Case Study
EE: Embracing a new story of integration in telecommunications
Challenge
When French and German telecoms giants Orange and T-Mobile came together in the UK to form Everything Everywhere, a complex integration process began. Uniting two competing businesses, each with a very different culture, behind a common purpose posed a real challenge. In addition, the senior team needed to communicate new ways of working within the context of the external forces of change shaping the market, and to focus and engage people in the role they needed to play in realising the opportunities of the new, combined business.
Solution
The Storytellers designed an ambitious and unique co-creation exercise with over 750 managers to shape EE’s story of its ambition for the future. Staged over five events at Wembley, we used cutting-edge technology to solicit people’s input into the story using real-time feedback projected onto a dynamic screen. This helped give them a sense of pride, ownership and commitment – essential during a time of uncertainty when some were unsure of their future with the organisation. We rapidly consolidated and completed the final narrative in a matter of days, followed by the creation of a leaders’ toolkit to enable leaders to engage their teams in the story, exploring the role they could play in contributing to its successful future.
Results
- The first of its kind, this co-creation exercise was lauded a huge success, giving all participants a sense of optimism and ownership of EE’s journey into the future
- Feedback showed a successful roll-out of the story across the organisation, with managers equipped to share the story with their teams on a personal level
“I’m not sure who built the toolkits to help managers tell the EE story to their teams, but I have to let you know they are great! The help they give in supporting both the preparation and delivery of sessions with the teams is excellent; the difference between OK sessions and delivering a message that sticks. We have also used the framework to do follow-on, and focused sessions on the changes and deliverables we need to deliver specifically in our team. This brings the message home ‘to the desk’. Making the company-to-team link transparent is a great motivator.”
Branch Manager
