The client

A large bank in the Nordics

The challenge

The bank had recently developed new corporate values and leadership behaviors that they wanted all their leaders to fully integrate and role model when leading their teams and employees.

1 Change was asked by the bank to co-create a Leadership Development Program, where the goal was to come up with content that could ensure that 600 leaders would be inspired, engaged, and fired up after the training to bring back and role model all their learnings and insights towards the organization

Our solution

1 Change and the bank spend 4 weeks designing, co-creating, and testing the Leadership Development Program, and fast concluded that blending the topic of resilience and sustainable performance with the new leadership behaviors and values would be an ideal approach.

The Leadership Development Program was designed and consisted of the following components:

The impact

The Leaders in average integrated 2-3 new changes into their professional and personal life after attending the program. Here some of the most impactful changes that the leaders reported back in the integration phase:

• The leadership behaviors and values became an important part of most dialogues/discussions/meetings
• Adopting a growth mindset when leading their teams (less focus on mistakes, more we instead of me, focus on the process instead of the results)
• Motivating their teams through conversations on empowerment, mastery, and purpose
• Creating a new holistic language and being present with their employees to talk about their well-being
• From 6-10 cups of coffee and down to 2 cups daily (imagine what that does to a leader’s performance, energy and well-being)
• Improved the quality of sleep with 10-20 percent (earlier bedtime, no devices into the bedroom, less alcohol consumption and redesign of the bedroom)

HR reported back that the program had been very impactful for the leaders, and that a lot of them never had a attended such a program before. This was due the to holistic approach and the unique design that 1 Change and the bank came up with in the co-creation phase.  

The client

Swiss Life Network is a part of the Swiss Life Group, who is one of the largest providers of comprehensive life and pensions and financial solutions in Europe. 1.4 million private customers and over 50 000 companies trust in their experience for their pension provision, experience gathered over more than 165 years, and thus ensure self-determination for their lives.

Swiss Life Networks is a multinational risk pooling network with over 90 leading life insurance and well-being partners worldwide delivering comprehensive global employee Benefits Solutions for multinational corporations. They offer their services to +500 clients in almost 100 countries.

The strength of the network is the network itself. Learning from successes and trends in well-developed market and passing on the experiences to other markets, inspiring each other to make employee benefits even more relevant is a responsibility, and a privilege, for Swiss Life Network to take on.

The challenge

Swiss Life Network reached out to 1 Change to establish a strategic partnership on health and well-being as they had recently developed a new blue ocean strategy to bring more value and impact towards their clients.

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In the past our conversations with the large multinational corporations were mainly focusing on our insurance products, the pricing of it and how to deal with claims. And to differentiate ourselves from our competitors, it was obvious that we had to do something dramatically different. So, we came up with the idea to start having conversations with our clients about the health and the well-being of their employees. And to make them realize that the more we together would shift our focus to the health and well-being of their employees, the better pricing, and services we will also be able to offer them in the future. This approach turned out to be a really good idea, and as these conversations developed, we started to build a network of global health and well-being experts, who could support us in offering new well-being services towards our multinational corporations.

/ Michael Hansen, CEO, Swiss Life Network

The strategic partnership

Swiss Life Network asked 1 Change to design a Resilient Leadership Program for their global Partner & Client Relationship Management Team with the aim to give everyone the tools and insight to increase their own resilience and well-being.

1 Change was invited to teach and train the global Sales Force team to better facilitate health and well-being conversations with their multinational corporations.

1 Change was joining Swiss Life Network in client meeting and events in Europe, US and Asia with the aim to promote the new well-being initiative.

The impact

The Resilient Leadership Program for the global team helped them to build their resilience and capacity over a 6-month period and for everyone to integrate new sustainable habits into their life. Also, it gave them the opportunity to share their own resilience & well-being story as they were meeting their clients, and started to have conversations on well-being and how their multinational corporations can take even better care of their employees.

1 Change trained the global team at Swiss Life Network’s headquarter in Luxembourg giving them a deeper understanding of our resilience and well-being solutions. The team also learned about the challenges that their multinational corporations typically are facing around resilience and well-being and how to initiate holistic well-being dialogues with both clients and the life insurance companies that are a part of the network.

