Yahoo!, one of the most visited Internet destinations in the world, constantly looks for innovative ways to develop and provide online products and services essential to consumers' lives. Their success internationally is demonstrated by the rapid growth of Yahoo! Europe, with triple-digit revenue growth and headcount growing from around 400 to over 1700 in the past two years, partially as a result of the acquisitions of Kelkoo, Europe's leading online comparison shopping service and Overture, a global leader in commercial search services on the Internet.

As might be expected, Yahoo! Europe wanted to maximise team capabilities, with the goal of driving a high performance culture throughout the organisation that would enhance the level of management competence and confidence. Their strategy was to implement a professional management development programme to support both individual development and organisational growth.

Defining the challenges

Yahoo! Europe had been extremely successful in recruiting young managers with good technical competence, however many of these mangers were new to management positions. Each had different experiences of performance management and their own perspectives on key day-to-day performance management skills such as recognition, coaching and constructive feedback. There were no clearly established frameworks, assumptions and models.

In addition, the sheer magnitude of their numbers created a significant challenge: in 2004 around 70 percent of the managers were new to the business because of replacements, new adds and acquisitions.

But as James Brook, Head of Talent Europe, Yahoo! says, "The good thing was that there weren't many bad habits to break. These individuals were well motivated to develop themselves within the organisation."

Constructing and implementing the solution

Yahoo! Europe set out to develop a management training programme that would first be piloted in Ireland and the UK and then extended throughout Europe to around 390 managers once the necessary cultural adaptations had been made. It was essential that it encapsulate relevant models and ideas.

James Brook and his team selected AchieveGlobal as their partner, based on a demonstrated high level of professionalism and a clear synergy of approach and development philosophy. "Yahoo! has a distinct culture and the people at AchieveGlobal were quick to listen, understand the challenges and make the appropriate recommendations," he says.

Implementation began with a diagnostic meeting, followed by a design meeting. Participants agreed that training should have a "local" approach, with plenty of time for discussion, frameworks and debate, and that the programme should be as relevant as possible to its audiences.

A critical element of relevance revolved around the need to have the conceptual framework of the Yahoo! Performance Model embedded within the programme, along with Yahoo's! Performance Management Assumptions and leadership success factors as a rating guide for participants. These assumptions are:

Managers are accountable for creating the climate for employees to develop and achieve their goals.
Performance coaching is an ongoing process, not a once-a-year event.
People need regular and constructive feedback to achieve their full potential.
The impact of training is limited. The job is the best classroom.
Rewards and recognition will be targeted toward the highest contributors.
Underperformers need to be dealt with fairly and swiftly.
Non-financial recognition is just as important as financial rewards.
Weakness-fixing prevents failure. Strength-building leads to excellence

Over 100 managers from across Europe have attended the two-day session, which focuses on the performance management skills of recognition, coaching and constructive feedback. Participants learn key coaching techniques such as suggesting and instructing, and practice how to apply their new skills and behaviours in real situations. "Our objective is to help managers encourage strong performance and rapidly, but fairly remove poor performance," says Kelly Acland, Account Manager, AchieveGlobal UK.

Yahoo! has a distinct culture and the people at AchieveGlobal were quick to listen, understand the challenges and make the appropriate recommendations"

James Brook Head of Talent Europe Yahoo!

Results: what worked and why

Yahoo! want to drive a high performance culture throughout the organisation.

The desired improvement is to build the capabilities and confidence of middle managers and ensure they have the right tools and frameworks to manage their people correctly.

Increased revenue targets within the business makes it even more important that there be improvement in management performance.

Feedback to date from participants has been very positive. The success and relevance of the course spread quickly through word of mouth, resulting in oversubscription for the next courses. Skills have transferred quickly back into the workplace, with practical and relevant models being used on a daily basis.

Participants have been able to effectively apply the Yahoo! Performance Management Assumptions and success factors in the daily continuous improvement of team performance.

These managers are also more accountable for creating a climate in which employees can develop and achieve their goals.

James identifies a number of factors that contributed to the programme's success to date:

Engagement of European HR partners who have helped enroll participants and ensured managers understand the benefits of their participation.
A strong AchieveGlobal team has ensured that the design and delivery of the programme is highly contextualised and relevant. They have been able to provide content efficiently and have developed an effective partnership with Yahoo! Evaluation results have indicated that the delivery and facilitation of the programme has exceeded participant expectations.
The programme design has incorporated a unique and creative learning environment, including using tactile toys and lots of creative visuals. Participants, more at ease in this environment, are more inclined to take risks and try new approaches. "Dress rehearsals" of live situations has enabled participants to practice in a safe environment. James believes this design has been critical to the programme's success. "Training needed to be fun in order to be successful," he says. "We believe humour and fun is essential to success and try not to take ourselves too seriously."

Our objective is to help managers encourage strong performance and rapidly, but fairly remove poor performance,

Kelly Acland Account Manager AchieveGlobal UK

Next steps

The programme's success has been measured only through participant evaluation forms and anecdotal feedback at this stage. However, plans call for an internal employee engagement survey to assess behavioural change. Yahoo! will also be monitoring results through the internal performance appraisal system. Finally, Yahoo! will conduct multirater analysis to determine what managers are doing differently and assess this against their leadership competency framework.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. (www.yahoo.com) is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! seeks to provide online products and services essential to users' lives, and offers a full range of tools and marketing solutions for businesses to connect with Internet users around the world. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

About AchieveGlobal

AchieveGlobal (www.achieveglobal.com) provides research-based learning solutions that aid clients in developing leaders and acquiring, growing and retaining profitable customer relationships. Working with AchieveGlobal's trainers and consultants, clients can translate business strategies into business results by improving the performance of their people in the areas of leadership development, customer service and sales effectiveness.