SunCorp Group Ltd Interview series capturing what’s working in leadership development Suncorp at a glance Suncorp Group includes leading general insurance, banking, life insurance, superannuation and investment brands in Australia and New Zealand.
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The company has 16,000 employees and nine million customers.
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Suncorp is among the top 25 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and has more than A$95 billion in assets.
Executive summary After its 2007 merger with Promina, Suncorp, one of the largest insurance and banking groups in Australia, recognized that leadership would be a strategic driver to accelerate growth and realize the benefits of the merger. After bedding down the merger, the Group focused on a number of key building blocks to simplify and create consistency across the Group, including a single enterprise agreement and consolidation of some IT systems. It then spent six months consulting with 1,000 leaders to create leader profiles for first-line, business and strategic leaders. These profiles articulate in Suncorp’s own language what is expected of leaders and where they should prioritize their time. With these profiles in place, Suncorp implemented integrated leadership assessment and development programs, including leader orientation, leadership learning pathways, multi-source feedback assessment (against the leader profiles), coaching support and individual development planning. The Group also conducted a number of leadership summits for its 84 strategic leaders and is planning a conference in late 2012 to include 480 business leaders. While leadership development is in the early stages of evaluation, the 2012 employee engagement survey shows an increase in leader effectiveness over last year.
“The driver in implementing a new leadership strategy and program was the need to consolidate and rationalize. Simplification and consistency was part of the new overall Group strategy – doing things once and creating consistency.”
Setting the context When Suncorp merged with Promina, the Group inherited multiple approaches to leadership programs. There were a number of exemplary, well-funded leadership programs, while other areas of the business had been without leadership development for some time. Multiple definitions of capabilities and leadership offerings were also in place across the Group.
The driver in implementing a new leadership strategy and program was the need to consolidate and rationalize. Simplification and consistency was part of the new overall Group strategy – doing things once and creating consistency. Before the Group was able to create this consistency in its leadership approach, it put into place a number of key Building Blocks, including a single enterprise agreement, so all employees have the same terms and conditions, a single payroll system, and other consolidated policy frameworks and IT applications.
Designing the solution One of the first steps was to develop leader profiles that articulated expectations for leaders in the organization. Using a Blue Ocean Strategy approach, Suncorp involved a cross-section of 1,000 leaders from across the business, in a process to articulate the behaviors critical to success. Based on these outcomes, the Group designed customized leader profiles that describe essential leadership behaviors.
The profiles outline where leaders need to prioritize their time in order to be most effective with their teams, for the customers and in the business. The Group created profiles for three levels of leadership: Strategic Leadership Profile (inspiring through clear vision and purpose), Business Leadership Profile (taking care of the business) and First-Line Leader Profile (running the business, making it happen). The next step was to implement the leader profiles, which was done through workshops that focused on “removing the blockages.” Internal coaches worked with leaders and their teams to identify what activities they needed to eliminate and reduce, and which to raise and create, in order to “live” the profiles. Next, the Group used multi-source (360-degree) feedback (MSF) to assess leaders against the leader profiles. Going forward, leaders will receive 360-degree feedback annually in conjunction with performance reviews. Results from the assessments will feed into annually refreshed individual development plans. Multiple data points were used to create the leadership development program. The results from the MSF and the Suncorp Employee Engagement (SEE) survey were examined to determine bench strength and what skill gaps needed the most focus. Qualitative comments from SEE regarding confidence in leadership, and the learning and development offering were reviewed, as was referencing the behavioral requirements within the Leader Profiles and Core Capability framework. The result is a multi-layered leadership development program using “leadership learning pathways.” Each level of leadership has its own pathway composed of three stages: l
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Foundation: a structured learning pathway to ensure that leaders have the fundamental skills critical for success in their roles Development: modular learning based on modular learning based on individual needs, as highlighted in individual development plans, and business priorities Grow: a tailored development offering for experienced leaders and high potentials to stretch and challenge them in their current roles and prepare them for future roles
Suncorp is also planning high-potential leader programs for other populations within the Group, such as female business leaders who were identified through the succession planning process. The Group is also leveraging IT to create an enterprise-wide learning management system. This system will support self-service development, offering online learning opportunities underpinned by the organization’s leader profiles and capability framework. Over the past two years, the Group has held biannual leadership conferences for its 84 strategic leaders, which has helped these leaders get to know each other and their business units better and internalize the Suncorp Group “mindset.” The strategic leaders have formed into a cohesive team, clear about the Group vision and direction and able to execute on Group strategy in a way that leverages the strengths of the Group. Suncorp is planning a conference for late 2012 to include 480 business leaders, with the aim of achieving a similar level of cohesiveness and buy-in to Group strategy among the business leader population.
