Leadership development at Motorola
“Take them to the edge!” A 3-day project for 20 Emerging Leaders working with villagers in Malawi to restore teachers’ houses and a resource centre.
Three Hands was asked to design a three-day project for Motorola’s Emerging Leaders Programme to: meet the training and development needs set by Motorola in a radically different environment; be sufficiently challenging to “take the participants to the edge” and seem “almost impossible”; have demonstrable community benefit; and address pre-defined team and individual issues.
Following our project search in various developing countries, Motorola chose to work in a Malawian village with the charity SOS Children’s Villages to rebuild teachers’ houses and a resource centre. The group began with a planning session with people from the village. Rather than hindering the project, language barriers forced all of the participants to think carefully about clear and concise communication, through verbal and non verbal forms. The team’s enthusiasm, coupled with the skills of the villagers, was a winning combination. By the end of the three days they had successfully constructed the resource centre and restored the two teachers’ houses.
The partnership didn’t end there. On their return to their home countries, the participants raised the money to fix the village’s broken well. Individuals from the group made an even more lasting commitment to the village, by sponsoring local children through school and later
on to university.
“Taking 20 senior managers to a rural village in Malawi to live rough for a week whilst building 3 community buildings virtually from scratch was a risky and challenging leadership development option! However we had a remit to take our leaders outside their comfort zone and to challenge their “taken-for-granted” assumptions. We found the ideal partner in the team at Three Hands. Using their approach that links a business, a charity and a community to work on a mutually beneficial project, we were able to combine an innovative and practical CSR event with pushing leadership development to the edge. Through their professional and supportive way of working, our leaders were able to immerse themselves in a highly stretching environment through which many experienced transformational learning and made lasting connections with our village hosts, to the ongoing benefit of all.”
Vanessa Loughlin, Director of Talent, Human Resources, Motorola (EMEA)