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The Challenge
Liberty Mutual’s strategic aspirations required a continuous improvement mindset and a relentless customer focus. Managers needed to model these behaviors and manage their people in alignment with them. The Managing @ Liberty Mutual program was created to enable managers new to the role to manage their people and operations in ways consistent with these new values, principles, and expectations. This flagship transition program is made up of experiential exercises, a simulation, case study, and application activities to provide a collaborative environment for learning and implementing key skills and behaviors. Liberty Mutual partnered with Abilitie to incorporate Abilitie’s simulation Management Challenge™ into the program. The simulation serves as a capstone to the 3.5-day program and allows managers to apply their coaching and communication skills and reinforce concepts that were taught during the pre-work and the days leading up to the simulation.
The Approach
Management Challenge is a team-based simulation in which managers practice handling real-world management situations without the real-world consequences. This technology-enabled simulation gives managers experience delivering performance and growing employees’ capabilities. Internally trained facilitators frame the experience around key management objectives. To deliver performance, managers enable employees to achieve their highest point of contribution and access their discretionary effort. To grow capabilities, managers expand employee skills and develop their potential. Throughout the day, managers encounter workplace scenarios that will test their ability to solve issues managers frequently experience. Role-play conversations put the manager in the hot seat to hold a free-flowing conversation. Video exercises require managers to work with their peers to engage in conversation, discuss the interaction, and reflect on how the exercise mirrors their own experience as managers.
The Outcome
Anyone new to managing at Liberty Mutual, whether internally promoted or externally hired, is required to go through this program within 120 days of starting their new role. In a typical year, this program runs over 20 times and reaches 750 – 800 new managers. Thousands of participants have gone through this program since 2013, and 96% of them “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” that the overall program was effective in helping them transition to their new role.
