Wickland Westcott

Orange - Developing a Leadership Pipeline

Orange is an organisation undergoing significant change. Critical to its future success is a pipeline of leadership talent able to deliver both direction and results in the competitive British mobile market. To secure this pipeline, the business has recently invested in a progressive talent development programme created and delivered by Wickland Westcott.

Talent discovery

The brief from Orange's internal Talent Team was to provide stretching developmental input to their most senior leaders. Previous development initiatives had failed because they had lost momentum, or required too much time commitment from busy executives. The Wickland Westcott solution was a programme of one-to-one assessment and development feedback for each Director and Vice President in the business. This exercise explored the individual's career history and aspirations, their experience and achievements, the pros and cons of their preferred approach and their ability to handle difficult business situations.

Having spent half a day with each individual, Wickland Westcott's psychologists considered their strengths against Orange's leadership framework and prepared a detailed report containing development ideas for the future. This report was then shared at a feedback session with an emphasis on exploring and agreeing the most important messages, and the personal development actions that each individual needed to implement. The Orange Talent Team is now on-hand to support each Director and Vice President as they progress their development going forward.

View from the top

As the project nears completion, feedback from the senior executives is very positive. They feel that they have had an extremely valuable opportunity to reflect on what they bring to the business and how to leverage this for greater personal and organisational benefit.

"Our partnership with Wickland Westcott has been of great benefit. Their clear commercial understanding and expertise, combined with the organisational knowledge and commitment of our internal talent professionals, has delivered valuable, pragmatic solutions."

Jayne Butcher, VP for HR at Orange UK