Strategy dialogue turns ENGIE employees into frontrunners in energy transition

At the heart of our employee engagement approach is the StrategyDialogue. The aim of the StrategyDialogue is to increase the engagement of everyone in the company.

Employees, sometimes spread over several countries or continents, have inspiring conversations with each other during the Strategy Dialogue about the organisation’s ambitions, strategy and culture on the basis of a large poster (the ‘Big Picture’). In which the company’s world (customers, markets, competitors, products, strategy and core values) is visualised.

Step 1: Visualisation

The Big Picture of ENGIE’s strategy was created in three sessions by board members of varying composition, with the help of a visual designer. POMTW led the sessions and facilitated engaging discussions on how to translate and concretise the strategy.

The concept drawing was subsequently presented and tested during validation sessions with managers and employees. This collaboration created a picture of the strategy that managers and employees also recognised. After a visualisation process of about eight weeks in total, the Big Picture of ENGIE Nederland with the title ‘Zero Carbon Champion’ was ready: a visualisation of the strategy with a focus on – how could it be otherwise – the energy transition and zero CO2 emissions through increasing use of sustainable energy sources. At the same time as creating the Big Picture, POMTW also writes the accompanying story. Visualisation combined with storytelling forms the powerful basis for getting the strategy into the heads and hearts of employees.

Step 2: Exploring

Using the poster and the story as a basis, we train facilitators in guiding strategy
conversations. At ENGIE, where the first round of talks was organised with mixed groups, the approx. 50 facilitators were drawn from across the organisation. In other cases, it is the executives themselves who lead the strategy conversations, thus initiating a cascade, where managers are first participants, and then themselves facilitators of the strategy conversation with their own team.

The first introduction to the employee strategy took place at ENGIE during a kick-off of project ‘Kompas’ in theatre De Spiegel in Zwolle, The Netherlands. Together with the working group within ENGIE, POMTW developed an energetic programme for this, which was rated by employees with a nice 8.4.

Interesting conversations, valuable insights
An important part of that programme were the strategy conversations in which employees explored strategy with each other in groups of ten. The strategy discussions are always guided by a set of questions and assignments that make participants think about what can be seen on the Big Picture. Main game rule: there is no right and no wrong, after all, your view of reality is your ‘truth’. During the discussion, employees are invited to share their views and ideas with colleagues.

This led to beautiful and interesting (and also necessary) conversations in which ENGIE employees from the head office, headquarters and field services learned more about each other and each other’s work. The facilitators are not active participants in the conversation, and managers say they find the sessions very valuable precisely because of this. “In our daily work, we don’t actually take enough time to really hear from each other in a calm and safe setting how we think about certain things”. It provides valuable insights into how team members think about issues of importance to the department and organisation.

Step 3: Going deeper

After the kick-off, this initial introduction to the story was followed by two more rounds of conversations. The 2nd round of talks took place with mixed teams within the different departments. Feedback from the first round was included in this. All employees thereby lived through the strategy, preparing them for the final step of the Strategy Dialogue.

Step 4: Translate: Strategy in action!

The Strategy Dialogue at ENGIE was concluded with a working session within one’s own team, led by one’s own manager. During an ENGIE Leadership Day, for which POMTW devised the concept and programme, managers were trained in facilitating this work session. During the sessions, all teams (including management) make their own action plans by providing answers on a fill-in canvas to the questions: how and where can we as a team contribute most to the strategy, where will we be in x years and what steps are needed from today to get there? These questions are also asked at the individual level. The completed canvas is hung on the wall in the department and used during work meetings as a touchstone for the progress of plans and during individual development interviews.

Thus, in a time span of about six months, the new strategy is not only in the heads and hearts of employees, but they think with their team about how they themselves can contribute. All individual contributions added together will – inevitably – lead to a powerful impetus towards achieving the organisation’s objectives! Naturally, there is also a communication plan in place – using the Big Picture as a basis – to keep the conversations about strategy alive in the years to come.

Incidentally, our clients use the Big Picture not only internally: the visual and story are also a valuable tool in informing trade unions, partners and suppliers, new employees and even ENGIE group about the organisation’s ambitions and direction. The drawing and accompanying story can be read back on ENGIE Nederland’s website.