Leadership for Growth
Illumina grew from 25 people to 9,000. Its leaders had to grow just as fast.
Explosive growth was Illumina's biggest training challenge. To keep its future leaders ahead of it, the genomics company made a Capsim simulation the capstone of a two-year program, built around the four strategic questions that mattered most to its business.
- 25 → 9,000employees, at the time
- 4strategic questions built into the sim
- 2years of leadership development
Figures reflect Illumina at the time of the program; the growth is its own, and drove the training challenge.
The short version
- Illumina, a genomics pioneer, grew from 25 employees to more than 9,000, and its biggest training challenge, in two words, was "unbelievable growth."
- It needed to build leadership skills fast enough to keep up, so it made a Capsim simulation the capstone of a two-year program for high-potential managers.
- The simulation was built around the four strategic questions Illumina's leaders most needed to wrestle with, including hard ones on ethics and staying authentic while scaling.
- Leaders left having made the real decisions their company faces, with the simulation serving as the capstone of a two-year leadership program.
Illumina exists to unlock the human genome, and it has grown almost as fast as the science. In 1999 the company had 25 employees; by the time it built this program, it had grown past 9,000. That kind of growth is the good kind of problem, but it is still a problem.
The company's biggest challenge, from a training perspective, in two words, was unbelievable growth.Jason Scott Earl, Ph.D., Capsim
When growth outruns your leaders
Headcount you can hire. Leadership you have to grow.
Illumina invested heavily in development, building a two-year curriculum to grow the leadership skills of its high-potential managers. The question was how to make the capstone of that program count, so it wasn't a lecture but a real reckoning with the decisions ahead of them.
Built around four questions
Capsim worked with Frank Lynch, Illumina's associate director of leadership and professional development, to design a two-day onsite program with pre-work webinars, the first group exercise of the two years. Rather than teach generic strategy, it was built around the questions Illumina's leaders most needed to face: where disruption to its core business might come from, the ethical questions it would have to answer, how to reposition products for new markets, and how leaders stay authentic as a company grows bigger and more bureaucratic.
I was amazed at the depth of discussion that came from the ethical decision-making we added. The participants clearly saw the financial impact of their decisions, and it was a great learning experience as they listened to each other and shared their thoughts with the group.Jason Scott Earl, Ph.D., Capsim
Customization isn't on the screen
Frank Lynch had run custom simulations at other companies before. This one changed how he thought about what customization actually is, as Capsim's Jason Scott Earl relayed it.
The customization doesn't really come from what's on the computer screen. It comes from the connections the participants make between the strategic decisions in the simulation and the ones made by leaders at all levels in their own company.Jason Scott Earl, Ph.D., Capsim
The simulation doesn't work because it looks like Illumina. It works because it makes leaders reason the way Illumina's leaders do, then carry that reasoning back to the job.
Grow your leaders as fast as your company.
Book a short walkthrough and we'll map a Capsim program to the strategic questions your business is facing next.