The Challenge: Improve communication at all levels, especially between leaders and their teams.

The Solution: Deliver the tools people need to better under-stand themselves and how they interact with others, and improve the quality of one-on-one conversations.

The Results: Revive the existing Situational Leadership programme and consider other learning options.

Philippe Baurant moved from cost accounting to HR at the Caterpillar plant in Gosselies, Belgium, hoping to improve communication throughout the organisation, particularly between leaders and their teams. In consultation with the plant manager, he looked at the Hersey/Blanchard Situational Leadership Model, used previously in the company and made a decision to revive the programme. On contacting The Ken Blanchard Companies’ agents in Belgium, he heard of the additional benefits of the newer Situational Leadership II Model; took the Training for Trainers course; and over the next five years, rolled out the new model through the Caterpillar Training Institute.

The SLII programme was so effective and accepted that Baurant extended it to all plant employees, believing it would help empower them not just within the organisation but also in their communities and personal lives. In consultation with Blanchard agents, he agreed that the best way forward was to introduce Situational Self Leadership for the weekly paid staff, using Blanchard rather than in-house trainers. “We felt the training would be better received if teachers came from the outside, rather than from management. It worked very well. Now everyone speaks the common language of SLII and has practical tools they can use to improve their communication.”

Results

“The feedback from Situational Self Leadership was very good,” he says. “After two years, we did a “one-hour reminder” with the general rules reexplained and a look-back at the models. We’ve introduced the newer Magic of Situational Self Leadership recently. We’ve trained more than 1,000 managers in SLII over the last 15 years. It’s a ‘must-do’ for our managers-a compulsory course on our training management curriculum. I think that’s the best recommendation I can give!”

Philippe Baurant is the Recruitment and Learning Manager at Caterpillar in Belgium. He joined the company in 1973, moving to his current position in 1999. Caterpillar employs around 4,000 people in Belgium, of whom 500 are managers at any one time.