we could add something unique. First on the list of their values is ‘Creativity’.
Their statement on creativity:
“We thrive on innovation and originality, encouraging risk-taking and divergent voices.”
This is inspired and visionary, but not always easy to deliver across the whole organisation.
Following a period of initial consultancy, think designed and delivered a programme of activities including:
- Lunchtime learning sessions enabling people to take time to think and learn new tools.
- Facilitation of senior leaders’ conversations.
- Several ‘Power of three’ (Po3) workshops with Water Aid and Save the Children.
- Consultancy and training on innovation management for their 360-degree innovation team.
It is critical to Turner that companies within their group, IPC and all the Time Warner Companies, ensure they keep all their people at the leading edge of innovation and creative-thinking skills. Working with think enables them to do just that, and also encouraged consistency of skills across the different teams.
Arup is a global independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists. We’re proud to have worked with them over the past six years.
Arup has offices all over the world and are they are working on many of the world’s most sustainable projects and iconic buildings: From the Sydney Opera House and the Centre Pompidou in Paris to the Beijing and London Olympics, Arup enables the brightest and the best to create the most thrilling and amazing projects.
Their ethos is “We Shape a Better World” and we’re delighted to have helped them deliver that. We’ve supported Arup in a number of ways from strategic training and in-depth mentoring to stimulating workshops and memorable events.
We have facilitated effective, strategic conversations at Windsor Castle with their senior leaders enabling them to have the time and the tools to think more deeply about critical issues.
Two examples which demonstrate the fresh approach we bring:
- The sculpture workshop for directors, where they invested time discussing issues while getting to know each other better through the creation of a sculpture. It was a stimulating and highly-effective process that enabled them to cut through to key issues.
- When we were tasked to enable the team to consider the Arup brand, we brought them to their senses! During a workshop, a cross-divisional team was asked to select materials that would have a taste, feel, smell, look, and sound. They chose flavours and fabrics, perfumes and foods, music and sound effects. Presented with the challenge to present their brand through the senses, the team became deeply engaged in debates around what the brand meant to them on a deeper level, while using more refreshing language.
The materials; including sparklers, chocolate, lemons and music, enabled the team to move away from the normal corporate language. One of the insights was that Arup was “fizzing with intelligence” – one of the most powerful internal branding statements we’ve ever encountered, and one that would not have been created without the stimulus of a pack of sparklers.
We have designed and run workshops on a wide range of topics from teamwork and creative thinking to successful bidding, and considering their brand proposition and conversations about the management of highly intelligent and creative people.
Working with Arup, we are inspired to continually create new and exciting ways to train, engage, support and nudge their highly intelligent teams giving them new ways to think, as well as the time and opportunity to do just that.
When you work with the most creative and intelligent people in the world, it’s always exciting and they inspire us to continually grow our skills and services to support them.
Groupama is the 2nd largest mutual insurer in the world, based in Paris, France.
Key Successes
- Over 200 people in the organisation trained in the capability of creative thinking and innovation management.
- Hundreds of ideas submitted for the first challenges.
- Over £500,000 of net value identified from the initial idea analysis.
- An internal idea management system was built, saving thousands of £ annually and enabling greater flexibility.
- External partners; brokers and underwriters engaged in the process.
Groupama Challenge
How can we create the capabilities and capacity to be innovative everywhere in our organisation, to give us a competitive advantage and help us grow our business?
Since 2008, think has been the strategic innovation management consultant supporting Groupama to develop an effective approach to company-wide, sustainable innovation. After design, trial and development the system is now mature enough to be used as a tool, focused on adding millions of £ to their bottom line through a series of innovation challenges posed to the organisation.
Background
Established over 100 years ago in the French farming community, Groupama is now a major European insurance and banking group with over 39,000 employees worldwide, serving over 16 million customers in 14 countries.
In line with their vision and values, Groupama was looking at innovation across the organisation and recognised the need for a strategic approach. Lynn Harris identified that innovation in Groupama was ‘clumpy’ and lacking in strategic focus, when she was asked by Laurant.
Matras – Groupama Managing Director and the executive team to head up a project to consider their approach to innovation. Lynn began with researching best practice in strategic innovation management globally.
Challenges, Opportunities and Best Practice?
