Transformational Leadership and Learning

The combination of a pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil made 2020 a year of rapid and continual learning for most organizations. Leaders and employees transitioned to a remote workspace while companies had to determine how to maintain a high quality of engagement and professionalism while pivoting through unprecedented chaos.

Fortunately, Mays Business School is at the forefront in helping organizations make this transition and finding ways to thrive in an uncertain setting. Mays also learned how to engage donors, students, and faculty in new and meaningful ways virtually.

Wellspring of Learning

Halliburton, a client of Mays Center for Executive Development (CED), faced volatility never seen before in 2020. “While most industries were dealing with pandemic issues, we also had to adjust to a dramatic industry downturn,” said Lawrence Pope, Halliburton executive vice president of administration and chief human resource officer.

To pivot to the rapidly changing market, Halliburton streamlined its processes and shifted its face-to-face training and development efforts to online platforms. “We refocused and leveraged technology more than we already had,” Pope said. “We swiftly adapted to an online learning environment where employees on location at a wellhead or at our fixed facilities could access the necessary tools to develop critical competencies.”

Our remote-working employees are developing through online training and meeting their learning goals through collaboration with the Mays CED.

-Lawrence Pope
Executive Vice President of Administration and Chief Human Resource Officer for Halliburton

Mays CED worked with Halliburton to develop the company’s remote learning capabilities. Since 2004, the organizations have developed and implemented multiple, successful leadership development programs to strengthen employees’ strategic business and leadership skills. More than 10,000 Halliburton employees are graduates of these programs, which include many of the Company’s top executives. When Halliburton changed its employee training approach because of the many challenges occurring, Mays, with its proven track record, was the natural choice to help.

“Our remote-working employees are developing through online training and meeting their learning goals through collaboration with the Mays CED,” Pope said. “We thank Mays for its ongoing collaboration and continued success in helping us achieve our employee development goals.”

Rapid Adjustment

Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) also had to rapidly adapt as the pandemic emerged. In addition to transitioning most employees to working from home, the company had to reconsider its business model, including what would be covered in COVID cases as well as the pandemic’s implications for providers.

Our focus on lifelong learning is making sure that we equip our employees as best as possible to respond to change and to be educated about their jobs, the industry, and the environment that they operate.

-Julie Tyler-Brown
Senior Director of Talent Management at Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC)

What was non-negotiable was the company’s commitment to its workforce. “Our focus on lifelong learning is making sure that we equip our employees as best as possible to respond to change and to be educated about their jobs, the industry, and the environment that they operate,” said Julie Tyler-Brown, HCSC’s Senior Director of Talent Management. “The expected outcome of the programs that we’ve partnered with Mays during 2020 has been to make sure that we’re building the skillsets of our employees, especially our leaders, so they can make the changes as they come.”

The company first started working with CED in early 2020 and was planning on rolling out training on critical conversations when the pandemic emerged. The CED staff quickly adjusted the content delivery so it could be offered successfully in a virtual environment, employing BARCO’s virtual classroom technology that allows instructors to engage participants continuously.

Later in the year, HCSC worked with CED to launch a second online program, Accelerate, which created a more comprehensive leadership development program. As part of this program, CED developed a simulation which allowed participants to explore potential industry scenarios.

After working with CED for a year, Tyler-Brown has become an even bigger fan. “I appreciate their willingness to offer great content in a different way during the pandemic,” she said. “They made sure that our leaders got the most learning that they can out of our programs.”

Heartfelt (Virtual) Thanks

Faculty and Staff at Mays Business School also had to learn to incorporate technology in different ways to engage stakeholders. One of the most visible examples involved thanking donors when the school’s Scholarship Banquet was cancelled due to the pandemic. “The purpose of the dinner is to say, ‘thank you,’ to build relationships with our donors, and to connect our donors with our students,” said Mays Experience Team Director Cindy Billington. “We want to provide students with an opportunity to see their benefactors and their excitement, and hopefully plant that, ‘I want to give back when I can,’ seed in students.”

Faced with the banquet’s cancellation, the Mays Experience Team began to search for other options. The team reached out to the Texas A&M Foundation to use ThankView, a software program that creates short videos of appreciation to donors. Using the theme of “Thanks for Giving,” the Mays Experience Team devoted November 2020 to partnering with the Texas A&M Foundation, Mays Development Office, and various Mays departments and units to create videos featuring scholarship recipients as well as faculty who had received professorships and chairs.

The response from our students, faculty, and departments blew us away in how on-board they were in doing this.

-Cindy Billington
Mays Experience Team Director

More than 500 videos were created and delivered virtually to donors. “The response from our students, faculty, and departments blew us away in how on-board they were in doing this,” Billington said. “We received messages from our donors that they had been shut in. Receiving these videos featuring the students brightened their day and reaffirmed their decision to give back. This went beyond our wildest expectation of success.”

In hindsight, Billington said the effort was both daunting and reaffirming. “Talk about rolling up your sleeves to learn a new system and then getting everybody on board for something we had never done or seen before,” Billington said. “And to have the success we did made us all so proud. It was every Aggie Core Value at its best.”