Zoopla Leadership Programme

Challenge

Zoopla is a private equity owned digital business with a clear mission – to develop an integrated platform business that changes the way in which people buy and sell homes in the UK. To support the mission CoCreate was invited to design a collaborative leadership programme for the 45 most senior leaders in the business, including the Exec team.

Programme

The CoCreate team consulted with 35 senior leaders from across the Zoopla business in support the design of a new leadership programme. Through these conversations it became clear that the Executive Team should participate fully in the programme as a way of building trust, busting myths and leaning into priority discussions with their senior leadership population.

We brought together 3 levels of hierarchy – including all Execs – into a leadership programme designed to accelerate psychological safety, ignite collaboration and equip leaders to lead the business through rapid change. 1:1 coaching supported the learning process.

CoCreate developed a 360-profiling tool based on Zoopla’s new values. This clarified the leadership behaviours needed and provided each senior leader with data on their leadership strengths and development gaps. Peer coaching supported leaders to identify concrete leadership action, with Functional 360 Reports providing insight into the strengths and barriers to collaboration across Zoopla’s different functions.

We introduced the ‘Four Domains of Psychological Safety’ to build the capacity for candid debate, with a ‘Leadership Fishbowl’ proving a pivotal moment for the level of openness and quality of debate. We incorporated Agile methodologies including Scrum and Design Thinking, enabling cross functional groups to generate new ideas and make progress on live business challenges.

Impact

Key programme content also received incredibly positive feedback, including:

• 100% felt better equipped to communicate the new vision
• 94% of respondents felt equipped to lead through Complex Change
• 100% of participants saw an improvement in their Emotional Intelligence and ability to manage themselves under pressure

Client experience