As part of this research, Groupama contacted our think team, which worked with Groupama to create a proposal for the board. The approach was pragmatic in looking at the 10 steps of successful innovation management and how those could be applied. The presentation was well received, and approval was given to proceed with the plan. It was critical that the plan aligned with the vision and values of Groupama, and that it was delivered to leverage the skills and resources of their internal teams where possible.
In line with think’s ‘people first’ approach, the key areas identified were:
People
- Engaging people who may have ‘innovation fatigue’
- Breaking down misconceptions of innovation and creative thinking
- Ensuring we focused the energy of the teams on areas critical to the growth of the business
- Keeping momentum and energy going in the delivery team
- Expectation management (not all ideas will be adopted)
- Training provided as widely as possible to ensure capability for creative thinking was developed
- Support and training on idea selection
- Celebrate success
Process
- Develop and maintain an idea management system
- Develop training and support for use of the system
- Ensure clarity of objectives
- Create a plan which outlined the menu of tactics that would make up the plan for the following 18 months
- Develop and manage internal communications
- Ensure the team knew who was expected to deliver what elements
- Share innovation documents on the internal Wiki
- Create an area on the intranet to support innovation and creative thinking
The think Approach: People then Process
Given the go-ahead by the board, the first task was to recruit a team to put together the 18-month plan, with an allocated budget to bring the plan to life. The team was headed up by Liz Kuhler who had the experience of the company and training in psychology so she was able to look holistically at innovation throughout the organisation, from innovation management systems to training and internal communications.
Armed with the knowledge that poor practice for innovation management would be to simply ask the whole organisation for their ideas, without giving any structure or guidance, the strategic challenges the organisation were facing were identified.
It was important to get an active engagement as soon as possible so an interim solution would be for small teams to work on innovation on a ‘per project’ basis. This worked effectively with over 20 business improvement solutions put in place. However, this tactical short-term approach did not address the need to develop a sustainable innovation culture for the future.
It was agreed that the most effective approach would be a people/process solution:
- People would be trained, not only to use the system, but also how to think in new and energising ways.
- People would be taught how to be creative, and how to use the system to post their ideas and share.
- The ‘process’ solution would be the installation of an innovation system, and processes and procedures would be built around this system.
- The structure and guidance came in the form of a number of innovation challenges identified by the board. These challenges would be measurable and would be tackled through a number of events throughout the year.
The People Solution
Idea champions were engaged; chosen because of their perceived skill in championing innovation, regardless of management level or job function. The champions were trained as experts in idea creation and support. They were tasked to embed creativity and innovation capabilities across the organisation. They were pre-briefed on the strategic challenges and were responsible for encouraging others to organise events. Innovation champions were given a toolkit to set up workshops, enabling them to replicate think events.
The think innovation model was used to underpin all of the innovation management planning:
Absorption > Explosion > Consolidation > Action > Capitalisation
The challenges were brought forward by the board and presented in the absorption phase.
- Idea champions were to work on the ‘Explosion’ phase of the think process: Idea generation.
- Idea experts were tasked to support the ‘Consolidation’ phase: Bring the ideas to life.
Each role has its own unique skill set and as such had specific training and development opportunities.
The internal communications campaign that was developed internally at Groupama dovetailed into their intranet called ‘Genie’. The addition of a ‘us’ suffix made it ‘GENIUS’ – also what the innovation system was named. The Groupama Ant, Anton, was transformed into ‘ANTSTEIN’ to convey engagement messages.
The Process Solution
Once the capabilities building had begun in the teams, then the process would be fully supported. The process was to be challenge-based. A new challenge every couple of months would be sent out to the teams, and using the innovation model below, colleagues would develop ideas to put onto the idea management system.
To create ideas about the challenges, a series of innovation events were managed by the Innovation Champions and the results fed into the idea management system (IMS); Genius.
Initially, Groupama considered buying IMS but decided to build their own, and with consultancy from think, they’ve built Genius. The Genius system is now live across Groupama and will be subject to a programme of continual improvement as the strategy progresses. As challenges are posted on the system, the results are being tracked and closely monitored to ensure support is offered where needed to ensure success.
Following the 10-Step Plan and Continual Improvement
Over the past three years, think has successfully worked with the Board of Directors, senior leadership team, and Groupama colleagues working in IT and HR, and in offices across the UK. The whole process has followed the 10-step strategic plan originally pitched to the board; it has been supported across the management levels and departments and all over the UK.
