Article issued in Capital Humano magazine:
To develop Leadership skills
The international company Cargill has developed an original programme to train current and future leaders.
For a business that has 168.000 employees in 67 countries around the world, it is essential to develop an original and quality driven human resources programme which offers returns. Cargill, the largest privately owned company in the world and international supplier of food, agriculture and risk management products and services, has nurtured the human development of all its employees and invested in their futures for more than 114 years.
The TIL (Transition into leadership) is a programme dedicated to Cargill’s future leaders, providing continual training and development during their upward path to management positions at headquarters or in one of the business units. TIL was devised to provide challenges and stimulating experiences through which future leaders find opportunities to discover their strong points and those which need improving. The programme has four carefully constructed phases and lasts between 12 and fifteen months. Each phase is carried out in a different country offering participants a wide vision of Cargill as a trans-national company.
In each cycle the human resources department at Cargill selects 25 participants because they have fulfilled the necessary requirements which are: to be a good model for other employees, to have a capacity for learning and be able to apply what has been learnt to obtain results, to have a past and above all present high performance record in the company and have demonstrated potential which the TIL will develop. It’s also important that participants are different nationalities in order to strengthen the bond between workers in the same company but from different places. This requires a perfect coordination between the human resources teams in all the different countries
The first phase: “Qualities of Leadership”, focuses on increasing the employees self awareness of his/her leadership capabilities and how to put these into practice. Many times these capabilities stay latent through lack of stimulation so the objective of this first phase is to make employees conscious of their own potential.
The second phase, “High Performance Teams”, an example of which is given in the second part of this article, demands personal leadership involvement in a team project to reach an objective through applying what was learnt in the first phase.
“Leading Groups to Solutions” is the third phase which develops on from the second. The feedback between participants is very intense here. In this phase, aspects which still need to be strengthened and those which are sufficiently developed are determined.
The fourth and final phase, “Applied Strategic Thinking”, focuses on the ability to manage situations under pressure and therefore develop and constantly maintain a strategic perspective to make sure that business activities flow in the right direction.
Once employees have been selected for the programme, they have to follow certain instructions to prepare themselves for the TIL. They will go through a self-evaluation process using the MBTI (Myers-Brigg Type Indicator) which shows in depth personal preferences and attitudes and indicates the employee’s relationship with others. To know oneself better is fundamental for leadership and having carried out the self-evaluation MBTI, the employee receives a feedback from his/her own colleagues. This evaluation is very important because it comes from people that the employee works with every day including his/her manager.
It is worth pointing out that the role of the manager is key, not only because he/she has to give approval for the candidate to continue the selection process, but also because the activities required by the TIL (training, travel, days off from work, etc) will have to be fitted in with the normal work schedule. The manager will also have to support the candidate’s preparation and take an interest in the results and activities. One of the key concepts is: “Leaders Teaching Leaders” and it’s based on the fact that what you learn and develop during this programme is then applied, in a practical form, to your daily work, enriching everyone in contact with the TIL participant. The training of an individual is at the same time, the training of his/her team and the company results can be seen to be positively affected by this action.
After this general look at the programme, a detailed analysis of one of the activities carried out within the TIL has been made taking advantage of the fact that phase 2 “High Performance Teams” was carried out in Martorell last January. Martorell is a town near Barcelona where Cargill has its head office in Spain.
The objective of this phase is to identify how leaders’ actions can be decisive in the success or failure of the work at hand and understand what essential elements are needed to build and maintain a high performance team in the time available.
The planned activities in this phase: the presentation of concepts, the interchange of ideas and the taking of the plan to its practical conclusion by the whole team are essential steps followed in order to achieve the objectives.
On 26th January this year the 24 participants of the TIL arrived in Martorell without having been previously briefed on what they were going to do. A delegation from Cargill, Spain, took them to see an old building which the Martorell town hall had used for years as a warehouse. Recently the building had been donated to the local Red Cross. The building needed a complete overhaul. The 24 employees found this out in situ. The objective was to refurbish the building in approximately 30 hours and to be able to hand it over to the Cruz Roja del Baix Llobregat Nord (responsible for this area) on 29th January.
Through this activity, Cargill wants its employees to develop the capacity to analyse and solve problems in a short space of time in unexpected situations which could occur in the workplace. The first task was to separate into small groups on the night of arrival. Each group had to plan their project and these were handed to the Red Cross the next morning who chose what they believed to be the most suitable plan. Once the plan was chosen, the 24 future Cargill leaders from the US, Russia, France, Belgium, South Africa and Jordan among other places, supported by around 20 local Cargill voluntary employees had 30 hours to buy the necessary materials (paint brushes, paint, wood, shelves, carpets, etc.) coordinate who was going to do what and when, and do the whole job as if they were expert workers in this field. During the developing dynamics of this exercise, one or various leaders always appear in whom the group place their confidence allowing the team to be highly productive and allowing them, at the same time, to strengthen their theoretical analysis skills and practical achievements.
The money needed to carry out this project was raised by the participants themselves beforehand and privately. In the weeks leading up to the TIL, they asked families, friends and work colleagues to sponsor them.
On 29th January at 4pm, the TIL group were ready to hand over the refurbished building to the Red Cross. They had turned it into a social day care centre where persons in financial difficulties could have a shower, eat a meal or be lent clothes for an interview helping in this way, reinsertion into the local job market.
Cargill usually chooses building renovation or refurbishing projects because being able to see the final results is fundamental for the self-evaluation process and because it’s important to leave a footprint, a specific legacy in the communities where the company operates. Another recent example is the refurbishing of a building in Poland which now serves as a refuge with 24 hour vigilance for women threatened with violence by their partner, husband, etc.
These types of activities, apart from fulfilling the company’s human resources needs, make employees sensitive to corporate social responsibility carried out with local institutions in the countries where Cargill operates.