Horizons

"accelerating the development of early career and leadership potential"

Horizons is a global programme designed to support the Smiths Group talent management strategy to accelerate the development of a globally identified pool of employees early in their current career and who could potentially fulfill a significantly broader and/or future leadership role in Smiths Group.

The programme provides an understanding of Smiths Group, the business world in general and develops commercial and personal capabilities. The content acts as a great foundation for any employee who has the ambition and drive to pursue a leadership career and wishes to therefore accelerate their development as an individual contributor, team member and emerging leader.

It brings together participants from businesses across Smiths Group so encouraging employees to establish a wide network of contacts early in their career. With this comes unrivalled opportunities to meet management and senior leadership from many functions and levels from across the business and creates an appreciation of the kinds of roles that exist beyond the business in which they currently work.

The programme stretches over a 20 month period with five one-week modular workshops, three action learning activities and one business assignment hosted by a Smiths leader. The participants' managers play a major role in supporting the application of learning and there is further support provided by a mentor.

Horizons currently runs as three separate programmes in Europe, the US and Asia with up to 30 participants on each.

Participant Profile: A development experience for employees who:

• have expressed their ambition for a leadership career within Smiths
• are interested in multi-site experience and are at least regionally mobile
• have already been identified as a high performer, demonstrated some evidence of leadership behaviours and been identified as a potential future leader via the Division's Talent Review Process
• have at least 12 months' observed behaviour that reflects the above

"I notice an expansion in their understanding of the business beyond their defined role and department. Exposure to senior managers encourages questioning and challenging and increases confidence. I see ability to progress a project from conception to completion and understand the wider aspects and why some of the mundane elements are still business critical. I notice an enhancement of networking which, clichéd as it may be, increases ability to break down barriers."
Rob Cowling, John Crane

Content: The primary focus is to stretch participants' self-awareness in terms of both personal effectiveness and commercial acumen. The essence of its design is underpinned by the principle that for true effective leadership as an individual, team member or in leading people both qualities need to be inherent and inseparable. Content can be headlined as:

• learning how to learn and apply lessons in a business environment
• building professional relationships
• communication
• corporate marketing strategy
• coaching and feedback
• influencing and impact
• team development and performance
• process and supply chain design
• leadership
• cultural diversity
• organization and functional capability
• investment and expenditure
• corporate social responsibility

Participants experience a wide range of learning experiences including:

• five intensive one-week workshops using a series of learning techniques including: highly experiential activities, business simulations, psychometric profiling using Frio B and MBTI, presentations to senior Smiths leaders, executive director forums
• 3 business visits to complete action learning tasks between workshops
• a business assignment hosted by a Smiths leader
• mentoring by a Smiths leader
• development planning supported by their line manager
• access to the Ashridge VLRC
• an e-journal housing all memories captured during the programme

Embedding the Learning: Participants' managers play an important part in this programme in supporting and reviewing the participant's learning and encouraging its application in the workplace environment.

Participants will be exposed to a wide range of language, thinking and techniques that could be unfamiliar to managers. It is therefore required that participants' managers participate in a 2 day supporting workshop entitled ?Developing Talent' to equip them better in supporting their reports. The experience could also be viewed as a potential development opportunity for each participant's manager.

"I think it is also important to recognise what the existing Smiths Leaders get out of the program. It keeps them in touch with the business and connected to new developing talent. I learn something on every event I attend."
Dave Hill, John Crane

Duration: 20 months with 5 one-week modular workshops, 3 business Action Learning activities and one Smiths business assignment.

The 2010 programmes will formally commence in May 2010. Participants are required to complete some preparation work including identifying a mentor before attending the first workshops which will be scheduled from September 2010.

Investment:The cost of the Horizons programme includes the Mentoring Training* and is £10,250 per head including accommodation for Horizons participants. 50% of this cost will be invoiced in August 2010 and the remaining amount at the commencement of year two of the programme in August 2011. The cost excludes travel expenses which may include international travel. The full training cost of the programme is payable whether the employee completes the programme or not.
*does not include accommodation for mentors.

The managers of the participants in the Horizons programme are required to attend a 2 day workshop entitled "Developing Talent" which is designed to support them in the accelerated development of their direct report. There is a cost of £750 for this training for any manager who has not already completed this. This cost does not include accommodation.

Programme Director:Tracy Manning. Programmes facilitated by Alex Hill and Jonathan Harris.

