From Strategy to Execution With Collective Intelligence

Mission

When the top management of Leroy Merlin Romania reached out to Adviso, they recognized the need to reassess their approach to collaboration to translate their strategy into action and accomplish their 12-month operational objectives in a market that requires unparalleled levels of agility and speed.

Solution

Our idea was to make the organization experience a transformative moment as a first step towards a new form of collaboration.

We gained agreement from the leadership team to implement a participatory leadership method that involved convening the 100 managers – from both HQ and the stores – around a central theme: “What goals can we collectively accomplish in the next 12 months that would make all of us proud?”.

To foster this novel collaborative approach, we established a team comprising a management consultant, a collective intelligence facilitator, an agile coach, and graphic facilitators.

Additionally, we assembled a steering committee composed of client representatives from various departments and management levels. Each member was genuinely interested in and committed to the project, offering a diverse array of perspectives, backgrounds, and expertise to contribute to a fruitful workshop.

Employing the participatory leadership method, workshop attendees were empowered to dynamically shape the agenda, structure, and outcomes as the event unfolded. This approach was rooted in the conviction that a group’s collective intelligence surpasses the sum of its individual components, and that those closest to a challenge are are best equipped to surmount it.

Over the course of just two days, several benefits were identified, including increased engagement and participation in a trust environment where everyone’s opinions and ideas were valued and heard, enhanced creativity and innovation as free-flowing dialogue and collaboration brought new ideas to the table, improved problem-solving by tapping into the collective wisdom of the group, better decision-making based on the input of all stakeholders, and increased accountability as all participants were invested in the outcome.

Overall, our approach helped the company to drive positive change and create a more dynamic, innovative, and effective collaboration setting to unleash the growth and speed ambitions of the company.

Our support continued beyond the workshop, as we helped to implement some of the workshop outcomes. We assisted in further executing one of the client’s most ambitious projects – the redesign and redefinition of the offerings for their flagship store in Bucharest. This was accomplished within a challenging, short timeframe, utilizing agile collaboration methods.