Adding life to a lifetime of learning

Challenge

How do we unite a global organization around a shared, inspiring north star to enable a digital strategy-driven transformation?

Context

Add life to a lifetime of learning

With a new CEO and a largely B2B business model facing significant headwinds, Pearson needed to transform.

Their goal was to become a more digitally-enabled, D2C that placed the consumer and their lifelong learning journey at the heart of the company’s focus.

As an over 175 year old company mostly known by consumers as a textbook publisher, reinvention would be a challenge. To succeed, they would need to unite a large, heavily siloed global organization around a shared, inspiring north star, informing everything the company does.

Action

We helped them define a new purpose, mission, vision and values to “add life into a lifetime of learning” and we designed the teams and strategy to drive change through the organization.

We aimed to help Pearson tell a clear, inspiring story about where the organization needed to go and why that would resonate with its diverse consumers, employees, and stakeholders. We deeply listened to Pearson’s complex array of stakeholders. We used their input to create a guiding framework: Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values. We knew that to be successful, we would have to help Pearson embed this consumer-centric story into its DNA, informing everything the company does..

To bring the purpose and story to life:

We created a model for the new learning experience Pearson would provide to all of their consumers.
We articulated a new set of values designed as tangible behaviors to drive a new culture (action principles).
We created a set of internal and external assets to bring the purpose and new values to life.
We identified high impact initiatives to embed the purpose.
We worked with the senior HR leadership team to define and prioritize ways to activate the new Pearson purpose across every phase in the employee journey.
We created a new DEI strategic narrative and framework connected to the Pearson purpose.

We created a new purpose to galvanize the entire organization around a vision for the future of learning.

We created a booklet to help employees understand and embrace the new purpose, mission, vision and values.

Pearson uses the purpose, mission, vision and values to tell a consistent story to stakeholders and drive internal alignment.

They leverage the purpose as a filter for business decisions , applying it to existing products and services, and using it to guide M&A strategy as they seek to add life to a lifetime of learning across the Pearson ecosystem.

Impact

Through our partnership Pearson now uses the purpose, mission, vision and values to tell a consistent story to stakeholders and drive internal alignment. They leverage the purpose as a filter for business decisions , applying it to existing products and services, and using it to guide M&A strategy as they seek to add life to a lifetime of learning across the Pearson ecosystem.

The purpose also drives product development and marketing decisions, such as elevating Pearson+ their accessible, user-centric DTC learning platform that grew to 4.5 million users in its first full academic year.

Pearson was also recently named to Fast Company’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in Education, and was one of the best-performing stocks in 2022 – up 60% YoY and steadily rising to the top of the FTSE 100 index.