Bespoke programme for global bank wins EFMD award for LBS
The Think Forward Leadership Experience, a programme run jointly by London Business School (LBS) and the Core Leadership Institute (CLI), to accelerate leadership transformation across ING, has won silver in the Organisational Development category of the 2019 EFMD (European Foundation for Management Development) Excellence in Practice awards.
Designed to build a strong performance structure across ING to help the bank achieve its strategy, the programme needed to target around 300 senior leaders and 4,000 line managers. ING’s strategy involved creating a differentiated experience for customers; it also required their staff to place greater emphasis on self-awareness and personal purpose, personal ownership, collaboration and experimentation.
To get people across the bank to understand and embrace these ways of working was a huge undertaking, and it required a new and specific learning initiative.ING sought help from LBS to bring academic rigour to the programme, and from CLI, a global leadership development firm with a focus on leading from purpose.
The result was a unique partnership which delivered a large scale, blended learning journey. The programme involved a mix of face-to-face and online learning, rolled out to cohorts of 96 managers over a 16-week period.
Commenting on the EFMD award win, Lesley Wilkinson, Global Head of Talent and Learning, ING, said: “We are delighted to have won the 2019 EFMD Excellence in Practice Silver Award in the category of ‘Organisational Development’. This is a wonderful recognition of our programme and our team. At ING we know that leadership is one of the distinctive people capabilities that will enable us to live our purpose and deliver the Think Forward strategy. We strongly believe that investing in leadership development is essential to building this capability across our organisation. The collaboration with LBS and CLI has been at the heart of delivering this global programme.”
From LBS, the faculty team is led by Costas Markides, Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship, (pictured) Kathleen O’Connor, Visiting Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Andrew McLennan, Visiting Lecturer of Strategy.
“The Think Forward Leadership Experience is an example of collaboration at its very best and it has been wonderful to see the impact that the programme has had on its participants and ING as a whole. We are extremely proud of this collaboration and the relationship that we have built with ING and CLI,” commented Julian Birkinshaw, Deputy Dean Executive Education, London Business School.
CLI’s emphasis has helped ING leaders and managers define their individual purpose and align it to the bank’s organisational purpose.
Nick Craig, President, Core Leadership Institute, said: “CLI’s purpose is to wake up those who will wake up the many. We are grateful to ING and LBS for making this possible. Working together, we redefined an approach to leadership development at ING by helping individuals unlock their purposes and lead authentically."
This is the second year running for LBS to be honoured by the EFMD awards, having also won silver last year for its custom executive education programme for A.T. Kearney.
