The goal: provide teams with quick-to-implement practices to foster better engagement and productivity.

The Business Transformation and Accountability Division’s Innovation Team worked with colleagues across the Secretariat to develop an innovative learning programme.

It coaches teams through a transformative journey that cultivates engaging practices and habits.

Transformers represents a departure from conventional theoretical training. Its essence lies in innovating the way we conduct workshops and learning.

Rather than focusing on theory, it focuses on implementation, practices, and collaborative dialogue. Rather than focusing on individuals, it focuses on teams.

The programme starts with a practical workshop, followed by coaching sessions.

The workshops introduce practices that teams can apply right away, reinforced through roleplay and interactive exercises. At the end of the workshop, teams commit to trying specific practices.

This is followed by two or three coaching sessions to reflect on successes and challenges and to agree on the next round of commitments.

This programme covers topics that affect the day-to-day work of teams, such as meetings, communication, boundaries, purpose, values, goals, roles, tasks, and leadership.

The Business Transformation and Accountability Division conducted a seven-month pilot with fifteen teams across four locations. One-hundred-and-ten participants from 4 different entities completing the programme.

The pilot not only delivered meaningful change for the participating teams, but also many lessons that will be used to improve the programme and make it more flexible and effective for diverse teams operating in different contexts.

We also learned a lot in this Transformers journey:

  • Make it easier to combine modules when teams choose more than one at a time.
  • Ensure the content for all modules remains focused on quick-to-implement practices, not theory.
  • Set expectations on what is required for participation in the programme and include the time commitment.
  • Streamline logistics and coordination for the programme and look for ways to automate.

The Business Transformation and Accountability Division will be revising the programme based on these and other lessons and working with entities to scale globally.