Building innovation capability within the next generation of leaders

Fletcher Steel was coming under increasing pressure to retain its market share in the various sectors in which it competed. As an organisation, it was being out-innovated by many of its competitors who were developing new, innovative products and services that were causing some of the Fletcher Steel business units to increasingly compete on price rather than on value.

The Fletcher Steel leadership team recognised the need to rebuild and re-energise the organisation's innovation capability so that it once again became a core competency and source of advantage. 

Fletcher Steel engaged Purple Shirt to create an enduring leadership development programme focused on building innovation capability across the various Fletcher Steel business units.

Our approach to developing a capability building programme was anchored in the belief that, for it to be effective, it would have to include the right mixture of formal training and learning by doing. As a result, we developed a new programme for Fletcher Steel called Hatch. 

We promoted Hatch as a leadership development opportunity within Fletcher Steel and actively identified and recruited the next generation of leaders into the programme.

The formal training involved 3 days of intensive in–person training spread over three weeks where we taught best practice innovation processes, skills and methods to the participants using highly interactive and engaging content.

Having had the training, we selected live innovation initiatives across Fletcher Steel and allocated the participants who then spent a day a week working on these projects. The Purple Shirt team acted as coaches and mentors over a 3-4 month period during which many of the new skills and methods were put into practice and embedded. 

At the end of the programme, the participants brought those new skills and learnings back into their business units and started to operate as innovation advocates and experts. 

The Hatch programme has been set up as a long term capability programme with new rounds of participants being recruited and trained on an annual basis. 

Hatch has become an integral part of Fletcher Steel’s leadership development programme and has been recognised for the value it is creating in ensuring that Fletcher Steel can develop new products and services that create proven value for its customers. The plan is to further leverage the Hatch programme  by extending it across the whole of Fletcher Building.