Unique business-driven leadership development based on ARL^®

Citat-mobil

Leadership development as a side effect of change

In MiL Institute we don’t see learning as a goal in itself but as a consequence of doing the right things together with the right people. The goal is to contribute to reaching results, to get the job done with quality, efficiency and in an innovative way. As a consequence of our way to contribute, at the same time we create space for learning about leadership, change and strategy, etc. The difference is that we let the task, the work that has to be done, come to the fore. Not as a motor or as an arena for learning, but as the goal for the operation. One can say that leadership development becomes a side effect of a job that has to be done anyway.

Using the organisation’s natural change processes as a platform for leadership development and learning is efficient. Many of the companies we work with have a need to force change and find quicker ways to integrate systems and activities.

Example: Company X will during two years carry out a major change. The motive is to accomplish shorter lead times and general resource efficiency. The company management want to carry out a leadership development program that will equip the managers to lead the change, through present methods and tools for change leadership, etc. A classic approach is to design a program with a number of themed modules and let the participants work with their individual projects from everyday life in the program in order to tie the program closer to the questions and problems of the establishment.

An alternative can instead be to create several, but cohesive processes around the important subprojects in change and let the people who are needed to solve the task, be in the same room. Within the frame of this process the work is designed in a way so that creativity enhances and thus the probability to raise the quality and the innovation content in the solution. During the work, the participants have the possibility to stop the process to reflect. Short theory sessions with relevant research and theory are connected to these reflections. Then the knowledge enhancement will be ”just-in-time” rather than ”just-in-case”.

This way the learning happens at the same time and in parallel with the change process instead of being a preparatory and more secluded activity alongside the change work.

Leadership development as a side effect of change

arl blomma

In MiL Institute we don’t see learning as a goal in itself but as a consequence of doing the right things together with the right people. The goal is to contribute to reaching results, to get the job done with quality, efficiency and in an innovative way. As a consequence of our way to contribute, at the same time we create space for learning about leadership, change and strategy, etc. The difference is that we let the task, the work that has to be done, come to the fore. Not as a motor or as an arena for learning, but as the goal for the operation. One can say that leadership development becomes a side effect of a job that has to be done anyway.

The Completion workshop

arl ikea

The completion workshop offers a solution to this kind of complex questions that are dependent of a coordinated operation of different competences and parallel businesses. Questions that often risk suffering and being dragged out due to permanent interruptions and colliding priorities. In the completion workshop we gather the key persons that are needed to answer the question under the same roof and give them conditions to get the job done.

Catch management

arl earning while learning

Catch management is the result of a cooperation between MiL and Volvo Cars and an example of how ARL is a living practise that takes shape at meetings between MiL and the unique needs and possibilities of the organisation. The design developed as a tailored solution to a situation where a more customised leadership programme would not have been realizable due to time pressure.

Leadership development through business projects

arl ledarskapochlarande

Within the frame of MiL’s tailored leadership development programmes we have designed and carried out several different real and strategic business projects. The starting point is that the most effective way to learn about leadership will come from working with an important issue for a real customer where the participants themselves are responsible for analysis, strategic decisions and implementation.

Out of the box

arl tree

Which thoughts are possible to think, which alternatives reveals themselves, when one for a time leaves the contact and the environment that usually frames one’s work tasks and workday?

Learning trips

arl blomma

Travelling out in the world to see how others create a revitalizing draft in the development work. However, you don’t have to travel to foreign counties to get new perspectives to your own business. Depending on the underlying purpose, the journey can either go to something familiar, which means a deepening of what you already know or to something unknown, which gives new perspectives.

A day's work

arl apple

A day’s work is an exercise where the participants during a day performed real assignments in reality. The assignments are tailored after the specific development needs of the participants. Characteristic for a day’s work is that the leader reaches important development area, through a relatively simple and cost effective design. She expands her comfort zone and becomes more aware of her untapped potential to develop actorship/entrepreneurship as well as her potential to design learning processes for others.

Shadowing

arl skuggning

Shadowing builds on that you shadow another person in their work on one or several occasions. Doing it from a structure that secures the learning through preparation, perspective and reflection. In the choice of the person to shadow, it is only your own imagination and ambition that sets the limits for what is possible.

MiL Walkabout

arl tree

MiL Walkabout is an exercise that is implemented mainly outdoors during approx. 4-5 hours, where reality (the terrain) meets the personally perceived reality of the participants (the map). This exercise is not physically challenging, but builds on the fact that everyone independently of the physical conditions can contribute to the group successfully solving their task.

The Cake Factory – an organisational lab

arl tarta

In the Cake Factory the participants are challenged to start, run and develop a factory. This suits larger groups that want to move quickly in a short time in a specific issue. The Cake Factory is an experience based organisational game where the participants are challenged together to start, run and develop a cake factory, so that it becomes efficient, competent, quality aware, responsive and creative. All of this takes place in a demanding environment with realistic pressure from competitors, suppliers, clients and owners.

Mini-projects

arl blomma

Developing your leadership through taking responsibility for a real and urgent business project has from the start been a powerful and effective tool for the way MiL works with leadership development. During the years we have also developed a shorter, daylong version under the name of mini-project.

Experiment workshop

arl tree

The Experiment workshop stimulates us to a mental breakthrough, as the exercise forces the participants to communicate in other way than with words. It is surprising how much that is expressed in a vision that is materialized as an (art) installation. The installation encourages association and interpretations that regularly says more than what the creator meant, but that still has great importance for him/her. The Experiment workshop is a forgiving environment where the participants are both supported and challenged to break new grounds.