CASE STUDY A

The problem:
Over an intensive 2-year growth period, the CEO of the Dublin office of a US financial services company subjected her senior team to comprehensive statutory and mandatory training. The focus on performance-driven bottom line came with a cost: the senior executives were not devoting time to fresh business thinking. The CEO: “I had neglected my team’s personal and professional needs.” She knew that urgent intervention was required to help the company retain its competitive edge, but she also knew that even if she handed business books to her team, they wouldn’t read them. She rejected conventional executive training as too time-consuming, and in any event, her executives regarded training as only suitable for their subordinates, not for themselves.

The solution:
Based on the client’s request that the executive learning programme should explore leadership and management issues, Bookbuzz proposed a list of 6 business titles. 11 director-level executives (including the CEO herself) were chosen to participate in the learning programme, in which a different book served as the springboard for each fortnightly discussion session. Prior to each session, participants read a pre-selected 50-page passage from the book. The 2-hour sessions were held on-site at lunchtime, and were facilitated by a skilled Bookbuzz facilitator.

The feedback:
Feedback was unanimously positive. The CEO: “This programme not only nurtured innovative thinking and best practice leadership skills, it also enhanced the engagement of our workforce. Group dynamics among the team members have improved, and we are already seeing benefits in term of staff retention.” Participants enthusiastically welcomed the time-efficient opportunity to enter an interactive learning zone. In the words of one director: “I loved the freedom to agree or disagree with the authors, and it was great that no one was imposing any ‘correct’ interpretation on us.” According to independent evaluators, “This extremely innovative corporate learning experience is the way forward for time-poor executives who seek fresh business perspectives. The facilitation was enthusiastically praised by both the management and the executive team.”

The result:
The programme was judged to be so successful that the client has since decided to make Bookbuzz programmes a permanent feature of the company’s executive learning culture.



CASE STUDY B

The problem:
The head of a newly merged compliance and legal department in a Dublin-based financial services company had inherited a team consisting of young executives who had previously worked in the two separate departments. There was no shared history among the members of the team, they came from different backgrounds and cultures, and it was clear to the director that there was an urgent need for team-building. The head of the department had previously participated in a Bookbuzz programme, and believed that this format was suitable for the executives under her wing.

The solution:
Based on the client’s brief, which outlined a dozen issues associated with team-building, Bookbuzz proposed an executive learning programme centred on a list of 4 business titles. 9 executives (including the head of the department herself) participated in the learning programme, in which a different book served as the springboard for each weekly discussion session. Prior to each session, participants read a pre-selected 50-page passage from the book. The 2-hour sessions, which also included written exercises, were held on-site at lunchtime, and were facilitated by a skilled Bookbuzz facilitator.

The feedback:
The client was delighted with the programme, but the biggest surprise was the reaction of the participants. Every one of them declared that the programme had positively impacted on the relationships within the group. In the words of one participant, “The programme produced a 180° turn in the interaction among group members.” Another participant declared: “You learn so much from the opinions of others. You usually only see people in a single dimension – this allowed us to see new dimensions.” A third participant declared: The programme provided us with great insight into what made the participants tick.”

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