At Hans Anders, store managers and team leaders work with diverse teams of various ages, cultures, and backgrounds. With Mapstell, they gain quick and resistance-free insights into their own and their team's behavior and communication styles.
Challenge
The store managers and team leaders at Hans Anders lead teams that differ widely in age, culture and background. To get the best out of that, they need insight into their own preferences, but just as much into the behaviour of the people in front of them.
The instruments used for that did the opposite. Complicated questionnaires, thick documents, and a feeling among participants that they were being pushed into a box. With a practically minded group that is no small matter: people join in, but they don't really join in.
Solution
Instead of hiring an external trainer for every course, Hans Anders chose to train its own people. Five internal trainers were certified. That meant the method could be rolled out immediately in the Netherlands and Belgium, in Dutch and French, by people who know the stores from the inside.
Participants complete a short questionnaire at the start of their leadership training and receive their PersonalMap. Across the multi-day training MapsTell then comes back three times: with personal leadership, with conversation skills and with situational leadership. That repetition makes the step into daily practice smaller.
On the Floormap, something happens that paper cannot do. When participants are asked to go and stand in a different Area, they feel straight away what that does to them. Patterns become recognisable, and conversations about collaboration emerge that would otherwise not have taken place.
“MapsTell helps me bring people along right away. Participants gain insight into behaviour quickly, without resistance and without it becoming heavy or complicated. It works for every audience, whether you are working with shop-floor staff or with graduate leaders.”
The result
Participants recognise themselves and start looking differently at behaviour, their own and other people's. The language of the map makes it possible to discuss why collaboration sometimes flows and sometimes grinds. As a result, leaders have more open conversations with their teams.
The effect doesn't stay inside the training. Other store managers and colleagues at head office now ask to work with MapsTell themselves, particularly around team dynamics and collaboration.
