Intel Partner Marketing Executive Leverages Change Tactics to Deliver Rapid $1B Program Transformation Without Burnout.
Strategic Advising on Fresh Change Tactics Created Quick Wins, Minimal Meetings, and Time for Family Too
What the Executive Achieved
- Faster and easier partner change adoption, even with difficult changes
- Completed the project in half the time (e.g., 6 months instead of a full year)
- 5X fewer initiative meetings per week
- Increased personal and team energy, engagement, and excitement
- Easily took time off to move kids to college
Rapid Partner Marketing Transformation Enabled Through Fresh Change Tactics
Ever since the Intel Inside program began in the 1990s, the world has known about Intel Corporation via its partner marketing. With Intel facing corporate challenges and changing market conditions, the partner marketing program needed a transformation to optimize investments and improve partner engagement.
A typical strategic transformation would drown the executive and team in a sea of bureaucracy, including a year-long list of activities, calendar-clogging update meetings, and rapidly expanding, initiative-driven workstreams.
The partner marketing executive and her team partnered with April K. Mills to throw them a lifeline of fresh change tactics that would minimize initiative bureaucracy, unleash leadership and team member discretionary energy, and deliver accelerated results.
How it Was Done
To achieve the transformation in six months without burnout, the team leveraged Mills’ 7 Change Agent Essentials and April’s Accelerate Framework.
For example, the team agreed to follow Change Agent Essential #1, “drive change, not people.” They led from where they were, with what they had. Their focus on role modeling and clearing obstacles eliminated the traditional delays.
With each sub-team leader empowered using Mills’ Trust Now Assessment, they eliminated strings of meetings and multiple justification presentations. Following novel status sharing tactics allowed for less than 2 hours a week of coordination across 9 simultaneous work streams.
April is by far the highest impact leadership change agent I have worked with in my 25-year career. She provides both leadership and team advising to help people think differently, as well as practical hands-on tools and techniques to put what she advises into action. She is passionate about what she does and is highly committed to those she supports. I highly recommend April to anyone who needs help driving transformational change.
– Andrew Marsee, General Manager, Intel Partner Alliance
The Payoff
The introduction of Mills’ 7 Change Agent Essentials and April’s Accelerate Framework allowed the Partner Marketing Initiative team to design and deploy the transformed Partner Marketing Program rapidly. Partners appreciated the fresh approach to launching and implementing such a large change.
With over $1B flowing through the Intel Partner Marketing program yearly, there were risks with this sweeping of a change, but equipped with the change tactics, the team delivered, without burnout, and kept their commitments to family time off.
Today, team members continue to use the tactics in their work and community change efforts.
