Mercer Case Study ~ Managing Challenging Conversations

What the client wanted

Mercer – a leading global provider of consulting, outsourcing and investment services wanted an interactive leadership program designed to improve self-awareness, communication, and influencing skills of managers and equip them to manage difficult and complex people issues effectively.

Impromptu developed role play materials and provide role players to support local delivery across Mercer’s global locations – North and South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

What we did

Consulting widely across the Mercer global business Impromptu created a series of role-play scenarios –  a range of critical conversations that require leaders to deploy sophisticated and agile communication and influencing skills.  In pairs, the participants share a role-play scenario, tagging in and out of the action, building on their experience and learning from each other’s practice.   The scenarios are used on day two of the programme, following the introduction of key tools and behavioural models.  The role players are able to tailor their feedback to each individual and link it directly to the key tools and behavioural models.  Impromptu also established a development and recruitment process to ensure that high calibre role players were available to support the programme across the client’s global locations.

The outcomes

The programme is entering into its fourth year and to date has been delivered in London, Beijing, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Toronto.  Strong participant engagement and consistently high feedback scores have featured across locations.  Impromptu is very proud of this programme – our first global delivery – and delighted to be partnering with Mercer Leadership Development to create compelling learning experiences that can be delivered across the globe.

“This part of the seminar was what I was least looking forward to and it ended up being the most valuable because it tied everything we learned together in a very real setting.”

“Scary how real it felt! I was hesitant about this prior to the training, but now I’d say it was one of the best aspects of the training. Not only my own experience, but to observe others as well.”

“It was great to have professional actors play the roles. EVERY participant commented on how real it felt and that delivered a unique learning experience in a very safe environment.”