Leadership at Suncorp
First-line Leader
Business Leader
Strategic Leader
High-performing culture; a common approach to building leadership capability at Suncorp
Foundation-critical skills for new leaders
Foundations of first-line leadership
Foundations of business leadership
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Leading self
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Leading others
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Leading teams l
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Develop learning based on business priorities and high priorities and individual development plans
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Engage my team
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Managing change
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Performance conversations
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Leading virtual teams
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Coaching for performance
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Hiring the best
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Critical thinking
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Foundations of strategic leadership (Under development)
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Leading the business
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Developing others Coaching skills for business leaders
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Attraction, recruitment and selection
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Presentation skills
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Performance conversations for business leaders
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Diagnose development need and improve engagement
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Mentoring
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Business writing
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Creativity and strategy for innovation Developing the strategic leader Leadership for senior executive Leading for organizational impact Effective performance conversations Leading for strategic success Executive presence and presentation
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Master class in P&Ls
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Senior leader media skills
A blend of development options:
A blend of development options:
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Tailored programs
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Tailored programs
Tailored programs
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Stretched assignments
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Stretched assignments
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Critical experiences
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Critical experiences
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Assessment
A blend of development options:
Driving shareholder value
Managing change
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Inspirational leadership
Options under development include:
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Grow learning for experienced and high-potential leaders
Developing vision and purpose
Business simulation and feedback
Options include:
Develop my team
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Leading self
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Leader orientation
Stretched assignments Critical experiences
Business leader and Group leadership team summits: common strategic and common execution mindset 360-degree feedback
Coaching
Coaching capability and coaching support
Enablers
Learning management system and success development planning Online leader resources Search, apply and track your development
Leader profiles and capability framework
Making an impact Suncorp has a multi-faceted approach to leadership evaluation. Having collected MSF on its leaders once at end of 2011 to establish a baseline, a second round of feedback will be gathered before the end of 2012. The Group has also run two employee engagement surveys over the past 15 months and a series of 12-question pulse surveys, allowing it to assess leaders’ progress on engagement targets as well as the Leadership Index, which is a subset of the engagement questions focused specifically on leader effectiveness.
The leadership development program is being evaluated using the Kirkpatrick Evaluation Framework. To date, level 1 evaluation for the business leader offerings is 91% favorable. Suncorp will evaluate to level 5, including ROI, by the end of this year. As an initial measure, the 2012 SEE Census showed a two-percentage-point increase in the Leadership Index for the Suncorp Group.
Lessons learned One of the organization’s greatest strengths has been its organic approach. Leader profiles were developed with and by the people at Suncorp and are bespoke to the organization. The Group developed its core capabilities internally as well. While leadership offerings are provided through both internal and external providers, they are designed to meet the Group’s specific needs.
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Bring everyone with you. Consultation and collaboration with multiple stakeholders is critical. Get the timing right. The organization knew it wasn’t the right time to implement a new leadership strategy right after the Promina merger. The initial focus on the Building Blocks provided a foundation of consistent systems and frameworks across the Group that now provides a springboard for further Group-wide initiatives.
ADVICE FOR OTHERS Articulate the leader expectations in consultation with key stakeholders upfront.
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Get buy-in from your stakeholders and bring them along on the journey, developing a common understanding of the way the company approaches leadership and its priorities. As much as possible, get the business to own the program. If senior leaders support the new leadership approach and can be champions of it, it really helps with acceptance, and if the initiative is seen to be led by the business and good for business, it is more powerful. Demonstrate the value of leadership development in business terms so the agreement to invest is indicative of their understanding of the key role that leadership pays in terms of business outcomes. HR needs to keep on its toes about what leaders want and need in order to respond to changing business priorities.
Mercer would like to thank the following for this interview: Jane Keating Executive Manager, Leader and Culture – Suncorp Human Resources Suncorp Group Ltd
Copyright 2012 Mercer LLC. All rights reserved.
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