Bringing a whole leadership community together for the first time
Maison AubrelleInvented name
Brands, sites, upstream, supply chain and staff representatives from several houses had not met together for a very long time. In one morning, over a hundred managers worked on three major issues and prepared their own questions for the group’s chief executive. Everything was captured and transcribed, board by board.
- Sector
- Luxury goods, several houses within a major group
- Size
- A leadership community of over a hundred managers
- Format
- One morning
- In the room
- Over a hundred managers from several houses: brands, production sites, upstream and expertise, supply chain, with staff representatives and the group’s leaders.
Context
- A new leadership team is arriving, in a market where competition keeps renewing itself.
- The houses work side by side, each with its own habits. Brand managers in the capital and site managers rarely meet.
- The group is setting up new governance through committees and wants ways of working to change, without announcing any reorganisation.
The challenge
Turn a rare gathering into a useful one: give everyone a hold on the big issues in a single morning, and organise a frank exchange with leadership rather than a string of presentations.
The design
Key ideas
Three issues, three groups
Upstream (sourcing and expertise), industrial, and the vision for the category. Each manager joins the group where they have most to contribute, with colleagues from other houses.
Data to talk about the promise
The “vision” group works from market data and a blind product test run by experts. The question asked separates the promise of the product from that of the whole category.
The room’s questions, asked by the room
Each group prepares its questions for the group’s chief executive, and participants ask them. The exchange starts from real concerns, including industrial relations and quality.
Capture that keeps everything
Photos of the boards, recordings of the report-backs and the exchange, then verbatim and thematic transcripts. Nothing that was said depends on a few people’s memory.
How the time was used
- Open
- Explore
- Decide
- Celebrate
MorningOpen
Opening
The leaders set the frame: meeting at all is already a message.
Explore
Three issue groups
Upstream, industrial, the vision for the category, in teams mixing the houses.
Explore
The promise
Market data and a blind product test to feed the “vision” group’s thinking.
Explore
Ways of working
One cross-cutting question in every group: which ways of working should change?
Decide
Preparing the questions
Each group chooses what it wants to ask the group’s chief executive.
Decide
The exchange with the chief executive
Questions asked by participants, answers given live.
Decide
Conclusion
The chairman sums up what he has heard.
NoonCelebrate
Lunch
Around the house’s products, to end together.
The seminar in miniature
Together at last
Over a hundred managers from several houses come together: brands, sites, upstream, supply chain, staff representatives. They had not met as one group in a very long time. To open, the leaders set the frame: meeting at all is already a message.
Three issues, three rooms
Upstream, industrial, the category’s vision: everyone joins the room where they have most to give, alongside colleagues from other houses. Each group also takes on one cross-cutting question: which ways of working should change?
The promise
The “vision” group works from market data and a blind product test run by experts. The question separates the product’s promise from that of the whole category. The outcome is a category promise built on six pillars.
Preparing the questions
At each table, people choose what to ask the group’s chief executive. The questions come from real concerns, including industrial relations and quality. Every board will be photographed, then transcribed, so nothing depends on a few people’s memories.
The exchange
In plenary, participants themselves ask the prepared questions and the chief executive answers live. It makes for a franker exchange than a roving microphone. The chairman sums up what he has heard; everything is recorded, then transcribed.
Standing lunch
The morning ends standing in the foyer, around the house’s products. Brand managers and site managers, who rarely cross paths, keep the conversation going: for a community that almost never meets, the encounter itself is a success.
The materials, redrawn
Three issues, questions asked by the room
From the room to the summary
Deliverables and follow-up
- A six-pillar promise for the category, from the “vision” group.
- About thirty verbatim and thematic transcripts, board by board, and recordings of the exchange with the chief executive.
- A shared diagnosis on governance: a relay layer is missing between the operating committee and the rest of the community, without multiplying committees.
AI and digital tools
The photographed boards and recorded contributions were transcribed and then grouped by theme with AI. Each summary points back to its source, so people can reread what was said rather than what they remember.
What we take away
- For a community that almost never meets, the first success is the meeting itself. The design has to leave room for it.
- Questions prepared in groups and asked by participants make for a franker exchange than a roving microphone.
- The room was more aligned than it thought. Full capture made it possible to show it, with evidence.
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