The challenge: Developing 2,OOO leaders in three years

The client engaged Adeption to design and deliver a scalable development experience that would:

• Develop its frontline leader population of nearly 2,OOO within three years.
• Deliver leadership development that was highly applicable to the frontline leadership role.
• Create an environment for frontline leaders to connect and interact.
• Help leaders unlock their potential through mindset growth and new perspectives.
• Empower leaders to spend dedicated time on their development.

A blended experience combining workshops and self-paced development

Together, Adeption and the client co-designed an experience that would scale to the leader population while wrapping around each leader’s own context and challenges. The design blended in-person and virtual workshops with self-paced development on Adepton’s AI-powered platform, and on-the-job application of insights.

A representative group of frontline leaders took part in the full co-design process, helping ground the design in the day-to-day realities of the leader population.

The resulting six-month leadership development journey included three core modules:

• Welcome and Self
• Leading the Team and Organization
• Balance, Sustain and Celebrate

Innovative design

An ecosystem approach was woven throughout the design to ensure sustainable behavior change. As well as on-the-job application, the design emphasized collective wisdom sharing, peer-to-peer learning, and one-up manager involvement—ensuring leaders were supported to prioritize development and apply their insights during and beyond the formal experience. 

Another innovative aspect of the design was the creation of ‘Store Challenges Wiki’— enduring, interactive tools that enable leaders to share wisdom on the top challenges they come up against in their roles.

Delivering on-the-job impact

The experience was highly successful in achieving its goals. Key results included:

• An average of 3 action-experiments taken per participant, with 9O% of participants rating their actions as highly impactful for their leadership.
• Over 9O% of participants believe the experience will improve their job performance.
• 99% agreed or strongly agreed they feel empowered to take ownership of their learning journey.
• Over 96% felt they established a unique group of peers to support them throughout their career journey.
• Participants opted to share thousands of insights from taking action—making them available as AI recommendations for future cohorts and alumni.

Key success factors

Co-design process: The core team involved members of the leader population throughout the co-design, ensuring the experience was deeply rooted in the day-to-day context of frontline leaders.

One-up managers: Participants’ leaders were engaged throughout to ensure support for prioritizing development and applying insights on-the-job.

Peer-to-peer learning: Peer connection moments were integrated throughout the design to help build a supportive environment for development during and beyond the program.

Innovative Use of AI: Adeption's AI-powered platform enabled scalability and the ability to match leadership tools and peer insights to leaders’ current challenges.