Fairfax Financial Holdings
The Challenge
In 2017, we were selected to design and facilitate the global Leadership Workshop for Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Toronto-based, global business, founded in 1985 by the present Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, V. Prem Watsa. Fairfax, a Fortune 500 company, is passionate about its culture. It lives and breathes its values and guiding principles every day, and these permeate its operations. Part of the culture involves operating on a strictly decentralised basis. The challenge, therefore, was to help existing and future leaders, from around the world, to understand the company’s philosophy and, crucially, what this means for them as leaders – without being prescriptive or dictatorial. This is where the leadership workshop came in.
What We Did
The leadership workshop brings together a selected group of high potential senior leaders each year, to share the philosophy, culture and leadership style of Fairfax.
The Change Experience
In the words of V. Prem Watsa, “We hired Nicholson McBride to run the annual Fairfax Leadership Workshop, which is an event attended by leaders from the Fairfax insurance companies from all over the globe. Our culture is of paramount importance to us. I selected Nicholson McBride because they demonstrate an in-depth understanding of our Guiding Principles and Values – and how these translate into leadership style and tangible actions. They worked collaboratively with internal experts to design a bespoke, four-day programme which brings the culture to life and role-models the behaviours that we are looking to encourage across the group. This is made all the more challenging, since we passionately believe in a decentralized approach, empowering our leaders to run their own businesses. So, there is a subtle balance to strike.”
Business Results
Our engagement has been expanded into facilitating the annual reunion for participants of the Leadership Workshop, as well as into many spin-off projects. The feedback has been immensely positive, securing a ‘100% excellent’ rating with the last cohort of 30 people. Our work with Fairfax is ongoing.
