What changes when people think differently

Case study 1 · Legal services

Webber Wentzel: building an innovative culture

Legal services · 120+ people · Several connected programmes

The challenge

Clients expect faster, more commercial, more technology-enabled service, and AI is changing how legal value is created. The firm did not need more awareness of innovation. It needed a way to make innovation practical, repeatable and part of day-to-day work across lawyers, partners and business services.

What we did

A suite of connected programmes: the Creative Thinking Accelerator, a two-month programme with in-person workshops, online sessions, group coaching, peer partnering and a Creative ID profile, run across three cohorts; an innovation challenge for 35 senior fee-earners; an innovation strategy day for 15 senior partners; a business development and marketing workshop for 26 people; and an innovation toolkit for internal facilitators, so the method could spread without us.

Results

• 97% of participants would recommend the programme; 100% said the sessions were engaging; 93% said the training would help them innovate.
• The firm has since won the Innovation Award at the African Legal Awards two years running.
• The AI, technology and legal operations team trained through the programmes went on to launch Webber Wentzel Fusion, the firm's legal technology subsidiary, with its own innovation lab.

One story

Knowledge lawyer Amy King arrived carrying staff development and thought leadership writing on top of her legal work. After the course she flipped the model: junior lawyers now teach sections of the training and write the thought leadership pieces on what they have just learned. The load is shared, the juniors are growing, and she has her time back. “I have never experienced another course structured like this. It feels like a complete win-win.”

Case study 2 · Financial services

Momentum Metropolitan: creative thinking in Group Finance

Financial services · 100+ people · Three tracks · Five months

The challenge

Group Finance was under pressure to move from compliance-focused reporting to strategic insight, and from siloed execution to cross-functional problem solving. The teams did not lack technical skill. What was missing was structured creative thinking, and the belief that it was available to them. The near-universal starting point: “Creativity is a gift. Some people have it. I don't.”

What we did

Three interlocking tracks. Unboxed Leadership for 22 leaders: two full-day workshops, individual and group coaching, and an action learning project. Unboxed Thinking for 78 team members: two full-day workshops over six weeks, with manager coaching and peer accountability. Making It Stick for all 100: a twelve-week email programme and two online sessions to stop the learning fading. Leaders went first, so they could model and coach creative thinking before their teams began.

Results

• Four action learning projects presented to a senior leadership panel, each with a tangible outcome: a decision-impact framework for dashboards, a human-first change communication framework, a maintainable process documentation system, and a client co-discovery framework piloted live with a real client in the room.
• 22 leaders now equipped to coach creative thinking in their own teams.
• A shared creative language and named practices, such as SCAMPER, divergent and convergent thinking and structured problem solving, in use across 100 people.

One story

Geraldine Seethal, a compliance officer in a role defined by rules and precision, described her shift using a tree: at the roots, the old ways of tick-box and linear thinking; in the branches, adaptability and possibility. She has since redesigned her team's communications with a newsletter, podcasts and one-pagers. Compliance, reimagined.

Case study 3 · Telecommunications

MTN: Lead for Creative Thinking, with GIBS

Telecommunications · 30 leaders · Four months · In partnership with GIBS Business School

The challenge

MTN, Africa's largest mobile network operator, wanted to build creative leadership across a technically minded, functionally diverse leadership group, at a moment shaped by AI, intensifying competition and shifting customer expectations. It wanted measurable, lasting change, not just a course.

What we did

We delivered the GIBS Lead for Creative Thinking course in-house, extended at MTN's request from six weeks to four months, so leaders had time between modules to apply each lens in their own work. Self-study, live facilitated online sessions, a Creative ID profile, a learning partner and a portfolio of evidence. Participants came from engineering, fintech, commercial operations, risk and HR.

Results

• Of 26 participants assessed, 73% achieved distinction. The cohort average was 87%.
• Leaders applied the tools to real work: capital investment prioritisation for network capacity, now an automated daily dashboard; an enterprise-wide Power BI catalogue; a 5G roll-out risk assessment; a manual contingency process designed in real time during a warehouse conveyor failure; and an onboarding redesign that reached 95% on-time completion.
• New team rituals took hold, with names like We Are Lit, Creative Sparks and One Win One Wonder.

