CASE STUDY: Belgacom’s House of Development: creating leaders of the future

By Liz Burt, Communications Management

Belgacom developed the House of Development almost five years ago when it recognised that the business needed a development programme to target and support its current and future leaders.

In response to this ongoing business need, Belgacom has worked with leadership development experts, Mannaz, to design and implement House One, the Leadership Development Centre, which acts as the gateway to many development and training opportunities for the company’s future leaders.

“We are fortunate to have a large population of high potential employees within the business,” explains Lieven Vallaeys, Leadership Manager for Belgacom’s Corporate University, “and, as with any business that wants to grow and succeed, we took steps to invest in this group and lay the foundation for a future pipeline of talent and leaders.”

“Belgacom’s Leadership House offers current and future senior managers within the business the opportunity to develop their management and leadership expertise. By also involving senior executives on the programme it creates a high level of awareness among the existing leadership team about how to identify high potential employees within the business,” explains Sandra Wackens from Mannaz, the external project manager for the programme.

The Leadership House also provides individuals with an insight into different managerial competencies, offers managers the opportunity to try different forms of leadership in a safe learning environment and presents a unique chance for managers to test themselves in different careers.

Building the talent pool

“For many participants the House of Development represents the first step on the management development ladder. The Leadership Development Centre is designed for recent and experienced leaders who are keen and willing to take ownership of their career and their personal and professional development. Participants are current and future senior managers within Belgacom and are individuals we consider to be ‘valuable talent’ within the business,” says Vallaeys.

“Participants are generally managers who can make things happen,” comments Wackens. “In the Centre we offer individuals the tools to reflect on their own career and identify the opportunities to develop themselves and their career options and create success.”

Building the programme

“The Leadership Development Centre has been running for over four years and during this time its core structure has remained much the same. In the last six months we have added an assessment layer to the Centre which means it is about much more than simply developing talent and actually enables us to measure when an individual will be ready to take on leadership responsibilities, whether this might be in six months’ time, in one year or longer,” says Vallaeys.

Although the assessment layer exists, we have been conscious not to create the environment of an assessment ‘centre’. So in addition to scoring managers against preferred skills and behaviours (the assessment element), the Leadership Development Centre is also about helping the business to understand individuals’ preferred ways of learning and understanding in more detail how they will develop.

The design of the Centre recognises that each individual has a different preferred learning style and as such offers participants a mix of business simulations, face-to-face interactions and regular opportunities to reflect on individual and group performance and development.

We also reviewed the programme structure a great deal last year and recognised it could be made more efficient for the business as a whole by removing the overlap on some subjects and refocusing on some of the ‘hard skills’ that are needed within the business. The basis of the redesign was simply a need to refocus on the core competencies relating to the leadership role within Belgacom that we revisited as a company last year.

“The programme is structured to be a complete learning expedition for managers,” explains Wackens. “Prior to each Centre participants are divided into sub-groups and asked to explore a key business area, such as creativity, innovation, cultural change and customer service. Each group is asked to investigate the theory behind each issue and identify creative ideas that already exist or that could be developed to promote this area within the business.”

A crucial element of the Leadership Development Centre for Belgacom is the active involvement of Belgacom executives, who act as coaches and mentors on the programme. “Senior executives participate in a half day workshop on coaching and offering feedback before each Centre. This ensures the Centre participants receive a consistently high level of support, as well as a unique opportunity to interact, work alongside and network with senior managers from the business,” explains Vallaeys. This three day effort is continued afterwards where the paired executive acts as mentor-on-demand to the participants.

Building business impact

The Leadership Development Centre has a positive impact on Belgacom at three distinct levels of the business:

1. On an individual level participants have a unique opportunity to assess their own strengths and development needs compared to the rigorous leadership standards within the organisation, as well as learning how to develop their strengths and build on their weaknesses to maximise their own development and grow within the business.
2. On a team level participants can build on the tools used throughout the Centre and work with the feedback offered from team members to identify ways and opportunities to develop their own and their teams’ efficiency.
3. On an organisational level participants leave the Centre with increased strategic thinking, business sense and change management competencies, which ensures they have the skills and ability to lead the business in the future. Through the involvement of Belgacom’s top management as coaches, the business also benefits from the development of a feedback and coaching culture.

“It is difficult to measure the Learning Development Centre’s financial return on investment for the business,” admits Vallaeys. “However, as a result of some of the new ideas and insights from the Centre, at least two projects this year have been translated and implemented into real business cases.”

The Centre has also had a positive impact on internal networking and teambuilding. Belgacom is a very large organisation, mainly focussing on fixed line and mobile services. As a result of the House, these various business groups have the opportunity to mix and meet each other, share experiences and knowledge and develop strong working relationships.

We also regularly review post-programme evaluation sheets and have also seen a noticeable improvement in the retention levels of employees who have been through the Centre. A less tangible measure is the involvement of the senior executives who participate as coaches during the Centre. Even the CEO takes an active role in one of the sessions. The majority of participants report that this involvement is a positive thing and that they are grateful for the visibility and exposure that their involvement offers them.

Building for the future

“The House of Development concept has been a real success for Belgacom and we are committed to developing more Houses and these will focus on issues such as innovation management, sales and customer care in the future,” says Vallaeys.

One of the major success factors in the Leadership Development Centre has been the active involvement of the company’s current senior managers in the form of executive coaches, who have gained a great deal of insight into coaching from co-coaching alongside Mannaz experts and professional coaches.

In addition, the programme has successfully brought together many parts of the business, such as the strategy, finance and marketing departments, who have all supported the Corporate University in the development and implementation of the programme.

“Developing our own Leadership Development Centre, rather than opting for a business school based solution, has given us the opportunity to create a tailored pathway for our future leaders that keeps managers within the business and presents them with our current and future real business-based issues and problems to consider,” Vallaeys concludes.

For more information on Belgacom’s work with Mannaz and about development centres please call or write an email to Ms. Inger Buus, Managing Director tel. +44 (0)207 845 9942.