Kellogg

Background
Kellogg is a multinational FMCG with a mission to “Nourish families so they can flourish and thrive”. In 2017, the HR team made agility their European cultural imperative, convinced it could be the enabler to unlocking new growth.

"Prioritising agility to foster a culture of growth"

Approach
Agile culture only existed in pockets through Power Teams; who used agile principles to accelerate product innovation. They established an Agility Power Team, whose goal was to role model agility; inspiring and empowering leaders to become the change. They asked all employees what got in the way of agility and from 60 pages of feedback drew three insights: people didn’t always understand the connection between their goals and business strategy, teams did not always feel empowered and process could slow them down. Inspired by these insights and thought leadership they prioritised 3 enablers of Agility— ‘inspirational leadership’, ‘role clarity’ and ‘process simplification.’ Realising they needed to translate agility into tangible leadership behaviours they co-created an Agility toolkit which they road tested and began to co-facilitate with leaders. Their mantra ‘Be Bold, Be Curious and Be Connected’ began to take root!

Outcome
Early in 2018 they completed 360° feedback to measure these behaviours and revealed 140 senior leaders to be ‘sometimes agile.’ Ever since, they have been active in embedding their mantra through Yammer, and a series of peer-learning leader calls. Many local initiatives have also been implemented including an ‘Agility Awards’ scheme and agility-themed culture weeks.

At the last leadership event, 88% of leaders agreed that they had grown the organisation’s agile leadership capabilities, and 95% felt that the tools and ideas provided would help them effect meaningful culture change.

The team have shown incredible dedication to this journey and are now courageously pushing their boundaries to experiment with new ideas to step change employee experience in the whole organisation.