Bühler: Shaping high-performing leaders to drive global transformation
Swiss technology group Bühler leveraged its strong learning culture to drive cultural transformation and performance. The results? Transformative impact across the organization and a Brandon Hall Group Medal in the Best Team Development category.
Context
Bühler technologies impact billions of people around the world every day. Two billion enjoy foods produced using Bühler equipment, and one billion travel in vehicles manufactured with parts produced with Bühler machinery. To realize this reach, the family-owned organization operates in 140 countries and counts 12,350 employees.
In 2016, Stefan Scheiber, whose tenure with the Bühler Group began in 1986, took the reins as CEO. From 2018 to 2019, a company-wide engagement exercise resulted in the adoption of three refreshed touchstone values: Trust, Ownership, and Passion (TOP).
As these values were refreshed, Scheiber and his leadership team launched a “Destination 2025” strategy that prioritized team effectiveness, values-embedding, and advancing cultural cohesion.
Challenge
To achieve this ambitious “Destination 2025” transformation, Bühler sought to devise a high-impact team development program for its top executives that would maximize team performance, enhance long-term strategic success, strengthen employee retention, and drive company performance.
Partnering with IMD
Leaders from IMD and Bühler worked together to design and deliver a learning journey that aimed to:
- Drive high performance throughout the organization, starting with self-awareness and personal leadership.
- Equip the leaders with the tools
,and skills to build, lead, and maintain high-performance teams. - Support leaders to further accelerate the culture evolution.
The program was implemented between 2020 and 2023 to empower Bühler’s top 140 executives and cascade high-performance team practices to over 1,000 leaders throughout the organization.
Coined the TOP Leadership Program, the program was structured around a research-based four-step plan to improve team effectiveness. It included pre-work, a four-day residential program in Lausanne, individualized coaching, and follow-up seminars.
Four cohorts of between 35 and 40 top executives each went through this journey. The first cohort included Bühler’s C-suite executives so that those leaders could then be the first to role model positive teamwork approaches. A fifth cohort was added for 18 China-based executives.
Cascading the training
Building on this foundation, Bühler and IMD then designed a cascading process, that started with training and certifying 40 individuals, who could then facilitate High-Performing Team workshops across Bühler’s global teams.
Most of the 40 facilitators were staff members from human resource functions. The others were senior leaders who had completed the TOP Leadership Program at IMD.
The train-the-trainer program kicked off in spring 2022 with sessions conducted virtually by Ina Toegel, Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at IMD and Program Director of Bühler’s TOP Leadership Program, and IMD leadership coach Michela Andrenacci.
A guide, prepared by Professor Toegel, presented the four-step approach to improve team effectiveness and included full lesson plans to make it easy for the facilitators to run the experiential learning exercises with their Bühler colleagues. The curriculum mirrored the flow of the Lausanne-based TOP program, in an abbreviated and flexible format that was appropriate for the new context.
Between late 2022 and early 2023, more than 100 workshops were held for the company’s top leaders and 900 of their direct reports, totaling over 1,000 individuals.
Most companies struggle to apply the learnings and frameworks despite their positive intentions. Bühler not only delivered on its ambition to apply the learning, but proactively drove the process, and succeeded in scaling the application.
Tangible impact
Survey results from participants of the four-day residential TOP Leadership Program at IMD underscored the program’s powerful impact:
- 98% reported gaining practical tools and fresh knowledge relevant to their roles.
- 98% felt well-prepared to apply their learnings in the workplace.
Later surveys measuring the impact of the High-Performing Team workshops also confirmed the effectiveness of the learning journey.
- 100% of respondents observed an “increase” or “significant increase” in the level of trust within their teams.
- Nearly all respondents reported improvements in the way their team members support each other, listen to each other, and align.
- 50% of respondents reported faster execution and increased innovation within their teams.
In a survey conducted by Bühler’s human resources department in 2024, the firm’s top leaders were asked “How do you assess the return on investment of the High-Performing Teams program?”
- 62% of respondents assigned a rating of 5/5 points
- 30% assigned a rating of 4/5
- 8% assigned a rating of 3/5
These metrics drive real impact as they are also tied to psychological safety, employee satisfaction, shared identity, and employee retention.
Key takeaways
The program has shaped Bühler’s high performance team culture in multiple ways – from strengthening leadership alignment to enhancing team collaboration – and continues to support teams in navigating uncertainty and driving performance in today’s dynamic market environment.
Together with IMD, we created a learning journey that not only strengthened team effectiveness but also accelerated our cultural evolution. The Brandon Hall award is a testament to our commitment to building a values-driven, high-performing culture.
