Role Model Leadership

The quality of current and future talent and leadership is key to our success. We want to inspire and nurture role model leadership. With specifically designed talent management tools, we identify talents at all levels of our company who have the potential to become future leaders or key players within the organization. In order to prepare them for more complex future roles, they have tailored individual development plans and participate in targeted development programs. In 2019, we made further progress with this People Strategy pillar.

Leadership and development groups

We now have four active groups of selected leaders and talents within the company:

• The Core Leadership Group (CLG) is the most senior group, made up of around 20 members from our senior leadership population. Members of this group jointly represent critical positions and roles across our company worldwide. This group partners with the Executive Board in leading the execution of the ‘Creating the New’ strategy, accelerating its delivery across functions, as well as developing and inspiring the next generation of leaders. The CLG also serves as the succession pool for the Executive Board.
• The Extended Leadership Group (ELG) has around 120 members. The ELG collaborates across markets and functions to lead the execution of the strategic initiatives that form the ‘Creating the New’ portfolio and drives continuous improvement and consistency across the organization. The ELG also mentors and sponsors the Global High Potential Group and serves as a succession pool for the CLG.
• The Global High Potential Group (GHIPO) is composed of around 50 members and was formed in 2018 with a balanced gender split. It enables us to identify and develop high potentials who have the ability to take on more complex, demanding and higher-level responsibilities at a global senior management level. In 2019, the first GHIPO generation finished their 18-month development experience, with nearly three quarters having made positive career movements through either a promotion to the next level (more than 50%) or through lateral, cross-cultural or cross-functional moves. In 2019, we also launched the second generation of GHIPO with around 40 members and a balanced gender split, and have seen more than 40% already moving into new roles at the end of the year.
• The Local High Potential Group (LHIPO) was formed in 2019 and enables us to identify and develop high potentials who have the ability to take on more complex, demanding and higher-level responsibilities at a local senior management level in our regions. The program is designed to build peer relationships and to give participants cross-functional and cross-cultural exposure, amongst others through immersion in a different country and function. The diverse group consists of around 130 leaders of 32 different nationalities with an almost balanced gender split.

Together with the Executive Board, we hold two physical-presence CLG and ELG events per year to ensure these groups interact and align on the execution of ‘Creating the New’ as well as our People Strategy. The GHIPO group meets up to three times per year for an on-site learning experience in our key markets and the LHIPO group meets regionally once per year. Throughout the year, all groups remain in touch via virtual experiences, meetings, calls and cross-cultural immersions. SEE CORPORATE STRATEGY

Leadership Framework and leadership development experiences

To drive clarity and accountability, leaders at adidas were engaged to further activate our global Leadership Framework in 2019. The Leadership Framework is based on the three company behaviors creativity, collaboration and confidence (the ‘3Cs’) and articulates the particular behaviors that are expected of leaders at adidas. The framework was developed jointly with employees worldwide who provided feedback on what great leadership within adidas looks like to them. It provides a global and universal language that is inclusive, reduces the need for local interpretations, and outlines concrete behaviors that serve as a measure of leadership effectiveness. It is built into the way we hire and promote as well as rate performance. The framework was first activated and cascaded to employees globally through the CLG and ELG groups.

We offer a portfolio of leadership development programs for corporate office employees for various grades and levels:

• Executive Development Experience: We are partnering with Harvard Business School in delivering a tailored learning experience for our most senior population. In 2019, the CLG and ELG attended the in-residence Executive Development Experience at Harvard Business School.
• Director Development Experience (DDE): In 2019, we introduced the Director Development Experience which is based on the Leadership Framework at its core and allows a customizable learning experience for our middle management level employees. DDE is currently offered in 16 of our locations and we will continue to expand the offer. Since its launch, almost all places offered were taken up.
• Manager Development Experience (MDE): The Manager Development Experience supports the leadership skills and abilities of our lower management level employees. Just like the DDE, MDE is designed to provide a customizable learning experience that uses the Leadership Framework as its foundation and drives the development of personal and team mastery. We currently offer MDE at almost 40 locations worldwide and also recorded for this program that almost all offered places were taken up.
• Talent Carousel: Our internal career development program Talent Carousel has entered its fifth and final year, with the third generation graduating in 2019. The program encouraged employees from all over the world to apply to take a cross-functional and international career step by starting a new role in a new location. The learnings from Talent Carousel helped design and launch LHIPO and now enable us to scale the experience toward a larger audience.

Succession management

Our succession management approach aims to ensure stability and certainty in business continuity through the development of strong internal pipelines for our critical leadership positions. We achieve this through a globally consistent succession process that identifies these important leadership positions within the organization, and matches identified top talent as successors for these roles. Furthermore, we ensure that succession planning translates into realizable development plans to prepare successors for their next steps. The leadership groups we have established serve as succession pools for the highest levels of our organization.