The award-winning program Making Leaders, rewarded once again
Published on 2021.05.21
Designed and customized for Capgemini France, the program Making Leaders once again, has people talking... After receiving last year a Digital Learning Trophee (Féfaur) in the Blended Learning & Accompagnement category, this leadership program has just been awarded the 2021 Excellence in Practice Gold Award (EFMD), in the Leadership Development category. This international recognition underlines once again, the pedagogical and academic excellence of emlyon business school serving our partner companies' purposes.
Internationally acclaimed
This award was granted by the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), the international organization issuing among other things, the prestigious business school accreditation called EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System); each year, this award celebrates the best training programs in leadership and development, designed by the companies and their academic partners.
The pedagogical quality of the program, and its impact on the company are especially scrutinized for the selection of award winners. The jury draws on 4 main criteria: the quality of the submitted documentation, the commitment of both parties and the quality of their partnership, the relevance of the training scheme (design and pedagogical methods, impact measurement and participant follow-up, output...) along with the direct impact on the company's business. Amongst the schools running in the competition or rewarded on a regular basis, there are the most renowned on the international scene: INSEAD, IMD, UPenn Wharton School, CEIBS, London Business School, IESE, Hult Ashridge, CEDEP…
“This award is a source of great pride for our School and comes as a confirmation of our position among the most prestigious schools. Today, this recognition of our collective action by the EFMD, an institution in charge of the efficient development of competences and capacities in companies, reinforces our commitment with Capgemini, to look for the impact and transformation via innovative initiatives in leadership development" underlines Christophe Crozier, Director of Custom Pedagogy and Operations at emlyon business school.
“Today, the EFMD's recognition of our partnership with emlyon business school is the result of a team work which has also evolved and grown throughout the months. This is actually the main lesson we have learned from this experience: nobody is set aside, all contributors to the project are invited to take part in the change and growth process, side by side with the participating managers. We are grateful for the opportunity the EFMD has given us to share this journey, Making Leaders, with others, and to be able to find out what lessons they in turn, have learned about themselves of their own experience.” indicates Franck Baillet, Executive VP, Learning & Development, Capgemini France.
Helping leaders grow
…is the ambition Capgemini and emlyon business school have set when they launched the program in 2018. Today, 3 graduations later, this objective is largely achieved and even goes beyond the initial expectations with a considerable impact on the 500 staff members who have taken the program. All HR actors involved in the Capgemini project are unanimous: “Making Leaders has become a “trademak”, a “label” allowing to address situations and actions with a fresh eye; what people have acquired is undeniable.” “This transformation support challenge is a success. With 3 waves of Making Leaders, and more than 500 trained and certified leaders, it's the whole company that has been set in motion, on all levels, with tangible results, that can be measured internally with an increasing commitment rate, and externally, with a reinforced power of attraction.” With this program, Capgemini's will is to allow all staff members to adopt new ways of thinking, and new practices to be better equipped to address the growing complexity of their environment.
Hybrid, half way between training and organizational development, the success of Making Leaders lies in the continuity of the learning experience. Each participant is continuously solicited to try new ways of doing things, share his/her output, and find out about new practices. Surely these coherent and immersive dynamics, one of the major criteria when running for the 2021 EiP Gold Awards, is what won the jury's heart.
Behavioral transformation using the “Fabulous 8”
Another strong element of the program is the pedagogical approach opted for: “the Fabulous 8”. This support system developed by emlyon stimulates the alignment of all the participants' behaviors with a new managerial model they have helped build. We are not looking at passing on new knowledge or technical skills, here. All the work is focused on how to be and act together. The aim is to provide support for the development of behavioral skills. These latters do allow to move perceptions around, attitudes and mental patterns, which in turn, reinforce the acquisition of new behaviors. Conditions are thereby created for managers to improve the quality of the bonds they are forging with their co-workers, which is then what makes such co-workers want to better cooperate, together and with their customers and providers.
“The development of trust and closeness in the relationships of our leaders with their teams, and more generally, with their peers in our company and beyond, is a key competitive asset for Capgemini: in the end, the staff is really what lies at the core of our collective performance. This conviction is the reason why, each year, we invest a lot of time and energy in helping our leaders grow, sharpen their relationship skills and refine their leadership, to create a social environment in which our talents, on all levels, are recognized, valued and in turn, developed. Investing in people's support is also a strategic investment, something we were in synch with, with emlyon business school in 2018, when we sealed our partnership to co-construct and roll out an original initiative, Making Leaders, in all our entities in France.” attests Franck Baillet.
The objective is to reiterate the significance of management at large and more particularly, that of leadership. This approach involves behavioral psychology combining eight synergy axes, which activate the energies of change and structure the whole immersive track of managerial development.
“The Fabulous 8” is based on the latest studies in neurosciences, behavioral psychology, pedagogy, organizational theory, management and support systems. This gateway to research is crucial for our transformation support practices to take into account the real and profound mechanisms operating in people and in organizations. This relevance is what makes organizations both more human and more efficient when serving society. We have developed and validated this approach with several big companies, and I am glad to see that today, its quality is recognized by such an international institution as the EFMD”, concludes Professor Thierry Nadisic, researcher in organizational behavior at emlyon business school.