1 Change participated in client meetings and conferences with Swiss Life Network in both Europe, US and China. The high lights so far have been 30-40 client meetings around the globe, where resilience and well-being solutions from 1 Change got promoted. Resilience Training for clients including Ping An which is one of the largest insurance companies in China. Resilience and well-being Inspiration to both clients and the life insurance companies at the yearly Swiss Life Conference in Europe.

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The leadership program and going through the various modules together as a global team, strengthened the team spirit and inspired us to implement this new holistic approach successfully – not only within our organization, but also towards our global clients.

An impactful part of the training was wearing the HRV-device that measured the quality of our sleep, stress-levels and physical which the whole team (voluntarily) was wearing over 7 days – also during business trips and client meetings. Clearly it creates another dynamic when you talk to the client about the impact of that experience, again showing that we are taking our own medicine.

 

We never had the goal of becoming a company selling wellbeing, but rather create the awareness of the impact of our wellbeing providers, and hereafter let the experts, such as 1 Change continue the conversation with the client, jointly with the Swiss Life team.  

 

The overall vision is that insurance companies in future will treat corporates, who makes a huge, documented effort to improve their employee’s wellbeing, better than those who chose not to do so. With the support from partnerships like what we have with 1 Change, we believe we will get there. Let’s be honest. Insurance is important, but not interesting. Health & Wellbeing is both important AND interesting!

/ Michael Hansen, CEO, Swiss Life Network

The client

The central Human Resource team in Deutsche Telekom is organized in different chapters as part of an agile organizational structure. The Chapter Future Leadership Offerings is led by Sabine Weishaupt and encompasses all leading experts responsible for strategic, global and scaled up solutions in leadership development, diversity, equity and inclusion as well as employee well-being.

The challenge

“

As HR we have been supporting and educating the organization through the pandemic, we are constantly fostering transformation activities and we are teaching our people and business leaders to stay resilient in a world and market of exponential change and pressures. To be able to uphold the power to keep going and the energy to keep giving, an investment into ourselves via the Resilient Leadership Program was essential.  We cannot give what we do not have, thus resilience became one of the strategic pillars for the chapter in 2023. As we learn and practice new habits, re-charge and stay up to date with the latest trends and insights on the topic of resilience as well as ways to integrate these insights into our products and the flow of work, we aimed at a win-win on all parts.

/ Sabine Weishaupt, Head of Future Leadership Design

Our solution

1 Change and the Chapter co-created a Resilient Leadership Program centered around Resilience Model and its 12 holistic journeys. Initially an in-depths questionnaire was sent out to all 35 HR-leaders to get an overview of their current challenges. Based on the results, the following program was designed, with a focus on Self-Care and building Resilience for the HR-leaders over a period of 5 months:

The journey started with having all the HR leaders signed up to 1 Change Platform, accessing +100 resilience activities covering Body, Heart, Mind and Spirit.

We started a competition dividing the chapter members into 7 different teams where they individually worked on the activities and collectively scored points and shared their progress with pictures, text and likes on their internal Teams Channel.

The first competition was launched in April and lasted till the ½ day in-person resilience training in June. The second started from June and ended in September 2023, where the top 3 team winners were announced.

The impact

“

The journey had been transformative for the chapter on many levels. The concept and the guidance throughout the journey have been an exceptional experience. the flow has been state of the art. The start was light and fun, allowing room for discovery and exploration of the abundant opportunities on the 1 change platform, yet ensuring consistency by engaging regularly in our chapter calls. The platform offerings are set for small interventions of high quality and hand-on, easy to try out practices. It caters to individual needs, encouraging for regularity and development of small habits.  Enriching the platform with specific challenges for our team has been fostering team spirit and targeting the most common needs.

