CGU approached MAKE as part of their ongoing efforts to achieve a balanced representation and diversity of thought in decision-making and leadership. They recognised that lasting change would require deeply understanding people – their views, experiences and motivations related to gender diversity.
The Brave team established a clear focus on the female talent pipeline and looked to make a positive and impactful difference in just 100 days.
Once the team had identified key insights and needs, we designed experiments to ascertain what solutions might be successful in meeting those needs.
Four experiments were identified and very quickly tested throughout the project to see what sort of impact they would have. They ranged from workshops designed to change the way women speak about and value their achievements, to tools to help women commit to making a change.
There wasn’t a person on the project who didn’t learn, grow or benefit as a result of the experience. A number of the team see it as a career defining experience.
Rebekah Taka, Enterprise Digital Strategy Lead, Group Strategy, IAG
The impact of Project Brave has been evident at an organisational and personal level. It led to four ongoing programs across CGU’s parent company IAG and the tools we developed have been adopted by other diversity and inclusiveness projects across the group.
Since the program began, the number of women in senior leadership at CGU has doubled.
Women previously lacking in confidence, have been successful in getting new roles and are enthusiastically sharing their stories. Men who believe in gender diversity but previously didn’t know how to support this are reporting that they feel much better equipped to have conversations and plan action with their female team members and colleagues.
Many original team members consider their involvement in the project as a career defining experience.
