The challenge
Kellogg’s started business over 100 years ago and has become a household-name, with brands including Corn Flakes, Special K and Rice Krispies. Its products are manufactured and marketed in over 180 countries and it is featured in the Fortune 500.
In 2013, Kellogg’s identified that there was an opportunity to strengthen its top talent pipeline, with only 30% of senior leaders coming from within the organisation, high recruitment costs and low retention rates.
Our solution
The solution was Kellogg’s Power to Lead (KPL), a transformative leadership development programme for talent at middle – senior management levels, across the Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) region.
The bespoke programme has three main objectives:
- Talent development: develop future leaders at an accelerated pace, to win at challenges arising from growth, change and expansion in the business
- Talent engagement and retention: engage and retain key talent to create a robust talent pipeline for succession planning
- Business problem solving: launch a breakthrough business and leadership experiential programme, targeted at high potential leaders, grounded in Kellogg’s reality
KPL is a six-month blended learning journey, with diagnostic and 360-assessments, two residential workshops, a strategic business challenge with external immersions (such as field visits to other companies, government agencies, start-ups or retail stores), 1:1 leadership coaching and group learning pods.
The programme is completely co-created. Over the years, we have worked with Kellogg’s to identify their needs at each transition point, map their desired outcomes and connect these to their organisational culture and values. Capability has been developed in-house too, as the programme is co-facilitated by both Kellogg’s and BRIDGE.
Buy-in from top management and line of business managers was extremely strong since the conception of KPL, as they form an integral part of the programme. The leadership team, including the AMEA Head, act as Sponsors and Subject Matter Experts, providing the participants with strategic challenges for which they must develop solutions and strategies in smaller project groups. This forms a journey within KPL, with pre-work, immersions into the project context, conducting interviews with external experts to gain new perspectives, and design thinking workshops. The programme concludes with a ‘Shark Tank’ format with each project group presenting their business solution to Kellogg’s AMEA leadership and seeking investment in their idea to implement it on a wider scale.
The business projects submitted by the Sponsors are live business challenges, meaning KPL is grounded in the company’s reality and produces quality, business-centric outcomes. Many of these have been implemented at Kellogg’s, a key success metric for KPL.
What was the impact?
The programme has had a transformational effect on Kellogg’s AMEA region. It is consistently oversubscribed and has become an integral part of the company’s strategy and culture.
Graduate feedback scores on their overall evaluation of the programme and its ability to help participants perform better are consistently above 4 out of 5, with the last two surveys receiving an average of 4.9 out of 5. Recruitment costs have decreased by 47%, and 35% of alumni are now in global, AMEA Leadership Team or Regional Leadership Team roles.
“KPL” is now sometimes used, somewhat mistakenly in wider Kellogg’s, to mean any leadership development programme. The HR team often hears people requesting “a KPL for my business unit”! This is testament to the brand name that KPL has become.
Since the inception of KPL, Global Engagement Survey Scores at middle and senior management levels have increased. Scores on aspects such as ‘meaningful work’ and ‘recognition and reward’ have increased by 11% and 23%, respectively.
Testimonials
“This will be the foundation of our business growth in the years to come”
Amit Banati, President, AMEA (2018)
“A true breakthrough and amongst the best leadership programmes I have seen in my career.”
Ankush Raisinghani, Vice President HR, AMEA
“I get a huge joy watching leaders develop, not just as a professional, but as a person, a husband, wife, mother, father, brother… KPL makes you a better human being.”
Gathoni Wang’ombe, HR Director, Organisational Development, AMEA
“I was able to find a voice I had yet to unlock, and self-belief that needed to be explored. I valued the time I spent with my coach, and with my project team, and the extended connections I have made across the AMEA business, whom I still reach out to, to this day.”
KPL Participant
“I’ve developed a clear sense of purpose and I feel that I am much more self-aware of my impact on others. Overall, I think I am a better leader, both in and outside of work.”
KPL Participant
