The initial brief – the requirements and objectives?
At Serco we want to put sustainable development at the heart of business. This means ensuring that the principles that define responsible and sustainable business shape the way we develop strategies, how we drive business performance, the personal targets leaders have and how we run the business day to day. In embedding these principles it will mean that the decisions we take to create commercial value will need to consider the value we create for society, our environmental impacts, our use of resources and the effect on our people.
This will provide the framework for us not only to continue to grow a reputation as being a responsible organisation but also to identify tangible opportunities to reduce our impact, improve our performance and enhance shareholder value.
This is the main focus of the conference. The two days will explore some of the key elements that make up our commitment to social value, environmental impact, resource efficiency, commercial value and our people; and to challenge how we can identify opportunities that will help us achieve our vision. The game will need to provide a common environment and experience within which we can explore the important elements within this.
There needs to be a recorded output of some description of the event be it a report or notes that can be published on the intranet so that others can learn and there is something to support the attendees taking the messages back to the business.
Principles of the event:
- Fun – getting different people from different parts of the business and different disciplines working together in a fun, engaging and different environment.
- Challenging – people should be forced to think and consider topics that are not normally directly on their radar; required to work together and with people they do not normally work with; should be tight on time and therefore facilitated to create a degree of pressure; it should be competitive in nature.
- Educational – they should learn about the core topics and go away with a better understanding than they came with; they should be more aware of key potential big picture issues that are on the horizon or that we will need to address if we are to achieve our vision.
- Action focus – they need to take something away from the two days and be committed to do something as a result.
Inclusion of four Key topics:
- Social Impact
- Climate Change
- Emerging Risk
- Health and Safety Culture
Who in the company was the event for and why?
The conference is designed for management across all disciplines of operations, business development, assurance, corporate responsibility, HR, and communications. To ensure maximum value is delivered it is important that we get a good mix of delegates from across these disciplines and across all parts of our business covering all operating divisions not only in the UK, but also USA, Australia, Middle East and Europe.
Why Catalyst?
Having been invited to a Catalyst event at the Barbican I had an opportunity to meet with several of its management team. This led to the seed of an idea developing that they were happy to help develop. I was confident from just talking with them that they understood what I was looking for and would deliver.
Why How the West Was Won? To what degree was this personalised to meet your objectives?
There were two specific requirements we needed:
1. The game to address four specific topic areas, some of which were already addressed by the game. For the others they found ingenious ways of weaving them in so that they were addressed.
2. The feedback was to be structured around a specific framework. This was done on the feedback session which pulled out all the relevant details.
I was very comfortable with the flexibility of Catalyst in being able to shape the game to meet my specific needs. |
How did the event run?
The event was fitted into a two day conference. There were in essence four key elements:
1. Learning – from 5 external speakers
2. Experience – this was How the West Was Won – provide a common fun environment to apply their learning.
3. Feedback – extensive review of what happened in the game and then drawing parallels to current business practice so that actions could be identified for taking the business forward.
4. Call for action – pulling all the pieces together and presentation from the Group CEO.
The game fitted well for the afternoon session. The benefit was that it provided a common experience for delegates to refer to for the rest of the conference.
The event ran to time and led into a wild west fun themed evening for dinner for delegates.
Feedback was managed in the morning of day 2.
Did Catalyst help you to achieve your objectives of the conference?
The game helped deliver a clear set of messages to all the delegates. It also provided a springboard for launching a new business framework.
The facilitator provided by Catalyst was excellent at drawing out all the right messages and drawing business parallels.
How do you rate your Return on Investment? What was the outcome on the programme and weeks to follow?
I am comfortable that we got value for money from the experience. I am sure in the future people will refer to the conference as the on where they played the wild west game. They will then have the hook to remember the key messages we wanted to get over.
Delegates had to make some commitments at the end of the conference that will be followed through and start a broader roll out of a new management framework.
Testimonial and General Comments
Having given Catalyst a clear brief they went away and delivered a fun experience that will be talked about for some time. How the West Was Won delivered some key messages in a professional but hugely fun and engaging way.
All questions answered by Serco
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