Case study 4 · Banking

Standard Bank: 35 innovation ambassadors, five innovation award nominations

Banking · Corporate and Investment Banking, Client Coverage · Innovation Mechanics: 35 innovation ambassadors in two cohorts, three full-day modules

The challenge

Standard Bank's Corporate and Investment Banking Innovation Hub wanted innovation to come from right across Client Coverage, not only from a few natural ideas people. It selected innovation ambassadors to be firestarters: people who would spot where to innovate, think like innovators and spark the same thinking in their teams.

What we did

We trained 35 innovation ambassadors in two cohorts. With the Innovation Hub, we designed Innovation Mechanics: three full-day, in-person modules a week apart, each building on the last.

• What, why and where: what innovation is, who is responsible for it and where to look for it, using tools such as the Business Model Canvas and creative ways to pitch an idea.
• How I'm creative: each person's Creative ID profile, the creative mindset and the blockers that hold ideas back.
• How we innovate together: psychological safety, white space and a structured creative problem-solving process with thinking tools, practised in hands-on team challenges.

Results

• Five ambassadors were nominated for Standard Bank's internal innovation awards for ideas they generated in the programme.

In the pilot cohort, participants rated themselves before and after the programme. The share rating themselves above average or outstanding:

• Understanding what innovation is and who is responsible for it: 0% before, 100% after
• Using a structured creative problem-solving process: 0% before, 92% after
• Understanding the role of psychological safety in innovation: 8% before, 92% after
• 100% would recommend the programme, and 92% said what they learned will help them innovate.

In their words

“I thoroughly enjoyed the programme. I think it was insightful and creative. It got me out of my comfort zone; got me to think; got me to chat with the people in my team and collaborate with them. I learned how to brainstorm ideas and shoot down some of my own insecurities and break through that glass ceiling that I've created for myself.”

Nqobile Sibisi
Client Coverage Analyst, Standard Bank

Case study 5 · Financial services

Merchant Capital: a leadership programme the CEO rates above Harvard and Stanford

Financial services · Four cohorts · Four months each

The challenge

A fast-growing provider of finance to small and medium businesses needed its next layer of leaders to lead, not only to manage: to coach, to have the hard conversations, to collaborate across divisions and to solve business problems creatively. The founding team had learned leadership the hard way and wanted better for the people coming up behind them.

What we did

The LEAD programme: four modules over four months, each a full day in the room followed by an online session. It opens with Insights Discovery profiles, with group coaching between modules, learning partners, an action learning project and final presentations to the executive team. Now in its fourth cohort, with alumni refreshers keeping earlier cohorts sharp.

Results

• Four cohorts of leaders through the programme, with the executive team describing the final presentations as a highlight of its year.
• Teams that had been pulling in different directions aligned on shared goals; one finance team submitted its monthly compliance certificates ahead of schedule for the first time.
• A shared leadership language across the management layer, and cross-departmental camaraderie the executives had not seen before.

One story

The Head of Finance started the programme in the middle of an audit, resenting the four hours a month. By the end he had had the tough conversations he had been avoiding, redesigned how his team tracked its work, and taken the habits home. “I'll still be doing this when I'm eighty.”

Case study 6 · Veterinary healthcare

EberVet: from the least profitable clinic in the group to one of the most

Veterinary healthcare · 60+ people · Two workshops and a three-month growth programme

The challenge

A group of veterinary clinics and stores wanted every member of staff, from vets to receptionists, to think more creatively about how the business could grow, and to take ownership of it.

What we did

Two full-day, in-person workshops spaced over two months for all 60+ staff, followed by a three-month online growth programme to embed the learning.

Results

• Seven months on, the Strand clinic, previously the least profitable in the group, had become one of its most profitable, having built a new strategy and used creative problem solving on its key issues.
• The clinic employed four new vets and, by growing its paying client base, expanded its community outreach work.