Company: Obama Foundation
Industry: Nonprofit
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
Partnership: Multi-year leadership and employee development program
Situation
As the Obama Foundation prepared to open the Obama Presidential Center, it invested not only in the Museum itself but in the people who would bring that experience to life.
The Foundation was growing, preparing for a major public launch, and supporting employees through organizational change. Leaders needed a consistent approach to communication, coaching, feedback, and collaboration across teams.
Patrick Choquette, Director of Learning & Development at the Obama Foundation, viewed manager development as a critical part of that effort.
For Patrick, learning and development were never about delivering workshops for their own sake. The objective was to create consistent behaviors that employees could use every day, whether they were leading teams, collaborating across departments, or welcoming visitors to the Obama Presidential Center.
The Foundation needed a development strategy to support employees at multiple levels of the organization and create a shared language for communication, feedback, coaching, and leadership.
Solution
The Obama Foundation partnered with LifeLabs Learning to build a multi-year leadership development program that reached employees at every level of the organization.
Together, they developed the Activator Program, including:
Manager & Senior Leader Development
Over 80 workshops for all levels of management focused on skills including:
- Feedback
- Coaching
- Productivity & Prioritization
- Effective 1-1s
The program was designed to help managers build a shared set of skills and behaviors that support stronger performance, clearer communication, and more effective leadership. A key focus was creating consistency around the Foundation’s manager expectations, including regular one-on-one conversations, useful feedback, objective performance discussions, and meaningful career development support.
To help these practices stick, senior leaders participated alongside managers, actively reinforcing the skills and behaviors in day-to-day work. This approach helped create alignment across leadership levels and supported lasting behavior change throughout the organization.
Individual Contributor Development
56 workshops focused on communication, collaboration, prioritization, and navigating workplace challenges more effectively.
Across all workshops and all-staff sessions, the emphasis remained the same: practical skills employees could use immediately and continue reinforcing over time.
Patrick described one of the reasons the Obama Foundation chose LifeLabs Learning:
“With LifeLabs’ help, we were able to create a consistent development throughline for every single member of our staff. From our frontline teams welcoming visitors to the Obama Presidential Center campus up to our executive leadership, everyone now shares a common training experience, vocabulary, and tools. This shared experience reinforces that these critical behaviors matter at every level of the organization. By investing in our people this way, we aren’t just supporting their daily work—we are fueling their long-term development and career growth at the Foundation, ultimately empowering them to make an even greater impact toward our mission.“
Patrick Choquette, Director of Learning & Development at The Obama Foundation
Embedding skills into everyday systems
| CUSTOM PROGRAM Preparing Frontline Staff for the Visitor Experience As the opening of the Obama Presidential Center approached, the Foundation expanded the Activator Program to include employees who would interact directly with visitors. LifeLabs Learning designed two custom workshops for visitor-facing employees, adapting the communication tools already taught across the Foundation into practical skills for creating welcoming, inclusive visitor experiences. Communication Essentials Employees practiced skills they could use in real-time interactions with visitors, including: – Asking better questions – Listening more effectively – Communicating more clearly These skills help employees navigate conversations with greater confidence, clarity, and empathy. Communicating Inclusively A second workshop focused on creating experiences in which every visitor feels welcome, respected, and included. Employees practiced ways to: – Invite conversation – Respond thoughtfully in challenging moments – Keep conversations constructive These skills support more inclusive interactions and help move conversations forward effectively. Standout Results – 93-100% attendance for visitor services teams – NPS of 75 based on 79 survey responses – 96% reported they could apply what they learned – 93% reported the skills were useful – 96% felt facilitators were engaging – Participants rated the sessions 4.7 out of 5 and said they would recommend them to others. |
Learners especially valued that the sessions weren’t generic. They highlighted Foundation-specific peer conversations, real examples, and tools they could use right away.
Results
Over the course of the partnership, the Obama Foundation delivered 137 learning experiences across managers, senior leaders, & individual contributors.
Strong Participation Across Programs
The most-attended topics were:
- Productivity & Prioritization
- Feedback
- Coaching
Each topic was delivered over 12 workshop sessions, reaching more than 240 learners in total.
“With LifeLabs’ help, we were able to create a consistent development throughline for every single member of our staff. From our frontline teams welcoming visitors to the Obama Presidential Center campus up to our executive leadership, everyone now shares a common training experience, vocabulary, and tools. This shared experience reinforces that these critical behaviors matter at every level of the organization. By investing in our people this way, we aren’t just supporting their daily work—we are fueling their long-term development and career growth at the Foundation, ultimately empowering them to make an even greater impact toward our mission.“
Patrick Choquette, Director of Learning & Development at The Obama Foundation
Creating a Culture Where Learning Matters
Program participation was driven by more than calendar invitations. Patrick worked intentionally to communicate that development mattered.
When employees missed workshops, he often reached out personally.
Those conversations reinforced that learning and growth mattered to the organization.
The approach contributed to strong engagement across programs, with 85% overall attendance.
High Relevance and Applicability
Employees valued the practical nature of the learning experience. Participants left with tools they could use in conversations, meetings, and day-to-day interactions across the organization. Across 890 survey responses, participants rated the sessions 4.6 out of 5, reinforcing the sessions’ value and usefulness.
96% Relevance
“The skills covered are useful to my day-to-day work.”
96% Applicability
“I can apply what I learned at work immediately.”
4.6/5 Average Rating
Participant Feedback
Participants consistently highlighted practical application, career growth, and opportunities to connect across teams:
“I can take these lessons with me for the rest of my career journey.” — Career Growth
“Practical tools that I can understand and apply immediately.” — Feedback
“The practical tools to add to my toolbox. I can easily imagine myself applying them at work and outside of it.” — Influential Communication
“Sharing tools with colleagues in breakouts: it’s a rare and valuable moment for us to connect across teams at our org.” — Productivity & Prioritization
Building Skills That Last
Throughout the partnership, the Obama Foundation focused on creating opportunities for employees to practice, reinforce, and apply new skills over time by following LifeLabs Learning’s 3R Method:
Role Model: Leaders and managers demonstrate desired behaviors.
Reinforce: Skills are embedded into everyday systems and conversations.
Reflect: Employees create space to review their experiences and apply what they learn.
By the time the Obama Presidential Center opened, employees across the organization shared a common language for communication, coaching, feedback, and leadership.
The investment helped strengthen the employee experience internally while preparing teams to create meaningful experiences for visitors. The result was a shared set of skills and behaviors designed to support employees, leaders, and visitors alike.