avenueleadership

Developing leadership talent is foundational to the sustainability of any organization. The Association for Talent Development’s 2019 State of the Industry Report still ranks manager and supervisor training as the top learning content area for organizations – a substantial investment for most.

As external consultants supporting leadership development efforts, we’ve found that several of our clients feel their leadership development is lacking something or they are unsure they are targeting the right content.

We share practices top of mind for us when assessing programs to ensure our clients yield the highest return on their investment in leader development. When framing or re-framing an organization’s leadership development efforts, here are questions we ask and some examples of how others have implemented it:

1. Is the content linked to key objectives, business needs, and your Mission?

If you are unsure, ask those who already know, your executives and top performing leaders. Combined with best practices, this input helps narrow and prioritize the skills and behaviors that are mission critical.

Ask top leaders what skills, competencies, or behaviors are critical day to day in achieving his/her goals AND how those skills directly contribute to achievement of the overall mission and business objectives.

Time is a precious commodity for most leaders, so it is important that the relevance and significance of your courses are compelling and communicated.

2. Are leaders applying learning?

An implementation plan is fundamental to a program’s ROI.

For example, after attending a course on coaching, the implementation plan might be to conduct 10 coaching conversations with direct reports over the next three months.

Communicating a plan for implementation from the beginning of enrollment helps learners know what is expected; promoting integration and accountability.

Additionally, your learning environment is a perfect opportunity for real application. Have learners work on complex problems that need to be solved in your organization.

For example, ask participants to solve a recent supply chain delay or an ongoing customer concern or complaint. You might also have participants present their solution to a panel of executives or senior leaders, making sure you have an avenue for structured feedback. Our clients who do this are amazed at how often long-standing issues are resolved or evaluated in a compelling new way.

In addition to being a great way to learn, this approach eliminates content development time on creating or working through complex made-up scenarios or role play activities.

3. Is the content expanding the leader’s toolkit?

Participants should be given simple materials to use in their day to day work.

Some examples of tools are: acronyms, flow charts, conversation guides, templates, reflection questions, checklists, etc.

These tools may also be used to teach the concepts covered in class to their teams and others. The concept of “learn, do, teach” cements learning, develops teams, and scales the impact of the development solution.

4. Is there an opportunity for both fine-tuning and hard-wiring?

When trying something new, providing a low-stakes environment to discuss what’s working and what isn’t, unrelated to his/her performance, makes all the difference. A few coaching conversations with a seasoned coach or internal mentor, who does not manage or supervise the learner’s work, is best practice. Coaching, in addition to the classroom, creates higher learning outcomes. In fact, coaching makes application 4 times more likely.

When a learner knows that they will have a conversation with a coach about application, they will more likely take action based on what they learned.

Simple questions like, “how is it going with X skill or behavior?” “what is going well?” “what would you like to do differently?” are effective.

This coaching can be done on a 1:1 basis or in a group with internal or external coaches.

5. Does the leader have ongoing support and accountability?

Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum – real integration and ROI takes the whole organization’s commitment to keep learning priorities and practices top of mind. Involving the learner’s manager is a fundamental part of this.

Involving the leader’s leader/manager with an outline of the learning objectives, learning goals specific to the leader, takeaways from conversations with his/her coach, and the plan for implementing new practices in their work, helps the manager support the learner and ensure accountability.

This closes the loop on organizational integration of your program.

6. Is it inspiring and fun?

Inspiration and fun are often what draw us to want to gain new knowledge.

After the course use inspiring articles, YouTube videos, Ted Talks, fun quizzes, and/or short practice sessions to combat the forgetting curve.

Reflection is an important part of creating alignment to your values, your passions, your strengths, and your aspirations — the impact you want to make to your work. The old saying, when you love what you do you will never “work” a day in your life, is true. With intention, your job becomes living out what you are meant to do, not simply something you do to collect a salary or recognition.

To start this process, first, set aside about an hour in a quiet space, without interruption.

The purpose of this exercise is to reflect on the alignment of who you are and your career. There are no right or wrong answers and nothing you write is set in stone. This is simply a process that will help draw your intentions closer to your results.

When ready, write out answers to the following three sets of questions about you, your current role, and a potential future role. Download the template here

In this first set, use the context of you as a whole person, not just you at work.

What are your strengths?
What drives you? What are your motivators?
What are your passions?
When do you feel most engaged?
How do you seek to make the world better?
What were you put on earth to do?
What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want to be known for?

Now, write out the answers to these questions about your current role.

How do you utilize your strengths in your current role?
What drives you? What are your motivators in your current role?
How are your passions connected to your role?
When do you feel most engaged?
How do the ways you seek to make the world better align with your current role?
How does your current role align to what you were put on earth to do?
How does your current role contribute to what you want your legacy to be?

Lastly, write out the answers to these questions about a potential future role(s). Think creatively and open your mind to new possibilities.

What type of role could fully utilize your strengths?
What type of role directly aligns with what drives you and your motivators?
What type of role directly aligns to your passions?
What work is the type of work that makes you feel most engaged?
What type of role aligns to how you want make the world better place? What you were put on earth to do? What you want your legacy to be?

If you find alignment between your current role and the impact you want to make in the world, consider yourself in the lucky minority!

But, if you find yourself with lack of alignment between who you are and your work here are a few suggestions.

If you were able to identify “potential future role(s)” that you would entertain, begin to make steps towards the roles you wrote about above. See if you can gather experience and education needed for this type of role both at and outside of work.
Work with a coach to identify next steps toward a new role or altered role. You wouldn’t believe how many people we’ve coached who were unhappy in their role so we worked together on an influence plan to alter the duties of their role, create a new role for them in their current organization, or create a path towards a new role. Many have been able to stay with their organization and are more engaged and satisfied than ever.
Perhaps you might decide to take time to move towards a role closer aligned with who you are. Use other areas of your life like volunteering, serving on a board, hobbies, and relationships to spend time on your strengths, passions, and making world a better place.
Perhaps you can’t find a realistic way to marry your passion and profession. Some people make the conscious decision that they don’t need to love their work. They will tell you “I work so that I can afford and do the things I love” or “my work and my passion are separate parts of my life”.

What if your ideal role doesn’t make the salary you need? We get this question all the time. This may be true. More often, this is a story we are telling ourselves (also known as a limiting belief). For example, we know leaders who run non-profits or charitable organizations that make handsome salaries. A statement we love about money is “you can’t have enough of what you don’t really need”. Happiness is never produced by things external to a human being. It comes from an inner sense of peace. Aligning who you are and your career can bring peace.

Author: avenueleadership

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