 

Highlight of the journey has been the onsite Resilient Leadership Training. 1 Change professionally moderated the workshop with an extraordinary capability of reading the room, offering support and knowledge, yet also leading the team courageously outside of the comfort zone. The workshop had a very special dynamic: heavy and light, serious and funny, with general and very personal insights at the same time. The conversations on the floor yet also in jour fixes have changed, often starting with sharing of new insights or successes in new practices. The team is more aware of the many facets of resilience. Development talks almost always include goals derived out of the program. Product design starts to be influenced by strategies how to implement and integrate insights out of the resilience program in the customer experience. The intervention has been very successful, the collaboration with 1 Change smooth virtually and onsite alike, and the learning experience and impact surpassing the expectations.

/ Sabine Weishaupt, Head of Future Leadership Design

The client

Deutsche Telekom is one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies, with some 245 million mobile customers, 25 million fixed-network lines, and 21 million broadband lines. The company employs 206,000 employees in 34 countries.

Deutsche Telekom strategically wants to become the Leading Digital Telco and is yearly being awarded for being for being one of the best employers in Europe. They are in the forefront of digital learning and leadership development with their digital Level UP platform and the advanced TV-studio from where they deliver trainings, programs, and inspiration to ensure a continuous development and growth of their leaders.

Leadership in Telekom is centered around the 6 Leadership Anchors which is built on guiding principles and describe the organizational expectations of how leaders should act and represent the business. They provide orientation and support and further, they form our Group wide leadership framework.

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The Leadership Anchors form the foundation upon which we build our success and the roadmap for excellence at every level – because good is not leading!  The Anchors are more than just a set of principles; they represent a transformational approach that influences positive behavioral change, starting from our top leaders and rippling throughout the entire organization. The result? Benefits for all employees, our culture, and our business.

/ Duygy Barutcu, Squad Leader, Employee Well-being

The challenge

In April 2022, HR in Deutsche Telekom turned to The Lead Lab with a wish to introduce their Senior Leaders to the topic of Effortless Leadership. The idea was to further strengthen the leadership anchor “Act with respect and integrity” and with a focus on leading with honesty, care, and compassion. The Leaders had already gone through Keynote and workshop on Human and Compassionate Leadership, and with Effortless Leadership, HR saw an opportunity to further increase their Leaders awareness on how to lead their teams more effortlessly through a time where Deutsche Telekom undergoing a lot of change, which continuously is adding more pressure on their Leaders.

Our solution

In a joint co-creation Deutsche Telekom and The Lead Lab designed an Effortless Leadership Journey consisting of the following components:

In the 90-minute EFL-session the Senior Leaders experienced the 4 pillars in our Effortless Leadership Model  (Flow, Interaction, Resilience & Embodiment). They came out of the session with 2 concrete changes to integrate into their life, a new buddy to connect with on a weekly basis, and up to 4 Effortless Leadership practices to role model back towards their team/the organization.

The impact

In the past 12 months, the Effortless Leadership Journey have been rolled out to approximately 700 Senior Leaders, training 50 participants online at a time (from across Europe) The average evaluation from the workshops on a scale from 1-10 has been 8,5 which is on the higher end compared to evaluations of other workshops on the Level UP! Platform.

Here a testimonial from one of the Senior Leaders attending the Effortless Leadership Journey:

“

When attending The Effortless Leadership Training, it was one of those unexpected experiences that stuck positively with me. Being a leader means that interacting with colleagues is a gut decision on providing my attention. This journey made me feel understood since my management style pillars are absolutely reflected. Understanding my team members is fundamental. And finding which tasks can put them in a flow state is key. Flow is very powerful and when being in it can propel anybody to best new performances. Finding a state of flow can sometimes even occur in team meetings and unplanned interactions. Being present, active listening and making the other person feel seen and heard can be very rewarding for both. The Resilience Model that was a part of the Effortless Leadership Journey provides a holistic view on every person. Investing into our own is key as it provides the capability and sensibility to give to others. I would highly recommend every leader in Deutsche Telekom to sign up for the training.

