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Henkel Japan had been experiencing slow sales for two years, and the company was in a difficult situation. The general manager needed to develop a plan to rebuild the business, with the ultimate aim of achieving a successful business recovery in a few years.
To accomplish this, it was necessary to develop leadership among the sales management team members and strengthen their solidarity.
To understand what needed to change, each departmental manager and a selection of employees from each Henkel Japan site were interviewed. This internal stakeholder analysis aimed to understand the specific problems they were facing. These interviews identified key issues, including:
- Employees tried to maintain the status quo and didn't challenge anything new
- No one, including managers, took the initiative to think or act independently
- Employees were not aware of ongoing communication failures within the wider organisation
Henkel Japan worked in partnership with Impact to design a programme to help managers identify organisational problems, develop leadership capability, improve problem-solving skills and strengthen trust, collaboration and solidarity between managers and within the wider business.
A two-day off-site programme was designed to address these objectives.
On day one, the participants worked in teams to solve a range of complex problems, some of which reflected their current business challenges.
Day two saw participants take part in a discussion led by the general manager. They were encouraged to discuss and reflect upon different problems and resolutions.
As a result of the programme, the participants acquired an accurate understanding of a business recovery strategy, which substantially changed their mindsets. They understood that they were the ones that had to act, and that the change had to come from them.
The participants presented proposals, took action, and communicated effectively together. With the leadership and encouragement of their line managers, participants voluntarily set more challenging goals for themselves. They showed solidarity and a positive attitude toward solving problems.
“Because of our great results, we were awarded Country of the Year, which was a first for Asia as an in-house commendation.”