HSBC Graduate Intake at the "Front"



Graduate Intake and Development


The start of your talent development escalator. A vital source of your future leaders.

Graduates have enthusiasm, theory, and energy. Little management experience. Even less meaningful leadership experience. You want to broaden their perceptions, deepen their clarity of thought and provoke them to reposition their attitudes to leadership. You also want to frame this within your organisation's ethos and nurture and accelerate their ability to lead and inspire.

Client	HSBC
Participants	Graduate Development Group
	47 people. Age range 22–25
Location	Our Trench System (UK)
Duration	1 Day
Brief	To deliver a different view of leadership that is memorable and thought provoking, and that is relevant to their work situation, to participants demonstrating many of the perceived characteristics of the 'Y Generation'. Position the participants outside their comfort zone Generate understanding that success as a leader demands greater than average commitment That more emphasis must be placed on 'we' not 'me'

HSBC asked for something that would really test and engage this group and reinforce the role of leadership in their career paths. We suggested a day in a trench engaging with the leadership problems and processes of a typical 19 year old Second Lieutenant of The Great War; somebody who shared some of the characteristics of this group. During the day we explored in teams of 12 how this young leader, despite the desperate conditions, was able to lead and command. Each group was first immersed in the working environment of a battle trench — the routines, the leadership structure, the workload and how a young officer was able to lead and be credible. They then considered their attitudes to leadership, organisation culture and change through the example of the Second Lieutenant. As the day progressed they in workshops debated how morale and motivation make a difference and the final task was to work as a team to create and deliver a simple battle plan, using their existing leadership talents. This took them well out of their comfort zone principally because they had no technical knowledge of the subject and really had to work hard to source that information by working as a team and by falling back on clear leadership principles.

In a brutal debrief they found that in general they had not used their leadership skills as well as they had expected and came to respect the integrity of the simple clear and highly effective methods that the Second Lieutenant used to gain trust and support in order to function. Finally they were each given a biography and photograph of the real Second Lieutenant that we had used as the guiding example to help cement their emotional and empathetic engagement and hold that example for their future careers.

See us working with a Senior Management group at Waterloo:

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