1. No category

May 16, 2012
How to Design Leadership Development for Immediate Gains
Nadim Matta, Markus Spiegel and David Whitehead
L
eadership development is generally
seen as a long-term investment, but this
doesn’t have to be the case. It can
deliver short-term business performance
improvements.
Most management and leadership training programs
focus on helping participants gain new insights, skills
and tools that they can use to become more effective
managers and leaders. Conventional wisdom suggests
that leadership development is a long-term investment
that eventually yields dividends in terms of improved
business performance. But this pay-now, gain-later
dynamic leaves leadership development programs
vulnerable to budget cuts.
This doesn’t have to be the case. Leadership
development programs can be designed with a
fundamentally different premise in mind — the pursuit
of short-term business performance improvements.
When companies do this, they gain two benefits: better
business performance and leaders who can execute
more effectively. This changes the economics of
leadership development programs; it can transform
leadership development from a cost to a profit center in
the annual budget. Here’s how Ascom, a global Swissbased communications company, took steps toward
doing so.
Jakobsson’s project involved developing a new software
package for enhancing mobile phones, and negotiating and
closing deals with partners and customers. “My aim was to
learn about leading cross-functional teams,” Jakobsson said.
“The structure of the program gave me a roadmap and
cadence to fall back on. People were so focused on
achieving the nearly impossible goal that they put aside the
usual bickering about turf and protocol.”
The program’s participants go through all the traditional
elements of leadership development programs, including
leadership tools and assessments, self-awareness programs,
individual coaching and strategic conversations with
business leaders. They then go through the following
processes:
1.
Before the initial workshop, Ascom’s business
leaders shape specific business challenges that they
ask participants to work on as part of the program.
These challenges are contained in the program
invitations that participants receive. Each
participant is accountable for one challenge. These
are real challenges with significant consequences
for the company.
2.
At the first workshop, leaders seek to inspire their
teams and organizations to commit themselves to
daunting 100-day goals. With guidance provided at
the initial workshop, program participants choose
their teams, and along with these teams they
choose their own 100-day goals.
3.
Participants are organized into peer learning
groups of four participants. Each group has a
conference call every three weeks to reflect on their
experiences leading their teams, and to discuss and
learn how to lead these teams to success.
Results in 100 Days
Adrian Jakobsson, research and development manager
at Ascom, is part of an internationally diverse group of 16
high-potential managers going through an innovative
leadership development program. These candidates
were drawn from a high-potential pool of managers
targeted for further advancement in the company. Each
program participant takes on the challenge of shaping
and leading a project that aims at making significant
progress in 100 days in a strategically critical area
assigned to him or her by an executive sponsor —
typically someone at the C-suite level. Each of these
projects is referred to as a “rapid results initiative.” The
program is in its third year.
Avoid Multiple Definitions of Leadership
There are thousands of books written on leadership. Each
management guru defines effective leaders in his or her
unique way — asserting that these attributes are the ones
that matter. Leadership development programs are then
http://clomedia.com/articles/view/how-to-design-leadership-development-for-immediate-gains/1
May 16, 2012
designed to align with the particular attributes and
competencies advocated by the program manager’s
favorite guru.
While no one can know for certain the attributes that
make leaders effective, there are a number of
foundational activities that leaders engage in, such as
mobilizing, organizing and inspiring others to perform at
levels that surpass their own expectations. Instead of
focusing on abstract leadership attributes in the hope
that these will lead to better leadership performance,
Ascom has participants perform such foundational
leadership activities.
Participants in the program jointly examine their
performance in leading their teams during peer review
sessions. They search for clues on what they did that was
particularly effective and what they failed to do in spite of
knowing that it was important. They help each other identify
and confront their own limitations and hold each other
accountable to experiment with new behaviors. This not
only helps participants advance their projects and their own
development, it also creates a culture of peer coaching and
support and fosters cross-boundary collaboration.
Leadership development programs can benefit from the
pursuit of real, urgent and compelling business results.
Companies that make this shift may find that the payoff is
higher in terms of the development of aspiring leaders and
they get the side benefit of bottom-line impact on their
project investments.
Copyright © 2012
Nadim Matta is managing partner of Schaffer Consulting, a management consulting firm specializing in strategy execution, leadership development, merger integration and culture change. Markus Spiegel is a senior consultant at Schaffer Consulting. David Whitehead is the head of leadership development at Ascom. 707 Summer Street, Stamford, CT 06901 USA
+1-203-322-1604  SchafferResults.com