Prepare your leaders for a win

If you've taken our 2017 strategy health check, you know one of the hardest challenges for leadership teams is defining reality and getting everyone in the game.

In the words of CEO Joel Hawthorne, here's how GrafTech took hold of a new strategic direction with a custom version of one of our favorite learning experiences, a popular and fun simulation called Interplay.

"At GrafTech International, we make graphite and carbon products that are used in the steel manufacturing, defense, transportation, and energy industries.

"When your business depends on the health of the global steel industry, the market can be unpredictable and challenging, and we have suffered heavy losses in our core business over the past few years.

"As CEO of GrafTech, I was looking for an innovative way to align our top 40 global leaders with GrafTech’s new reality and strategic direction during our annual global leadership conference. I had heard about a business simulation called Interplay and called Advantage Performance to see if the program would meet our needs."

“The participants commented on how realistic the experience was and how well the simulation captured the realities of GrafTech. The experience resulted in our global leaders being aligned with our business challenges. That was my goal, and Advantage fully met my expectations.”

  Joel Hawthorne, CEO