A hi-tech chemical company was going through major structural changes. A merger with an almost identical company, and momentous cuts in the budget, were the key change drivers. In the past the competition on all levels were very fierce between these two companies. This culture of competing against one another went as far as the social life within the community. The merger also brought along new business processes, teamwork, retrenchments and a new leadership style. Employees were demoralized, distrustful and de-motivated. The company believed that if they could positively influence leadership behaviour that its impact would be transferred to the employees. The intent was to change leadership style from a control-based management style to a participative leadership style.

A number of leadership competencies were identified that the leaders would need to ensure that they could lead within the new culture. The company developed a training intervention for every competency with the purpose that 1000 leaders should attend each competency intervention they believed they needed. The problem was to get 1000 leaders during the transformation period where the emotional energy was at a low to be excited enough to attend the interventions.

The company decided to make use of a Facilitated Theatre™ workshop to create understanding about the need for the leadership initiative, and to ensure common comprehension of the competencies. Lastly, individual leaders were to be made aware of how their own leadership behaviour needed to be modified.

The Facilitated Theatre™ workshop incorporated four plays and three facilitation sessions. The first play highlighted the proud history of the company, the historical challenges that the company has had to face in the past, and the need to change again in order to successfully face the future. The second play dealt with the newly expected leadership competencies, while the third play showed the application of the new competencies and the resistance to change. The fourth play demonstrated a picture of the future. The facilitation sessions guided the participants to compare their own emotions, assumptions, beliefs and leadership behaviour with those of the characters in the plays. The discussions also provided the opportunity to participants to release some of the anger about the changes and provided structure to discuss the sadness within the company and the individuals.

What worked well with this particular intervention was that it created a common picture in the minds of the participants. For the first time since the changes they had the opportunity to talk about the anger and the sadness of the retrenchments and other changes that created distrust. They had the opportunity of observing what leaders were thinking, feeling and wanting, which helped them to decide on appropriate courses of action. The theatre was in fact a mirror of leadership behaviour that educated, confronted, provoked, cajoled, empathized and jested with the audience - they frequently had a good laugh at themselves during the performances.

The 1000 leaders have a newfound sense of pride in their company and they are determined to make it work. They also have accepted the concept of personal responsibility for the wellbeing of the whole. Regarding the objective to mobilise the leaders to acquire the new leadership skills by attending the voluntary follow-up training interventions, an attendance rate of 85 percent has been achieved. What makes this more remarkable, is that the attendance rate has been maintained over a two-year period.