Leadership development | TECHNOLOGY & TELECOMS
They didn’t need another leadership programme. They needed leaders to actually believe in coaching.
Vodafone already had the frameworks. They had the resources. What they didn’t have was a way to make coaching feel like something leaders genuinely wanted to do – rather than something the organisation expected of them. This is the story of how a ball pit, a parody series, and a bold campaign question changed that.
What Vodafone was really up against
The leadership model at Vodafone was shifting. The era of direct, hierarchical management – where authority flowed downward and results were driven through instruction – was giving way to something more demanding: leaders who could grow people, coach them, and keep the best of them.
Vodafone knew what good coaching leadership looked like. They’d invested in frameworks and solutions to support it. The problem wasn’t knowledge. It was behaviour. Believing in coaching is one thing. Doing it consistently, visibly, and with enough vulnerability to actually work – that’s something else entirely.
The existing solutions weren’t being activated. The narrative that should have tied it all together was missing. And without that connective thread, the investment in leadership development was sitting on a shelf rather than showing up in the room.
The Impact
views of #stepoutofthebox on Viva Engage
views of the parody films, reaching 46,500 people
global completions of the Licence to Coach programme
increase in new members of the Viva Engage Leadership Community
increase in visitors to the coaching learning workspace
The decision that changed everything
Vodafone didn’t need to start from scratch. What they needed was someone who could make what already existed land – who could build the campaign, the energy, and the human story around the frameworks they’d already developed and turn passive familiarity into active, visible commitment.
The brief was to position coaching not as a skill to be trained but as a mindset to be chosen. And to make choosing it feel worth it.
Digging deeper to design smarter
The design spark started like all good things do, with Toy Story 2. Buzz Lightyear discovers rows of identical Buzzs’ in Al’s Toy Barn. Boxed-up versions of himself. Vacant eyes, fixed smiles. His character arc of self-discovery, challenging assumptions, and authenticity resonated with how leaders can appear ‘stuck in their box’ at times. This concept became the campaign’s entire spine.
Growth happens when you step outside the box.
In leadership, we present a filtered version of ourselves. But what if we were a little more “Buzz” – less “bound” by who we think we should be?
Leaders had already told us during discovery that coaching felt extra to the work, or that they understood the benefits but could rarely find the time for formal coaching interventions. This meant, in order to get them out of their boxes, we had to meet them where they were, not pile on more to do.
We then set out to design a global coaching awareness campaign to spark honest conversation and shift behaviour. No new tools. Just a bold, human narrative stitched through leadership at Vodafone.
What we built together
The programme became Step Out of the Box: an activation-led coaching campaign that broke down the barriers to growth by making coaching feel human, personal, and worth the discomfort.
“Who are you really?”
The campaign opened with a question deliberately designed to stop people in their tracks. Bold, evocative, and personal – the Step Out of the Box brand wasn’t corporate wallpaper. It was a provocation. A visual and verbal identity that prompted genuine self-reflection before a single session had taken place, signalling from the outset that this was going to be different.
A head-turning ball pit
The event space didn’t look like a leadership development event. It looked like somewhere worth being. A ball pit – playful, disarming, and deliberately at odds with the usual conference room setup – created the physical conditions for a different kind of conversation. Leaders and colleagues came together to talk about impact: the books that had changed them, the people who had become part of their story. The environment gave permission to be human before anyone had to say a word about coaching.
Storytelling with an edge
A parody film series (intentionally cringe, deliberately relatable) brought the reality of coaching to life from the inside. These weren’t polished aspirational vignettes. They were honest, sometimes uncomfortable, recognisable portraits of the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of what coaching actually looks like in practice. They opened conversations that a keynote couldn’t, because they reflected the reality that leaders were already living.
Coaching kits
Missions and toolkits gave the campaign its staying power between events – translating the mindset shift into specific, actionable behaviours that leaders could try, test, and build into their everyday practice. The kits didn’t tell leaders what to do. They gave them a way to start.
The results, and the ripple beyond them
The campaign landed. Hard.
The parody films alone reached 46,500 people and generated clear spikes in Licence to Coach sign-ups every time a new one dropped. The #stepoutofthebox hashtag accumulated 425,000 views on Viva Engage. The Leadership Community grew by 49% in new members. And coaching, the behaviour the whole campaign was built to shift, saw a 60% increase in engagement on the Spirit of Vodafone Day learning workspace.
4,890 leaders completed the Licence to Coach programme globally. The CHRO praised the campaign openly in company forums. Colleagues singled out the way the programme made leadership learning feel real, accessible, and, for once, genuinely worth their time.
That last part is the one that doesn’t appear on a dashboard. But it’s the one that changes everything.
What the numbers reflect is a shift that started in a ball pit and ended in boardrooms: leaders who moved from knowing what coaching was to choosing it – consistently, visibly, and on their own terms.
Step Out of the Box didn’t add another framework to the pile. It made the existing ones worth picking up.
