In partnership with GitHub’s Talent Development Team and key stakeholders, we designed and delivered a first-of-its-kind learning event. 

Anchored by Nosworthy Group’s Founder Phill Nosworthy from a built-for-purpose studio set, this three-day Digital Learning Experience featured best-in-class thought leadership contributions, moments of personal reflection and guided small-group conversation. 

For their entire manager community, this worldwide virtual event acknowledged the challenges of 2020, while establishing a framework for personal leadership and resilience into the future.

WHAT WE DELIVERED

• Dual broadcasts over three days (US, Asia and EMEA)
• Hosting of live events
• Comprehensive production, including set design and event branding
• Thought leadership oversight, with a focus on practical and pragmatic learning tools
• Interactive, dynamic participant engagement
• Thoughtful post-event supporting resources
• Robust impact evaluation
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“Thank you for designing and delivering the most on target, engaging and innovative virtual learning experience I’ve ever seen.” - Chief Human Resources Officer, GitHub.

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OUR APPROACH

THEMES OF RESILIENCE

Themes of resilience and high performance were scaffolded over the three-day experience, allowing each participant to approach the learning objectives in a way that suited their unique circumstances and needs. Applying the resilience training and positive psychology principles developed by Martin Seligman et al, the themes were:

• Purpose
• Perseverance
• Equanimity
• Self-reliance
• Authenticity.

Important questions informing our design of this event included:

• How do you develop emotionally intelligent and resilient leaders in this remote era of work?
• How are managers inspired to do their best work in times of massive challenge and change?
• How can we restore and expand a sense of agency in a leader’s life?
• How can the interests and goals of the greater business be best aligned to the goals and needs of leaders in times of heightened sensitivities and emotion?

ENGAGING LEARNING EXPERIENCE

A high emphasis was placed on participation and engagement, with a combination of:

• Rhetorical content design with repetition of key themes
• Direct audience provocations
• Guided self-reflection
• Peer-to-peer conversations 
• Diversity in the contributing voices, including opening and closing sessions from GitHub leadership, including CEO Nat Friedman.
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“I'd just like to express gratitude again to the team that planned and put on this event. I left feeling refreshed, energized and empowered to show up as a leader even in these particularly challenging times.” - Participant

“I love how the different parts of the content feel so interconnected, and how the different perspectives of the speakers seemed to impact us all in different ways." - Participant

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THE OUTCOMES

The three-day experience enabled the group to move from a ‘low-moderate’ score to ‘moderately-high’ on the Resilience Index (as validated; Reivish, Seligman, & McBride, 2011).

We can conclude this thanks to robust evaluation methods that allowed us to track the impact of the event on the lives and choices of leaders at GitHub. 

A cumulative view was taken for the development and enhancement of resilience, and measured through the following empirically validated scales:

• Purpose
• Perseverance
• Equanimity
• Self-reliance
• Authenticity

Measurements demonstrated statistically significant improvements in each subscale of resilience and overall resilience.