PRIMING HUMAN RESOURCE

Eagle’s Flight works with companies to develop the people whose behaviors, attitudes, and skills are aligned with their business plans.

Andrew Thomas describes the core business of Eagle’s Flight as ‘mindset management’. “We work with companies to align behaviors, attitudes, and skills with business plans,” he explains, and it is a space where, he qualifies, “mindset is everything”.

While the parent business, headquartered in Guelph, Canada, is over 38 years old, Eagle’s Flight Asia was launched only five years ago. The firm has a core team split between Singapore and Manila, and Thomas, who is the CEO for Asia Pacific, has seen it growing twice its size over the last three years. “We scale across the region through identifying and partnering with consulting and training companies that share our philosophy and values,” he says of the manpower development firm, adding that they will “sacrifice a geography in the absence of finding a trusted partner. As the saying goes, better an empty house than a bad tenant.”

Thomas shares that it has taken time to build the business and that they are now able to deliver their work in 10 markets across Asia, in multiple languages, with the same quality and known outcomes. “We are massively proud to be an Institute of Banking and Finance-accredited learning partner. We work with IBF and MAS to support the shift that will be required across the financial services industry. This plugs us in to some of the most interesting and challenging needs in a powerhouse industry for the country and the region.”

The challenging business environment last year compelled everyone to focus beyond the number and think about business sustainability. “There has been greater focus and importance attributed to employees and leaders living what the company says to external customers,” Thomas observes. “Jon Iwata, the former CMO of IBM, called this ‘the Brand Inside’, but as with any marketing, getting everything to work is tough and needs a sustained commitment.”

Experiential Learning

Eagle’s Flight is focused on three things, Thomas says: going beyond theory and bringing the challenge to life through experiential learning; getting beyond complex and nailing the crux of the issue in a simple, practical, and relatable way; and training as a means to an end — that is, driving business results.

“No CEO wants to spend a dollar without knowing how it builds real, competitive value,” Thomas declares. “The training industry has done itself a disservice by getting boxed in to delivering workshop days with ambiguous outcomes. No CEO wants to buy training workshop days, but they do want to invest in ways to build their business and bring value to their employees and customers.”

He cites that adults learn best by doing, and that experiential learning unlock people and problems. “As a trigger, experiential learning is engaging, immersive, challenging and fun. Our experiences highlight the best and worst of attitudes and behaviors that happen in society and in the workplace. They create safe environment to fail — who minds losing at an experiential game? But at the same time, what happens in the workshop and experience gets under the skin. People remember losing a fictitious bar of gold in mountain or running out of food in the imaginary desert far more that the technical SOPS in an instruction manual.”

Motivate&Support

The popularity of experiential approach to learning is fairly recent. “It wasn’t the case when we started five years ago,” Thomas recalls. Today, Eagle’s Flight is the leading mindset and behavior change company with experiential (approach) at the core, he claims. The company has a massive portfolio of experiences that act as the jumping off point for self-awareness, learning, discussion, reflection, and change. The company can deliver its programs face-to-face or virtually with the same dynamic result, he adds.

Most training is delivered at employees and is directed at the head (knowledge). Eagle’s Flight knows that people are more complex, and that changing world their views and engrained behaviors is hard. “People need to be motivated,” Thomas theorizes, “they need to understand the ‘what’s in it for me’ and feel supported to bumble in to new ways of working, not be as good as they were before, yet emerge brilliant. We call it heart, head, hands, and harvest.”

Eagle’s Flight facilitators are some of the best in the business, Thomas claims. “We spend an inordinate amount of time understanding where we can help companies. Armed with their skill and knowledge, our facilitators guide and provoke conversations that lead to learning and knowledge that connect to the real-world workplace and business challenges. Companies hire the people with the knowledge and ability to drive business results — we simply support and provoke to get them to do it in a way that will improve business results.

“We make the science behind human behavior understandable.” Moving away from the norm, Eagle’s Flight works with clients to develop a workshop from tried and tested building blocks. “From years of experience, we know how to combine the building blocks that tease and provoke and create energy to think ways of meeting the avalanche of challenges in today’s workplace.”

GrowingTrust

As Eagle’s Flight continues to build its Asia marketing efforts it connects and consults with more companies, Thomas shares. “Watch this space but our agency has come up with a delightful way getting clients to stop in their tracks, scratch their heads, and relate their business challenge to what we do.”

For one, they are working with IBF to identify and accredit more programs that will deliver on the skills framework need. “We are lucky that we have vocal clients. Over 90 per cent of our business comes from repeat or referral business. We attempt to measure satisfaction, quality, and value-exchange with everything we do. If we miss the mark, we will refund or repeat work with a client until we exceed expectation.”

Thomas has distinguished himself in careers that span publishing, influence, strategic communications, and branding. “Every week, every job I’ve done I ask myself, ‘Did I make a valuable difference’. Most times I think I did. I started Eagles Flight Asia because I wanted to build a company that lived by this ambition. I want everyone in the business to be able to ask themselves this question and answer in the positive.”

He admits that Covid-19 could have killed their business, but it acted as a real call to arms. “We’ve worked with clients to create something called The Leadership 8. These eight programs address the challenges that most companies need to resolve — how to create psychological safety and why it matters, curiosity and innovation in the business, inclusive decision making, understanding self-brand and the equal onus that needs to exist between employer and employee. One of the biggest things is drawing the link between values, leadership, and company culture.”

BeyondtheBoardroom

Thomas says that Eagle’s Flight tries to bring value beyond the boardroom, and is particularly proud to be part of an initiative called CampVision by LEAD Academy — a sixmonth-long program that helps young Singaporeans who aren’t always given the best breaks. It set out to develop leadership skills, enhance personal growth, and apply what they have learned so they can reach their potential, Thomas elaborates.

Working with the LEAD Academy team, Eagle’s Flight facilitated the experiential-led programs that brought together learning and skills around communication, strategic planning, collaboration, teamwork, negotiations and adaptability. “It was one of the most demanding audiences we’ve worked with — when we were boring, unclear, waffling… they told us,” Thomas enthuses.

StartingAnew

“As more and more companies delay the hiring process and limit international travel, a lot of them are opting for modern methods of communication, better leadership, higher employee engagement,” Thomas discovers. He acknowledges that although uncertainty and fear hang in the air, it feels as though we are at the start of something exciting in business.

“I’m old enough to remember the panic around Y2K, and the fear that on the stroke of midnight when we entered the new millennium, clocks on computers would spin out of control. Every business I knew in every part of the world created continuity plans, bought safe rooms, locked up files and fell over themselves to buy new computers and IT equipment. And, at one minute past 12, the Year 2000, when we all gasped for a next breath… nothing. Absolutely, nothing. It was one of the biggest and most delightful hoaxes the IT industry has ever played on us.

“How else do you get everyone to upgrade their knowledge and equipment to the same standard, done with haste, with no expense spared? But what it did was create the foundation for a new wave of thinking and for the power of technology to be unlocked. The pandemic could be the same. As travel to Mars via the Moon becomes a reality, maybe we will get a few more earthly things in order.”