/ Giuseppe Rindone, Vice President, Solution Sales Smart City, Deutsche Telekom

Our collaboration

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Effortless Leadership is a truly holistic learning journey, showcasing a keen understanding of our leadership’s needs and demands. This thoughtful approach seamlessly translated into tangible actions for our leaders that immediately could be applied into their daily business. What sets The Lead Lab apart is their professionalism and ability to adapt to our specific needs. Their flexible approach ensured that the collaboration was not only effective but also tailored precisely to our requirements, making the partnership truly unique.

 

Furthermore, the consistent promotion of Effortless Leadership within our organization and continuous follow-up regarding the implementation of the “Start with Tiny Habits” approach has been an asset. This proactive effort has been positively received by our leaders and has had a remarkable impact on our company culture.

/ Duygy Barutcu, Squad Leader, Employee Well-being

The client

Paribas Personal Finance is a major player in Europe for personal loans via its activities in consumer credit and mortgage lending. A 100% subsidiary of the BNP Paribas Group, BNP Paribas Personal Finance has nearly 20,000 employees and operates in about 30 countries. Under the Cetelem brand, the company offers a full range of personal credit products at sale points and car dealerships and directly to consumers through its customer relations centers and the Internet.

In the Nordics BNP Paribas Personal Finance is branded as Express Bank and was established in 1987 as a collaboration between Handelsbanken and Dansk Supermarked. The bank is therefore strong within retail and currently work with more than 2,000 retailers – including many leading department stores and shops. Every year the bank process more than 400,000 loan applications, which places them among the leading loan providers in the Nordics. They have 300 employees spread over 3 locations in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

The challenge

1 Change was initially asked to deliver Executive Coaching for CEO Annika Olsson. After a couple of sessions, we agreed to further extend our collaboration to include a Resilient Leadership Program for Annika’s newly formed leadership team in BNP Paribas PB in the Nordics.

We did personal interviews with all 12 Senior Leaders to understand their current challenges. Here are the outcomes:

A newly formed leadership team from 4 different cultures and with different business backgrounds. All wants to get to know each other better – both professionally and personally

Currently under a lot of work pressure, and therefore important to work more structured and efficient

Too much working in silos, not enough cross-collaboration and knowledge sharing across the departments

Better support to each other, build more trust and become ONE leadership team

Working many hours. Wants to build more resilience and obtain a better work-life balance

The Senior Leaders and the organization have been through a lot of changes and transformation over the past 3 years. People and departments are tired. The organization needs new energy, more resilience and motivation to keep performing at a high level

Our solution

BNP Paribas Personal Finance & 1 Change co-created a 9-month Resilient Leadership Program for the Senior Leadership Team in the bank with the aim to increase the level of resilience, build trust, and increase the overall performance of the team.

Here an overview of the Program:

The impact

Each Leader has increased their own resilience by integrating new practices into their professional & personal life. This has improved the work-life balance and given them more capacity to deal with the current transformation that the organization is going through

The Leadership Team supports each other better, cross-collaboration has improved, and they act more as ONE TEAM towards the organization

The level of trust has increased. The team feel they know each other at a deeper level, which helps them to be more honest and open when they collaborate, communicate, and give feedback to each other

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I am very pleased with the results of the Resilient Leadership Program and how it has impacted both the leadership team, but also us as individuals. It’s the combination that makes the program different and unique. And it’s a joy to work with the 1 Change team as they truly understand our business and the situation we are in right now. This has helped us to address and solve some of the most important business and leadership challenges that we are currently facing in the organization.

/ Annika Olsson, CEO, BNP Paribas Personal Finance Nordic

Our collaboration

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BNP Paribas Personal Finance & 1 Change are currently in dialogue about offering the Resilient Leadership Program to 25 Middle Managers and the remaining employees in the Nordics. An important part of this roll-out is for the Senior Management Team to be involved in the delivery of the program, so they can truly show up as role models and further inspire and motivate their teams to increase their resilience and build capacity both at work and in their personal life.

 

“I am excited for our conversations on offering the program to the rest of organization as this will further inspire and engage our people to adopt a growth mindset and also to build a more holistic and sustainable high-performance culture for the entire organization.

/ Annika Olsson, CEO, BNP Paribas Personal Finance Nordic