How a global energy company built leadership presence across 70,000 employees

Client

William Miller, a former global learning leader at a newly independent global energy company focused on energy transition, renewable, and traditional energy. This organization has approximately 70,000 employees working in all over the world.

Client Challenge

Across the organization, most employees held global roles, communicating daily through Teams, Zoom, and other virtual platforms. Yet there was a clear gap in leadership presence across these interactions, whether in customer meetings, supplier conversations, or peer-to-peer communication.

In this organization, the norm was for the internal L&D team to design their own highly specific courses that were contextualized to the business needs and goals. But, for this leadership presence program, William wanted to use a partner with rich history and expertise – so he turned to Ariel.

Why Ariel

When William was brought on as the Global Learning Leader following the spinoff, he was looking to do something different than he had done in the past.

“When the company became independent and I took over as the global learning leader, particularly for leadership, I wanted to do something different, very different to what we’ve done before. And even though I was going to do the instructional design for most of the programs, I also wanted a fresh look at everything.”

After getting in contact with Ariel through a L&D leader in a separate spinoff of the organization, William realized that Ariel’s forte was communication training and leadership presence. He highlighted the high level of organization and responsiveness from Ariel, saying “I have not seen that calibre [of professional] for many, many years.”

That distinction became even clearer once the work began. Ariel’s team and facilitators acted as a partner, bringing up changes and feedback for programs. As he reflected on the experience, he highlighted the level of commitment Ariel’s facilitators brought to the engagement.

Outcome

After completing a course, to receive a certificate of completion, participants reflect on the experience, summarizing what they’ve learned and practiced. William noted, “because of the simplicity of Ariel’s program design and the more conversational social learning aspect, people start to think, ‘hey, I can use this.’”

Participants applied concepts developed in these programs in customer conversations, by improved collaboration with their teams, and in daily interactions with colleagues. Even in the ability to share updates more effectively in a more engaging way so that people truly listen to them.

The programs also had a lasting effect on the partnership itself. The learning leader went on to recommend Ariel to colleagues in another business unit, who began working with Ariel as well.

“I’m a massive advocate of Ariel Group. So much so that I asked my colleagues to go use them, because they’re really, really good.”