Issue: Moving the organization from being the largest in their industry to being the leader

Solution: Develop the organization into a talent factory and drive growth through making a step change in people development

Results: Improvement in the bottom four employee engagement metrics

While AkzoNobel might not be a household name, many of its products are. Brand names such as Glidden and Dulux have made AkzoNobel the world’s largest coatings and specialty chemicals manufacturers. But being the largest wasn’t good enough for this organization; they wanted to be the industry leader. And they knew the challenge ahead hinged on developing their people and leaders.

Recent employee engagement surveys revealed that the organization faced some challenges, particularly in the areas of resource allocation, leadership support for individual development, coaching support, and feedback mechanisms.

Senior leadership felt the most powerful plan of attack would be to start with the frontline leaders to shore up their skills and then work the training up the leadership ranks of the organization. The challenge coupled with this approach meant training 11,000 people in the first wave of delivery.

The organization was already using The Ken Blanchard Companies^®’ Situational Leadership^® II (SLII^®) program successfully and had the full support of senior leadership to make it a cornerstone of the new curriculum and the driver of a consistent leadership language throughout the organization’s worldwide structure.

Several events merged with the plans to deploy training. First, AkzoNobel acquired a 30,000 person organization. Second, they divested another part of their business. Third, they divested a portion of the newly acquired organization to pay for the acquisition. Still, senior leadership felt confident about the massive and eminent leadership training deployment. And it seemed like a good idea. But a month later, the world economy collapsed, causing huge challenges with funding and deployment.

But the leadership team remained undaunted and recommitted to the original plan. They were adamant about creating one AkzoNobel and not compromising on people development, safety, and serving the customer despite the current challenges.

So, the management development group embarked on a plan to train more than 3,000 people in 35 locations and 17 languages. The team decided to tackle the deployment in two waves and they worked to create a curriculum that worked globally and could be delivered in a way that kept the content and experience consistent while preserving some of the local cultural flavor. The initial rollout and delivery plan took 18 months and, to date, results have been very positive.

New employee engagement stats show increases in the following areas:

• A nine-point increase in employees feeling that they have the support and resources needed to do their job
• An eight-point increase in the organization’s health and safety performance
• A six-point increase in employees’ perception that senior management provides a clear picture of the organization’s direction
• A five-point increase in managers’ ability to provide regular feedback on performance

Based on the success of their current training deployment, AkzoNobel plans to forge forward. Future plans include: training frontline employees in Situational Self Leadership (an additional 3,000 mid-level managers), train 500 senior leaders in Situational Leadership® II, utilize Blanchard’s 21 Days to Becoming an Effective Situational Leader product to sustain, and imbed the concepts of SLII^® into their culture.

With a key deployment behind them, AkzoNobel is wasting no time looking back. They are looking to the future, and have taken great strides to ensure that they meet their goal of becoming the leading coating and specialty chemicals company.