Internal communication such as the use of posters, The Buzz (the Groupama newsletter) and the intranet GENIE are used to ensure that innovation is built into the DNA of Groupama. The use of the existing character of Anton, who has become Antstein in relation to the innovation programme has been well received.
Next Steps
Phase one has seen a lot of success, mainly in the embedding of the infrastructure required to support a culture of innovation. Now we’re beginning to see the success of this approach in terms of output.
Phase two is concerned with celebrating the success to date, continual improvement on the infrastructure, ongoing board support and keeping the programme fresh, vibrant and relevant. This embedding phase encourages acceptance and engagement to have more traction.
Innovation is constant and never ending, and as such continual improvement is critical so we will always be asking:
- Have people been trained sufficiently?
- Are leaders of the business on board?
- Is there a champion for the whole innovation programme?
- Do the key ideas have champions to support them and drive them?
- Are the internal communications supporting the innovation programme fresh and engaging?
- Is innovation built into the DNA of the business from recruitment onwards?
- Is creative thinking noticed – is idea generation a KPI?
- How is an individual’s contribution to innovation being recognised and celebrated?
- How well are we doing in terms of engaging external partners?
- Are we constantly reviewing best practice in innovation management?
- Have we identified all the blockers and pinch points that are hindering the flow of innovation, and what are we doing about them?
- Are we ensuring that the successes of the programme are being understood and celebrated fully?
- Have we got the right idea champions and are they being supported fully?
A process of continual improvement for the people and process is now planned, together with on-going celebration of success.
How think South Africa enables creative change management and 21st-century learning in schools.
In 2014, think SA designed a school turnaround programme: School Excellence. The customisable programme, which is applicable from ECD through to Higher Education, was officially endorsed by the World Design Capital CT as an initiative that uses creativity and innovation for change management, educator capacity building for 21st-century learning, and learner-critical future-skills development.
The think SA School Excellence programme encompassed SMT capacity building using innovation skills training to help the school to:
- Develop a strategy for 21st-century learning
- Enable the SMT to use our model to solve problems
- Use a creative framework for whole school development
This process was underpinned by:
- A detailed needs analysis and critical review of the school
- A principal vision-building intervention
- Educator buy-in
- Innovation workshops with the SMT
- A calendar plan of initiatives to drive 21st-century learning
The Educator programme included:
- Experiential learning; with real-life immersion into the corporate world and the need for developing 21st-century skills to equip learners for the future.
- The Teach for Tomorrow programme, workshops and skills interventions equipped educators with the skills and resources to enable creative classroom management, and adopt new learning methods such as flip the classroom and other contemporary approaches.
- The post-intervention coaching programme enabled educators to develop their new learning techniques and practically apply these in their classrooms.
The classroom makeover or library conversion into think labs creates a visual guideline for the school on how to practically create a complete turn around in mindset, and enable learner buy-in through practical makeovers in the classroom or library.
How think South Africa shapes the eco-system of Entrepreneur Development.
think SA was approached by the chairperson of a Social Enterprise at the end of 2015 to help re-shape their grassroots youth entrepreneur development programme in the Green Economy after two failed attempts.
think SA has helped Sophiatown the Mix and Bizcre8 achieve:
- The re-design of their ED programme into youth green business idea pipelines; a pipeline of ready-to-be-activated businesses and an acceleration pipeline to feed into the broader accelerator eco-system of South Africa.
- ED programme re-branding and subsequent re-brand of the entire organisation and re-design of all their programming streams in youth development; arts, culture and heritage.
- Ide8 programme designed and facilitated by think SA with a total of 106 new green businesses having been activated to date after an intense business modelling and coaching programme. The DBSA target was 90 green businesses over a three-year period. Over 150 youth attended.
- Continued Strategic Support to the ops team and board.
- Green Bizcre8 in the space of 12 months has officially been recognised on the South African ED Eco-System as a Youth Incubator.
- Green Bizcre8 has received the Gauteng Premier’s Award for their contribution to the Green Economy.
Digi Cars launched in September 2018 on a mission to disrupt the car buying & selling sector in South Africa. They have been working with Think SA since May 2019 to help them actualize the vision with innovation, process and pace
Client Challenge:
Transitioning from traditional car sales to an innovative customer centric approach and scaling for growth since launch.
