Company Overview

Deerns is an independent engineering firm founded in 1928, specialising in technical consulting and engineering solutions for high-performance buildings. With over 750 staff members across 17 offices in 10 countries, Deerns provides comprehensive services from strategic consulting and system design to specialist engineering, sustainability advice, and digital roadmaps. The company's 750+ experts in mechanical and electrical design, building physics, energy efficiency, digitalisation, and sustainability work across diverse sectors including airports, healthcare facilities, data centres, laboratories, cleanrooms, and commercial real estate.

The Challenge

Deerns faced a critical inflection point in its organisational evolution. After decades of operating with a strong familial culture and deep local roots, the company's strategic priorities began to evolve. The appointment of a new CEO introduced a renewed direction: transitioning from a country-centric structure to a more integrated international organisation, better positioned to compete on the global stage.

The challenge wasn't merely structural, it was also cultural. Leaders who had successfully run their national operations, largely in their local language and within their own market, now needed to think and operate across borders as the business moved to a market-based model. The "new generation" of leaders needed to balance performance with global thinking, manage diverse teams across borders and represent Deerns as a unified brand of 750 engineers across 10 countries rather than operating from fragmented regional entities. This transformation required not just new organisational reporting lines, but a fundamental reimagining of what leadership meant at Deerns.

The Solution

Wibo's approach centred on co-creation rather than prescription. Rather than importing a generic leadership model, the methodology involved bringing together a carefully selected group of "ambassadors", key leaders from across the organization to collectively design what the "Ideal Deerns Manager" should embody. The process began with what initially seemed overwhelming: participants conducted surveys that generated a large number of potential leadership behaviours. However, through structured facilitation and a phased approach,Wwibo guided the organisation through a structured process, turning a large volume of input into a focused, agreed framework.

Wibo's team positioned themselves not as external consultants imposing solutions, but as expert facilitators enabling the Deerns team to discover their own answers. Through systematic phases, the group distilled dozens of behaviours down to three specific leadership principles, each supported by five concrete behaviours.
The process culminated when these principles were shared at Deerns' own annual management gathering the Deerns Leadership Forum (DLF) where Wibo brought them to life through case studies and interactive sessions led by Barbara and Marco, turning written behaviours into practical, actionable leadership commitments.
This wasn't just a workshop, it was a journey of organisational self-discovery that left participants both proud of their creation and equipped to implement it.

The Impact

The transformation at Deerns is positive and already showing clear momentum. As with any far-reaching cultural change, embedding its fully ongoing journey rather than a one-time shift.

Rather than expecting overnight cultural change, both Dominique and Lenny acknowledge they are at a crucial implementation phase where principles are transitioning from paper to practice. What distinguishes this initiative is the systematic integration strategy: the leadership principles aren't treated as a one-time training event but are being woven into the fabric of organisational life.
The CEO has taken personal accountability for the principles which sets a powerful tone. Simultaneously, the principles are being embedded into performance cycles, recruitment processes, and the ongoing "Ideal Deerns Manager" program for training successive cohorts of leaders. Dominique reports that in her conversations with directors and managers the principles are already "top of mind". Leaders are more and a more using the framework to give feedback, address work challenges and translate strategy into execution. While it's too early to declare full success, the infrastructure for lasting change is being systematically built.
Since 2021, Deerns has been on a broader transformation journey, moving from regional thinking to a global mindset, from siloed ways of working to cross-functional collaboration, and from implicit expectations to explicit, shared leadership standards. The IDM programme does not drive this shift, but serves as an important enabler, equipping leaders with the skills and common language to navigate and accelerate it.

Conclusion

The partnership between Deerns and Wibo exemplifies how strategic leadership development can support organisational transformation. By co-creating a tailored leadership model with clear behavioural principles, Deerns is transitioning from a regional, family-driven culture to an international matrix organisation ready for global growth.

Key Success Factors

Strategic Alignment: The leadership principles were directly tied to Deerns' business transformation from regional to global operations, ensuring practical relevance.

Co-Creation Methodology: Rather than imposing an external model, Wibo facilitated a collaborative process in which Deerns' leaders shaped their own principles, ensuring ownership and cultural fit.

Practical Integration: The principles served as the foundational building blocks for the IDM programme, and are progressively being embedded into operational processes, including performance cycles and recruitment, through a structured implementation programme. Rather than remaining aspirational, they are being translated into practice in a deliberate and phased way.

Expert Facilitation: Wibo's trainers balanced theoretical expertise with practical application, using storytelling and experiential learning to engage a critical audience of engineering managers.

Continuous Evolution: The program design allowed for ongoing feedback and adaptation, with the "Ideal Deerns Manager" program evolving across multiple cohorts.