The ‘power of the peer’, senior level buy-in and a self-managed approach helped make Nike’s new management development programme a runaway success.
Vikki Matthews, Nike’s European talent planning director, said: “Unless you tap into the power of the peer, you’re sunk. You can hide from … people who work for you but you can seldom hide from those who work with you.
“Learning is intensely personal so anything like coaching will be so much more powerful than shoving someone in a classroom and throwing information at them.”
The programme was positioned as a premium product and was “the biggest deal I’ve ever made in L&D, a brilliant investment of three months of talking and meeting,” she said.
Middle and senior managers in the MyGame programme work together for at least nine months in groups of six. They attend a rigidly structured half-day briefing then a “highly experiential” workshop on self-awareness and managing personal growth and a series of monthly meetings, working with peers and coaches.
Although they draft a development plan at the workshop “this is just a trick”, said Matthews, speaking at the CIPD Coaching at Work conference in London on 24 September.
“This is just to give them something to hold on to. The power is the in-the-moment coaching from peers.” Matthews knew the programme had to be “very culturally relevant”.
“Nike has the attention span of a gnat – it’s really hard to sustain things as it’s very frenetic and we’re moving on to the next thing. We’re a product and marketing organisation and in these difficult times, the design and marketing budget is the only one that stayed,” she said.
Despite this, MyGame has proved highly successful. Some 96per cent of participants say that they are now more able to take ownership of their own development.
Volume 4, Issue 6