Why Do We Expect So Little From Leadership Development?

A systematic approach for maximum impact

Surveys regularly show single-figure percentages when senior leaders are asked if their organizations effectively develop leaders.  Why do we tolerate this? Would you tolerate less than 10% quality on a production line, or fewer than 10% on-time delivery of your products to the customer? If not, then why would we tolerate this for leadership development?

Diagnosis:

My work identified the most common causes of poor return on investment in leadership development. Above the Pareto break came long ‘time intervals between usage,’ unnecessary complexity, producer capture, and over-specialization - thus failing to realize systems gains and multiplier effects. All can be eliminated by design.

 

A Better Way: Leadership as a System

Leaders are busy people operating at high levels of stress, so let’s make it easier for them to be outstanding. 
 

• Enthusiastically de-prioritize interventions that absorb the precious time of leaders while adding little practical value.

 

• See leadership as an integrated system of improvement, not as a series of unconnected and unaligned skills and processes. An example is leveraging the effectiveness of both coaching and recognition by understanding how coaching generates ongoing natural and sincere opportunities to give recognition, and how recognition increases receptivity to coaching. I call this application of Systems Thinking to leadership the “Cathedral/Higher Purpose Model.”

 

• Design approaches that add no time to their already busy schedules. An example is equipping leaders with simple questions to ask themselves as they walk towards someone to give them recognition - an example of using in-cycle time. This targets the three most common reasons that attempt to provide recognition misfire - there’s that Pareto again! – identified by comparing what the givers of recognition intended and what the receivers experienced. The outcome is zero additional time, spontaneous sincerity, and immediate application, as the skill uplift is easy and quick.

 

• Design your leadership development to systematically reinforce whatever approach to Improvement Science your organization has adopted (Lean; Six Sigma; OpEx; Agile, etc.).

 

• Ensure every intervention has built-in sustaining and improving mechanisms so our leaders are systematically better today than yesterday. An example is that the approach to constructive feedback involves seven cumulative improvement rounds within one day so that the planned conversation is honed to perfection, thus increasing confidence and likelihood of immediate deployment. To robustly prevent skill degradation over time, learning is sustained daily by practicing the mastery of language needed to give constructive feedback effectively via the clarity and brevity of subsequent emails. This is a bonus outcome for the organization and all who receive these emails! Leader Standard Work is a key sustaining process here and accountability coaching, within the Cathedral/Higher Purpose model, is the key leadership skill here.

 

• Design interventions to meet the “plant once; reap often” principle.

 

• Leverage the statistical rigor of excellent diagnosis and problem-solving with the most skilled coaching to elevate standards everywhere.

I focus on the practical needs of busy leaders operating under stress in demanding situations, competing with globally competitive rivals for sales and investment. This focus drives demanding expectations from investment in leadership development.

When I deliver this approach to leadership development, senior leaders are often shocked. They are not accustomed to:
    

• Receiving robust feedback on how much difference they have personally made in the six weeks following each of the 6 x 1-day workshops involved in the typical leadership program. This is collected from their staff in-cycle as part of the process. 

 

• Experiencing the respectful but assertive intolerance of what Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein call “unwanted variation” in the outcomes between different participants.

 

• Meeting the expectation to model and reference the behaviors, skills, and communication themes. These expectations ensure more junior leaders and others see good examples – the expectation to ‘model’ - and learn how the dots are joined between organizational objectives, culture, employee engagement, and Improvement Science (however described) – the expectation to ‘reference.’

 

• Understanding the strict Pareto analysis of what moves the dial on quality, productivity, engagement etc., and what does not. This determines what is prioritized so that topics deemed essential in conventional leadership development, such as reward and appraisal, fail to make the Pareto breakpoint and are deprioritized; and less common skills, such as managing overcommitment and accountability coaching, are included.

 

• Meeting the expectation that, as all redundancy has been removed at the design stage (see point above),- they implement 100% of what is covered.  I call this the “no redundancy principle.”

I interviewed over 70 senior leaders about this approach for my book, ”Rapid, Mass Engagement” (McGraw-Hill). Steve Thorpe, a multi-site manager at Coca-Cola Enterprises, was one of them. A senior Learning and Development visitor to one of his sites saw evidence of the approach outlined here all over the site and she asked:

“Steve, why do you use this Cathedral Model Leadership training when we have such good corporate leadership material available?”  

Steve replied: “Because it always works…”

I suspect that if you prioritize establishing demanding expectations of what is possible and apply the above principles and concepts, it will also work for you.

Frank Devine is author of RAPID MASS ENGAGEMENT: Driving Continuous Improvement Through Employee Culture Creation, and founder of Accelerated Improvement, Ltd. Visit www.acceleratedimprovement.co.uk