In 2007, Nokia was one of the strongest technology companies in the world — and it invested seriously in developing its people.
That year alone, the company reported spending around €70 million on employee training.
Employees had access to classroom training, on-the-job learning, individual coaching and mentoring.
Nokia was also investing specifically in leadership development and continuous learning. More than 44,000 employees participated in Nokia’s 2007 employee survey.
- 75% said they were proud to work for Nokia.
- 77% said they enjoyed their daily work.
So, on paper, everything looked very strong.
- Training — yes.
- Coaching — yes.
- Leadership development — yes.
- Engagement — high.
- Pride — high.
And then – Iphone and smartphone disruption came.
Years later, researchers from Aalto University and INSEAD studied Nokia’s decline through dozens of interviews with top managers, middle managers, engineers and external experts. And they found something striking.
It was “Culture of fear”
Top managers were under enormous pressure from the market.
Middle managers were afraid of how senior leaders would react to bad news.
So information was softened. Problems were filtered. And sometimes a much more optimistic picture reached the top than the reality people deeper inside the organisation could already see.
Which raises a very uncomfortable question:
What happened to all that leadership development when people actually needed to speak up?
Because a company can invest millions teaching people how they should communicate, collaborate and lead —
and still discover that people cannot access those behaviours when pressure, hierarchy and uncertainty enter the room.
That is the problem we wanted to solve for large groups.
Corporate Crowd Coaching® takes one real organisational problem and lets many people work on it simultaneously in small groups with professional coaches.
- They do not receive another presentation about communication or adaptability.
- They have to reflect.
- Speak.
- Question assumptions.
- Hear perspectives they normally do not hear.
- And decide what needs to change in the way they actually work.
It is real-time practice around a real organisational problem — at scale.
And we measure the change against a defined outcome.
If there is one people-related problem your organisation keeps trying to solve, message us CORPORATE – we will send you the full presentation.
If you want to learn more about Crowd Coaching methodology – please check the Concept here.