LEAD Awards 2018: Interview with La'Wana Harris, Sanofi in Collaboration with DDI

Providing a Clear Path for Leadership Excellence

  Category: Best Global/ International Leadership Program
  LEAD AWARD RANK: 16
 
  Organization: Sanofi in Collaboration with DDI
  Program: Management Essentials
  Program Director: La’Wana Harris
  Email: lawana.harris@sanofi.com
  Visit: www.sanofi.com
 

 
Our editorial team interviewed La'Wana Harris from Sanofi in Collaboration with DDI at the LEAD2018 Awards this past February. Here are some excerpts from the exclusive interview.
 
What is the overall objective of your program?
The overall objective of the Management Essential program is to provide first line managers with a common understanding of what leadership at Sanofi means. This goal is accomplished by establishing a global approach to leadership development in order to build a common leadership culture.

The program supports managers in three core areas:

Enhance manager SELF AWARENESS and understanding of the impact of their personality and communication style.
 

Support managers in developing themselves and their direct reports through effective goal setting, FEEDBACK AND COACHING.

Maximize TEAM PERFORMANCE by helping managers set the direction, establish priorities and delegate while gaining buy-in and support.

In addition, our core values and our lead competencies are interwoven in all Sanofi leadership development programs. Our core values (Courage, Respect, Teamwork and Integrity) define our identity, and are core principles which guide our decisions. Deeply held –and more importantly– acted upon values help us to build the leadership culture needed for sustainable success.

Finally, our Lead Competencies define leadership behaviors, describe the “how” we act and translate our core values into action. The Management Essential program develops our Sanofi-Leaders in a consistent way across the whole organization providing a clear path for excellence in desired behaviors, competencies and attitudes.

Who do you impact with your program?
The Management Essentials program serves the largest leadership segment at Sanofi with a target population of 13,200 first line managers, in more than 100 countries worldwide. 
 
What are the lessons you’ve learned this year from facilitating your program?
Since inception in January 2016, more than 3,600 managers have completed the Management Essentials learning journey.   Developing such a critical mass of leaders has brought a valuable set of challenges and rewards. 
 
We learned firsthand the benefits of “Glocalization.” Deploying a program globally involves a substantial amount of complexities when trying to plan for, and support the varying needs in diverse geographic regions.  Our deployment model comprised of design and governance at the global level, coupled with regional/local implementation proved to be ideal for a program of this scale.  Reserving the design and governance at the global level ensured the consistency and quality of the learning journey.  The regional implementation model allowed for accommodation of geography based needs that vary widely from one country to the next.
 
Another key lesson learned was the importance of cultural agility.  The Management Essentials program required extensive translation to meet the needs of our diverse management population.  Translation was just one of many program elements that required a high level of diversity and cultural intelligence when designing learning solutions.  We relied heavily on the input of our global core team, comprised of representatives from each region to provide considerations for each geographic area.
 
Building on the insights gained through the deployment of the Management Essential program, we have incorporated the key findings in the development of Management Essentials 2.0.  Thus, the learning journey continues to develop our managers for an increasingly complex marketplace.
 
How do you measure the return on investment and success of the program?
We measure our success by assessing our progress in creating a common leadership language and culture.  We also use our employee engagement survey and program evaluations.
 
Our programs are designed to sup­plement our employees on-the job experiences and help them to keep pace with the needs of our business. We will continue to contemporize and harmonize our leadership development offerings at all management levels to promote a culture of continuous learning and feedback.
 
What lies ahead for the program and how will it continue to succeed?
I am currently working with a global team of leadership development professionals to build Management Essentials 2.0–designed for more tenured first line managers. The continued success of the program is embedded in its design which allows for the continuous evolution necessary to remain relevant to our business reality. 
 
The evolution of the program will engage managers in a few key areas:
 

 
The broader view of continued success hinges on our commitment to become a magnet for diverse and exceptional talents. The Global Leadership Development team helps ensure that every individual at Sanofi has a chance to develop skills needed for success. This is key to building and sustaining the growth of our organization. To realize this ambition, our HR function has adopted the “One Sanofi, One HR” concept. We adopted a holistic people development model based on shared principles and a single framework to be applied consistently at every level.
 

 

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