Development center leadership programme
Belgacom – The House of Development

What is The House of Development?

The House of Development is a 3,5 day programme which offers each participant an enriching and unique developmental opportunity and insight in their personal career and growth potential.

Based on the concept of a development centre, The House of Development engage participants in a variety of management and leadership exercises on which they receive individual/personalised feedback from professional coaches. The purpose of the different exercises is to offer participants an insight into different managerial competencies, the opportunity to try diverse forms of leadership in a safe learning environment, and a chance to test themselves in different careers.

The rich content of the programme is to be specifically designed by Mannaz Leadership Progress and your company so that it reflects both your organisational challenges and the competencies needed for leaders to be highly effective in your settings.

As we believe in close cooperation between employees, managers and executive/top leaders, The House of Development is designed to include top management from your company in the programme by giving them an active coaching role.

As one of the outcome of The House of Development, participants will leave with a concrete development plan to be implemented back in your organisation with the agreement and support of their direct manager and your HR team.

The Impact of The House of Development?

The House of Development has an impact at three different levels:

On the Individual Level

• Participants get a unique opportunity to make a deep assessment of their strengths and development needs compared to leadership standards within your organisation.
• They learn how to build on their strengths and develop their weaknesses in order to maximize their growth potential and reach their career aspirations.

On the Team Level

• Building on one of the tools used in this programme, participants can use feedback from their team members and identify ways to develop their team’s efficiency.

On the Organisational Level

• By experiencing different business simulations, reflecting on your organisational challenges and strategy, receiving ongoing feedback, and tips from top management, participants increase their strategic thinking, business sense and change management competencies.
• In addition, through the involvement of top management as coaches, the involvement of direct managers, and the HR team in the implementation of the development plan, you will increase the development of a feedback and coaching culture within your organisation.

Why is The House of Development Efficient and Unique?

• It is your House: Jointly designed, the programme will exactly reflect the challenges and specific situations of your organisation.
• The house is designed to create a safe learning environment in a challenging, inspiring yet friendly, warm and fun atmosphere allowing people to feel secure and safe to try new leadership approaches and learn about themselves.
• Top management coaches training: Prior to their involvement as coaches, we offer to the top managers a targeted ½ day Executive Coaching Training.
• Buddy coaches: When observing and giving feedback, your top management coaches will be paired with professional coaches. The professional coaches will contribute to the participants’ assessment and feedback, but they will also coach top managers in their coaching role.
• The Housemaster: We suggest that one of your top managers acts as the Housemaster, introducing the programme to the participants and the coaches together with our Programme Director.
• Venue: A “Maison de Maitre” designed by the famous Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta offers a particularly inspiring and original frame for great learning sessions. Including a large conference room, 4 break-out rooms, a library, a faculty room and a dining room, equipped with all the computer and optimal learning facilities, our Brussels House offers the most appropriate setting for this programme.

Some of the Components of the Programme

• The business simulations deal with topics such as: handling a merge between two departments, meeting with a very angry customer, meeting with a difficult direct report, different task forces, an in-basket or a case study and finally, presentations to management or to the Board of Directors. When needed, our professional coaches play the roles of the counterparts to the participants.
• We can also use a computer-based simulation from INSEAD, which allows participants to test and try change management in an external IT risk free environment.
• Tests and surveys: 3 weeks prior to the House of Development we ask participants to complete some tests, one of which is a personality inventory, the other a Team Maturity Inventory. The personality inventory allows our professional coaches to discuss more deeply different aspects of the individual and helps participants to get to know themselves better. The Team Maturity Inventory is a measure of the participants’ team maturity and satisfaction, and allows participants to evaluate areas of development within their team.
• Reflection and Feedback time: After each simulation, participants receive direct feedback from the professional and the top management coaches. We encourage participants to take note of this feedback and reflect on each simulation so that they capture their key learnings. In order to allow them to do so, we have developed a Logbook, which states a number of different questions for them to reflect upon.
• Report and Development Plan: The programme culminates when participants complete their reports and development plans. Participants spend the last ½ day of the programme summarizing with the help of their professional coaches their key learnings, identifying 3 major strengths, and 3 main developmental needs. When articulating their development plans they focus on change at 3 levels; individual, team and organisation. Participants leave the programme with an action plan to implement/work on at each level.

Contact Mannaz

Please contact us if you have any questions concerning this or other related areas:
Ms. Inger Buss, Director, London