10+ years making new ways of working stick.
Here's what we've learned, and what we've proven, in three cases: PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, and McCain Foods.
Born in a turnaround. Published by Harvard.
PepsiCo UK was heading into a third straight year of revenue decline when this model proved itself. Harvard Business School wrote it up.
A new playbook that grew a movement to every employee in 12 months.
August designed "Responsive Working" inside PepsiCo's North America Beverages division in 2014: five pilot teams, sprint-based cadence, safe-to-try decisions, embedded coaching. When PepsiCo UK adopted the model facing three straight years of revenue decline, it reversed the decline within eight weeks of launching its first team.
It scaled to 60 markets and 10,000+ employees, with an internal coaching network and global Center of Excellence built and handed off.
A $16.5B company with the right principles and the wrong speed.
Imagine it is the end of 2018. Colgate-Palmolive, founded in 1806, with 34,000+ people serving over 200 countries and territories, has a new operating model focused on growth and innovation. The CHRO and the senior team hand you a mandate: implement agility at Colgate.
The culture is caring, results-oriented, risk-averse, and efficiency-driven. The principles are right and the speed is wrong. They need a different way of working, and a partner who can build it with them.
Step zero, in Colgate's own retelling of the journey: find a partner, and not your usual suspects. That partner was August.
Four principles. Sixteen behaviors. One way of working.
Colgate and August co-created F.E.E.D.: a clear, concise articulation of the desired working culture, translated into actionable, measurable behaviors for the day-to-day working lives of all Colgate people.
Four principles, each defined by four behaviors, backed by a stack of concrete practices. An operator's manual for the day-to-day.
18 leaders. Nine teams. Real growth priorities. Every region.
Colgate went broad from the first year: nine agile and sprint teams chartered against real growth priorities, spanning regions, categories, and functions, from oral care innovation and e-commerce to brand relaunches and HR transformation.
Behind the teams stood the leader layer: roughly 18 leaders stepped up as sponsors and team leads across every region, creating the conditions and clearing the way. We selected them for a mix of real influence and genuine appetite to try new ways of working, and they were developed through real work on real growth priorities. Each team ran with a charter, a sponsor, an August coach, and the F.E.E.D. practices. The breadth was the point: prove the way of working across the whole business at once.
The Scale · 2018 – 2021+
From four principles to a movement
How a mandate became a company-wide capability, carried by internal facilitators and coaches.
End of 2018
The mandate
The CHRO and senior team commit to implementing agility across Colgate, in service of a new growth strategy. Step zero: find a partner, and not the usual suspects.
2019 · Experiment
Nine teams, chartered for growth
Nine agile and sprint teams launch against real growth priorities across regions, categories, and functions. Practices are co-created and behaviors defined together with Colgate leaders.
18 leaders & 9 teamsin the first cohort
2019 – 2020 · Enroll
Making the case for change
Roadshows and leadership sessions enroll leaders across divisions and regions in the case for change, ahead of scaling: roughly 80 live sessions reaching about 1,000 people directly.
2020 · Empower
The network takes shape
A second wave of teams charters across North America, Mexico, and the supply chain. Champions are enlisted and equipped, learning content built, local leadership teams brought in.
Mar – Dec 2020
Certifying the carriers
140 global F.E.E.D. facilitators are certified through a seven-week cohort experience, with an NPS of 77%. An internal network starts to carry the movement.
140facilitators certified in 2020
Jan – Apr 2021
The network compounds
160 more global facilitators are certified in the first four months of 2021 alone, bringing the internal network to roughly 300, spanning every region Colgate operates in.
300facilitators certified globally
2021 · Embed
Wired into the system
F.E.E.D. becomes the "how" in performance evaluation: every performance objective includes F.E.E.D. principles, innovation outcomes enter incentive plans, and the behaviors anchor leadership development. The way of working outlasts any single leader.
100%of performance objectives include F.E.E.D. behaviors
Real products, real pipelines, real handoff.
Colgate-Palmolive's net sales grew from $15.7B in 2019 to $18.0B in 2022, roughly 5% a year. These are company-wide results shaped by multiple factors but bolstered by the new ways of working.
The BOLT Plaqless team's work earned a CES Innovation Award. LATAM Naturals generated 71 new product ideas in an eight-week sprint. Hill's launched five e-commerce test-and-learns. And CO. by Colgate reached Ulta Beauty.
A 15-person internal CoE for Change and Org Design now carries the work: 120+ teams through the program, 150+ internal coaches and experts trained, 50+ corporate priorities supported. Colgate owns the capability.
The same model, proven across industries.
The Colgate story is the deepest documented arc. But the model (enroll leaders, embed with teams, coach in the flow of real work, build internal capability, hand off ownership) has been validated across industries, scales, and cultures over more than a decade.
From four pilot teams to 556+ practitioners in 20 months.
A $12B global food company with the right principles and a 2030 strategy demanding cross-functional speed. Four PACE pilot teams in fall 2024 grew to 22 teams and 170+ people by January 2026, with 556+ McCainers practicing the new way of working across five regions. August's core team throughout: three people.
A Global Engineering team identified $20M+ in CAPEX savings in a single 14-week sprint. Average improvement across team effectiveness measures: 23.5%. And 94.7% of participants agree the way of working is necessary to deliver the 2030 strategy.