Success Stories

Venture projects and stories of IMPM impact

During the IMPM, each company team (or individual manager) develops an “Impact Venture,” an individual program-long project focused on bringing about change in their own work environment.

Building responsible brands in India

Two senior managers partnered to take their organizations forward in new and challenging ways. One from Coca-Cola was based in India; the other was a senior adviser with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. The former wished to develop his company’s distinctive brand in India, building its commitment to social responsibility. The latter wanted to show her colleagues how partnering with corporations could help achieve humanitarian objectives more efficiently. Coca-Cola pledged to place its logistical facilities at the service of the Red Cross / Red Crescent in the event of natural disaster. It also agreed to provide safe drinking water to rural villages near its plants. The Red Cross / Red Crescent provided expert advice on these arrangements and publicly certified their quality and value.

The two organizations actively collaborated during the Tsunami of 2005. Volunteers from Coca-Cola teamed up with the Red Crescent team to carry out relief work. Coca-Cola also donated US$110,000 to the Red Crescent and provided drinking water to the affected communities. Since the system had already been put in place, the response time was impressive and today, many of Coca-Cola’s plants in India continue to provide safe drinking water to the neighbouring communities.

Outcome: the Indian Red Cross / Red Crescent is now able to provide better emergency facilities and rural villagers receive clean water. Coca-Cola’s reputation as a good corporate citizen has been strengthened in India.

In another Venture project, a senior Indian manager was determined to combine high commercial impact with a real expression of corporate social responsibility. He proposed to his company, Apollo, one of India’s leading tyre manufacturers, that they meet a critical social need of one of their key market segments: independent lorry drivers, who suffer from a high incidence of HIV-AIDS. He went out on a limb to provide real leadership and commitment to a venture that eventually led to specialist clinics in several large lorry transshipment depots across India, in collaboration with expert NGOs. This made a significant contribution to a challenging health problem, while creating exposure for the company as a responsible organization serving the needs of the new India.

Everyone onboard for change in Canada

A North American plant manager’s Venture began by looking at ways in which he could make health and safety a higher profile issue in his company and, at the same time, improve his own leadership and coaching skills. As the program unfolded, he began to recognize more clearly the central role of teaching and coaching in the change process. His commitment to health and safety issues, along with his direct involvement with plant employees, helped establish a consensus for the need to change the health and safety record. A shift in behaviour began to take place as plant employees adopted the new culture. They enjoyed being fully engaged in the new agenda, which led to improved health and safety. At the same time, the manager was able to test and develop his capacity to lead and create change through a process through which he received valuable feedback from colleagues and staff.

Addressing the generation gap

A major Asian company was facing the challenges of a widening generation gap among its employees, and a culture gap when operating abroad. A team of company managers (some based in Asia, others abroad) wondered whether it would increase motivation, commitment and integration if they could introduce more fun into the workplace. This was their starting point. But as they explored the issues more deeply, they began to discover a great deal about their own personal commitment, the real meaning of walking the talk, and the central relevance of trust. To their surprise, these reflections led them to approach the question of fun at work in a way that made them far stronger managers, and increased their understanding of their role and responsibilities in ways that would otherwise never have been possible.

Launching a new company culture

“My Company had just announced its decision to spin-off one of their largest global businesses, over US $5 billion in revenue with 22,000 employees in 19 countries across the world.  It was an exciting time for the new company. The spin-off and change in company identity gave us a brief window of opportunity to influence a much-needed change in corporate culture – from bureaucratic and slow to more competitive and innovative. My Venture project was to help this new company shape its culture: to identify and describe the desired culture and understand how we needed to change. 

While our employees and managers were very excited about shaping a new company, a lot of anxiety existed as well. Employees were not sure what the new company would be like and how they would or would not fit into it. I was learning, through the IMPM program, how important it was to take time to observe and reflect on the context and the needs of others before acting. I designed my venture to create a dialog where people could share their experiences, concerns, and begin to imagine and articulate what the future should be. We conducted multiple sessions at a dozen sites across the world, lead by site managers. 

After the sessions, we drafted a set of cultural behaviors introduced by the CEO as our Company’s new “Fundamentals”.  Those who participated in the sessions were energized to see their input included in the Fundamentals. We incorporated these new behaviors into our communication, learning, hiring and performance management systems. We also used the Fundamentals to measure the progress of our cultural change through a bi-annual employee survey called “FreeSpeak”.  While these system changes were important, we discovered that the conversations themselves were even more important to affecting the desired cultural change. The dialogs helped participants and leaders understand that they shared many of the same concerns and hopes.  Site leaders and employees took further action as a result of the sessions, creating a ripple effect of conversations and actions throughout the organization. Most importantly, this venture incited people to change themselves and influence others.  Looking back, it was key to launching our Company’s new culture.”

- Senior HR Leader of a global technology company