DigitalGlobe grew by acquisition. Seven in ten of its leaders were new.

DigitalGlobe helped invent its industry. One of the first private operators of remote-sensing spacecraft, it went from founding in 1992 to a public company imaging the Earth for governments and, increasingly, the private sector. Growth like that, in a field of constant technological change, comes with a cost that has nothing to do with technology.

In terms of human development, we're just learning to walk.John Hollander, Senior Talent Management

Growth by acquisition, leadership by patchwork

Acquisitions were a regular engine of growth, and it showed in the org chart. Fewer than 30% of the company's leaders had been there three years earlier; roughly 70% arrived through recent acquisitions or from the outside. As the company expanded, the boundaries and clarity between teams blurred, right as customers and shareholders started expecting more, faster.

The task wasn't teaching leadership. It was getting a patchwork of leaders to think like one company.

DigitalGlobe decided it needed distributed leadership throughout the organization, not a handful of decision-makers at the top, but leaders at every level who could act on strategy together.

One way of deciding

The talent team didn't want a class. They wanted a program deep enough that participants would take ownership of their own development. So they wrapped individual assessments, the Hogan HDS and a 360 review, around a live business simulation built to develop customer focus, awareness of KPIs, decisions grounded in strategy, and self-awareness, with behavioral feedback in real time and something to apply the moment leaders got back to their desks.

It landed harder than a classroom ever could, because it stopped feeling like an exercise.

I came in thinking this was a game, but then all my stressors showed up.A DigitalGlobe leader

From acquired to aligned

The change showed up in the questions leaders started asking.

They're asking the right questions. Like what's the competition doing? What do my customers need? How will our decisions impact the rest of the business? And do we stick to our strategy, or has the environment changed so much we need to adjust?Thom Kinney, Organizational Development Senior Manager

That is what distributed leadership sounds like: people across the company weighing the same considerations their senior leaders do. The proof was in what they did next. One leader went back to his unit and mapped its future product strategy using the same kind of segment maps he'd used in the simulation, taking the way of thinking he'd practiced and putting it to work on the real business.