It all starts with purpose
Telenet is the leading telecom player in Belgium, and part of Liberty Global. Through various acquisitions, this high pace company almost doubled in size in a very short period of time, moving them from challenger to leader. Amidst these rapid changes, there was an obvious need to define the purpose of the company to bring unity and clarity in all of its activities. The question to be answered was: ‘what is the our reason of being?’ It was time for some soul searching.
Thanks to the Telenet Corporate Story project we had previously conducted with Telenet, our team was already well acquainted with the unique DNA of the company. We extended our insights with senior leadership interviews, dived into the company roots & history and explored its future ambitions.
“All models are wrong, but some are useful”, in order to get all the noses in the same direction, we worked with a tailor-made model that helped the leadership team to formulate the foundations of the purpose in an inspiring co-creation session. By involving all perspectives and dimensions of the company, we ended up with a clear purpose that brings meaning and pride to the work of every single employee:
‘Always staying one step ahead.
Connecting people and creating experiences. For a better quality of life.’
Employee values as a guiding set of principles
The next logical step was to revise and redefine the employee values. The core values are a guiding set of principles that define how to behave as a company to live up to its purpose.
In order to select the values and to give them true meaning, we designed a specific workshop that combined a rational and emotional approach. Micro-teams attributed their interpretations to each of the selected values and presented their findings to the other teams. That way, we ended with a clear set of values, enriched with tangible behaviours.
Staying ahead: bringing the bigger picture to life
With a new corporate purpose, a matching set of core values and a clear strategy defined, it’s now time to create some buzz inside the company. Together with internal communications, HR and corporate communications, we set up an internal campaign, ‘Staying ahead’, to raise awareness about the why, what & how of the company.
The Telenet purpose was presented at the all employee day, followed by a step-by-step introduction of the values. The biggest ambassador of this campaign is CEO John Porter himself, engaging all employees to reflect on the values by building a Telenet music playlist that consists of value-related songs. It’s a pretty amazing playlist… To obtain a good mix of channels, we combined video, intranet, printed booklets and billboarding inside the office HQ.
After this introduction phase, the company is now ready to engage employees in micro teams to reflect, debate and embrace the new purpose, strategy and values.
“Mad about you guided the process in a creative but structured way, blending the input of many Telenet employees. Their strongest achievement in my view was that they were able to listen well, capture the DNA of Telenet and find the right anchor words to present it. Moreover, the strong leadership of the workshop that brought it all together allowed the Telenet team to formulate a strong, inspiring and compelling purpose that felt right to everyone in the company.
Ann Caluwaerts, Chief Corporate Affairs