The following objectives were set:
- To conduct a 360-degree organisational deep dive to establish what was needed to enable successful strategy execution and organisational culture turn-around.
- To lay the foundations for vision execution and enable a superior customer experience
- To develop sound corporate governance; HR & operations capabilities.
What we did next?
Our Innovation Plumbing Process uncovered the critical elements required to build a truly innovative business. We focused on Operations, Culture & Vision to gain a deeper insight into Digi Cars and lay the foundation for innovation implementation.
Innovation Foundation Building outputs Phase 1:
The Think SA business case for employee engagement as an enabler for innovation
Creative engagement that sparks the imagination of all stakeholders is critical in driving organisational excellence and true innovation. Engagement coupled with Action is the true silver bullet at Think SA. When our clients see us not only unpack the innovative solutions but put in place the operational enablers to drive execution – our relationship transitions from service provider to strategic business partner.
The foundation for true innovation stem from organisational engagement and the process has to start at the Boardroom! For innovation to be sustainable – it requires a seat at the table!
The Digi Cars Shareholders are a great example of how an organisation can turn its perceived challenges into incredible opportunities for business transformation by adopting an authentic engagement process not just with employees but with external partners, suppliers and their customers.
Digi Cars engaged with us initially with a view to stabilisation of the operations and vision re-alignment, however the relationship has now charted a new phase, in which we will provide them with continued Innovation culture building support as well as innovation pipeline project management.
Our work with Digi Cars SA won think SA an accolade at the 2019 All Africa Employee Engagement Awards – walking away as the category winners for First Step Engagement.
Think SA is amazing! They have really helped us to stabilise Digi Cars and helped our Shareholders to uncover our true business potential at a pivotal time. They have provided us with the foundation for future growth and success and are paving the way for innovation across the business and at every touch point. I don’t see them as consultant’s now, I view them as our most valued strategic business partners.
CEO – Digi Cars South Africa
YES approached think SA to design, develop and execute Agri bootcamps which would help them identify high potential Agri-preneurs and empower youth with critical start up skills.
Client Challenge:
Accurate pre-selection of high potential Agri entrepreneurs for an Agri learnership programme and Agri-preneurship.
The following objectives were set:
Design & Deliver a Bootcamp which will be used as a selection mechanism for the Agri-Incubator in Tembisa
Bootcamp outcomes need to help selectors identify leadership, entrepreneurial and innovation thinking competencies of participants
A targeted 60 pre-screened delegates were allocated into groups of 3 for a 2-day bootcamps
The bootcamp needed to include a post intervention assessment custom designed by Think SA
What we did next?
We custom designed the 2-day bootcamp around the think SA innovation model. In addition to facilitation we managed the external suppliers involved in certain aspects and developed assessment tools that YES could use for delegate selection into the learnership and incubation programme.
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Keep teaching young minds to be creative
It was a great opportunity to learn – there is more to agriculture then just being a farmer
This was an eye opener in the field of agri-preneurship a very informative bootcamp – Amazing content
Thank You so much for this opportunity may you grow from strength to strength
I would like to attend more bootcamps like this in the future
This bootcamp was fantastic I learnt a lot!
The bootcamp helped me get out of my comfort zone – I learnt more about myself through the profiling
IDF Capital aims to be the pre-eminent advisor and entrepreneurial financier in Africa, taking entrepreneurship to a new level of excellence by unlocking and facilitating growth. Think SA in partnership with Summertime Creatives led the entrepreneurial bootcamp process for IDF youth intakes – supporting the high potential tech start ups with innovative business model development & supporting IDF in effective benefactor selection.
Client Challenge:
Identifying high potential tech start up entrepreneurs who have investment ready with high potential & viable business models.
The following objectives were set:
1. Using the think innovation model over a 6 week period to help start ups develop, test & pivot their initial business concepts into robust start up business models underpinned with a strong innovative & competitive advantage
2. To establish the start up brand & get entrepreneurs pitch ready
3. IDF recommendation reporting
What we did next?
The process helped simplify the way I express my business offerings as well as provided me with a clear differentiator in doing so.
I am now able to articulate my value proposition clearly and understand who I am selling too
The team helped me focus on my business model to understand how I can commercialize the business better
The overall experience was very enlightening and has empowered me to ask tough questions in developing my solution
The process assisted with understanding my team capabilities through a deeper appreciation of their personalities as well as being able to set tasks for ideas to be implemented
