When we “interview” senior executives, as part of the exploration phase before they take part in a leadership and/or culture transformation journey, we often hear a request for help.
Whether it’s in gaining a better understanding of their organisation strategy, a better understanding of the future of the organisation (and what that means in terms of leadership behaviours) or a better understanding of their peers’ thoughts and perspectives. We also sometimes hear requests for more frank discussions, greater trust and openness and the need for individuals to think outside of the box.
What we never hear (and what we believe executives do not need from these interventions) is a request for more information, more knowledge, new skills or better tools.
Various studies found that adult learners in a lecture setting forget nearly 50% of what they learn within two weeks (Kristi Hedges, Forbes, September 2014).
How impactful (for individuals and their organisation) and sustainable is the (perceived) continuous push for content rich programmes, externally (i.e. learning partner) owned solutions, celebrity speakers and luxurious hotels?
Latest Vs traditional ways of framing the approach to leadership development
The following is a short list of observations which aimed at highlighting the contrast that we see between new and traditional ways of approaching leadership development experiences:
- Setting objectives (of the Leadership development intervention): Addressing real-time business issues while developing capability at the same time Vs an orientation towards individual and corporate learning objectives.
- Co-creation: Exploration of new boundaries (i.e. taking an iterative process based approach) Vs Communication of known boundaries (i.e. selling off the shelf or tailored products).
- Participants’ nomination: clients represented by a “vertical slice” of the organisation and self-invited to an experience Vs clients represented by tiers of an organisation(s) sent on a course.
- Inspiration: from unorthodox places and sources (e.g. charity organisations, university students, start-ups, etc.) Vs from orthodox places and sources (Business School faculty, motivational speakers, retired CEOs).
- Knowledge sharing: Transference of insight and capability (to HR, participants, their Line Managers, etc.) Vs Transmission of knowledge (to “learners”).
- Influence the system: Focus on business issues that don’t/can’t get addressed by existing structures and by current ways of working Vs focus on learning objectives derived from existing structures and ways of working.
- Defining your own standards: Focused on creating new, better practices and defining your own high standards Vs a focus on reinforcing and sharing best practices.
Of course the list is long however we hope you get a sense of the principles that we believe are central to how individuals and organisations transform.
So what do executives want?
In our experience, what executives find most valuable and most inspiring from leadership development experiences are three things:
- Time spent with their peers to get to know them and converse (i.e. Human contact, camaraderie and the fun of being with people they know very little about at personal level).
- Opportunities to get out of the classroom to discover if and how other organisations’ way of thinking and behaving has relevance to the context they operate in so they can approach their issues differently.
- Hearing from senior leaders their personal leadership story, how they ended up in the position they find themselves today, what obstacles they found along the way and how they overcame these.
As Mike Myatt, author of “Hacking Leadership”, said: “Don’t train leaders… coach them, mentor them, disciple them and develop them”. He also indicated that development should contextual, collaborative and actionable… Enough said.
