2007 Learning In Practice Vendor Award Winners

CONTENT

Gold: Ninth House

Leadership at American Express, a $64 billion financial services company with 65,000 employees throughout 45 countries worldwide, means creating exceptional outcomes for shareholders, customers and employees. They have built a talent strategy and leadership model that is intrinsically tied to their key leadership values: integrity, customer commitment, quality, personal accountability, teamwork, respect and citizenship. Senior leaders are held accountable to create goals and plans for their employees, engage and develop key talent for retention, and inspire a culture of diversity.

However, as an organization in the service industry, American Express realized that part of its overall talent strategy must include the ongoing development of employees at all levels of the organization. It is their people on the front lines who ultimately create the American Express customer experience.

A greater focus was needed to deliver training and development to more than just their top-tier leaders. They needed a solution targeted to their 20,000-plus directors and people managers that would truly effect behavioral change across the entire organization. Additionally, the program needed to be scalable to reach their widely geographically dispersed audience.

American Express turned to Ninth House to help them build a program to achieve these goals. With their Situational Leadership II course as an anchor, Ninth House designed a solution using a blended-learning approach.

Written by leadership expert Ken Blanchard, Situational Leadership II teaches leaders the right management and coaching skills to assist in building their employees’ competence and productivity. It provides a model whereby leaders partner with direct reports and diagnose and develop unique action plans, which empowers managers with the techniques to adjust their leadership style to their employees’ individual development levels.

The integrated, blended delivery of the solution involved several components:

• First the participants attended a classroom-type kickoff event where they discussed the focus of the program, the learning process and expectations, as well as how to apply the learning to their business.
• Participants then took the self-directed online SLII course.
• Following completion of the course, participants attended a wrap-up event that was a virtual classroom experience.