Some testimonials from managers and mentors:

"My experience is that participants have greater commercial awareness, better strategic outlook and more confidence."
David Pinto, Medical

"I have noticed that both of the Horizons participants I have mentored have developed as more rounded characters. Specific areas that have been developed include: increased confidence; improved communications skills; increased commercial awareness; better knowledge and awareness of the wider Smiths business; improved problem solving and better understanding of management challenges."
Tony Hooper, Detection

"The participant has been more prepared to develop working relationships across disciplines. Confidence has also increased when dealing with senior management."
David Jarman, Medical

"I see them more involved with other areas, people & departments. Ability to look more for 'what's possible' rather than 'what's not'."
Stuart Hall, John Crane

"Specifically within my own department, we have people that are if not more capable, certainly capable more quickly, of delivering value added services to the client and therefore enhancing our business proposition which ultimately leads to commercial growth."
Rob Cowling, John Crane

Since the launch of the Horizons Programme in 2004 75% of participants continue to enjoy their careers with Smiths. 100% of these have assumed significantly broader remits, a few have made functional moves, some have relocated to different countries and most have entered a leadership type role.

Some testimonials from past participants:

"It helped me gain a wider view of the business as a whole, and definitely made me more aware of how my actions affect other areas of the business."
Michael Coulstock, Medical

"Definitely taught me to step out from my comfort zone. Before Horizons I would be the last person to step forward and do something new, but now I think I would be one of the first. All types of exercises within the Horizons programme helped me accomplish this. One of the main elements was giving presentations. The practice these sessions gave me enabled me to practise my presentation skills and I now make many presentations to people from all cultures within my new role based in Dubai."
Dan Keating, John Crane

"There are three main learnings that I have found most useful about the programme: - General Business knowledge, both about Smiths' business and the workings of businesses - The balance of skill and personality and the importance of understanding yourself and others - Myself; I learnt a lot about myself, my skills, my personality, my ambitions and my career which have helped me consolidate my career path and ambitions for myself."
Paul Candeggi, John Crane

"Exposure to senior management and maintaining important relationships (i.e. networking!), self awareness, and being able to recognise how far outside my comfort zone I am. Without this awareness and the pro-active mindset to stretch my comfort zone, it is unlikely that I would have taken on my new roles, which have required moving to countries in which I previously had not worked, or spoke the language!! Recognising the usefulness of working collaboratively to achieve obtain feedback and achieve a particular objective."
Craig Armstrong, John Crane

"Horizons also provides the platform to meet colleagues whom I would not normally meet from other parts of Smiths and from different levels, and to learn about the other groups of which Smiths comprises. The presentation aspect I feel is crucial part of the programme as this is an area most people dread, but I think can be the most rewarding and satisfying."
Ben Aquino, John Crane

"The most useful learning came from the second year of the programme which had a much greater focus on developing business skills. The most useful event for me was the business simulation game, which practically demonstrated the wide variety factors that need to be considered and decisions that need to be made at the top level of the business in order for it to be successful."
Tom Bradshaw, John Crane

Programme Facilitators:

Alex is Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School (Oxford University), Senior Lecturer at Kingston Business School (Kingston University), Visiting Professor at Gordon Institute of Business Science (Pretoria University) and part of the Duke Corporate Education (Duke University) learning resource network where he teaches on a variety of postgraduate and executive programmes.

He received his PhD from Bath University based on a £0.5million research project led at Oxford University involving major multinational companies including Shell, British Gas and Scottish and Southern Energy. The work challenged and assisted companies to change established practices in order to meet the current and future expectations and requirements of their customers.

Prior to moving into the academic sector, he spent ten years in various divisions of the Smiths Group, a large engineering multinational. During this period, responsibilities ranged from managing a business unit to providing consultancy support for the Group's facilities in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

His clients include Abbott Laboratories, Anglo American, DeBeers, GKN, HSBC, John Crane, Natures Way Foods, Nexus Consulting, Pokit, Sainsburys, Smiths Group, Standard Bank, Standard Life Assurance Company, Vestas and Wyeth.

He has published a number of books, journal articles and case studies including Strategic profiling: a visual representation of internal strategic fit in service organizations, International Journal of Operations and Production Management (2007), How to organise operations: Focusing or splitting?, International Journal of Production Economics (2007), Operations: Realising its strategic role, Oxford University Press (2008), Manufacturing Operations Strategy, Palgrave Macmillian (2008) and Service Operations Strategy (2008), Palgrave Macmillian.

Jonathan brings experience from a highly successful career in both operational line management and Human Resource Development. Qualified in a range of psychometric and personal development tools, including MBTI Step 1& 2 and Firo B, with over 20 years in HRD, Jonathan has had a number of different roles including Head of Human Resource Development for a FTSE 100 business. Jonathan specialises in organisational and leadership development, including executive coaching. Jonathan works with clients internationally across a range of business areas including Energy, FMCG, Retail, Manufacturing, Construction and Overseas Banking.

His assignments have enabled him to work extensively across a diverse range of cultures including Mainland Europe, USA, Russia, Scandinavia and Asia.

Jonathan's strengths include his ability to operate and influence at a senior level within an organisation. He has the ability to see connections from a strategic perspective and then ground them in practical applications. He combines first class facilitation and communication skills with an in-depth knowledge and practise of HRD approaches. Open to innovation and change, Jonathan brings a creative and responsive approach to assignments.

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