Dentsu adopted the Enterprise Action Lab as the platform for its flagship leadership programme because it wanted to develop growth leaders who collaborate across the firm’s many media brands to create new businesses, new propositions, new customers, new distribution channels and new markets. Cross-business teams were set a goal to create a new revenue stream with minimum profits of £100K by the close of the programme, of which participants were entitled to a share of the value created.
More fundamentally than revenue growth, EAL was a vehicle for developing leaders’ ability to adapt to an ever-changing context. The goal was to expand Dentsu leaders’ capacity to understand and shape their world, not simply react to it. Culturally, EAL sought to change the rhythm and narrative of how the global, multi-brand media enterprise operated. Unlike traditional action learning, it did not stop at recommendations. At the midpoint, teams pitched their ideas to the Board, which decided which proposals to support. Successful teams then converted their ideas into a business model.
