Three Overlooked keys
Launching an Effective Leadership Program for Your Organization
There we were … huddled together before a match … the start of a new season. We were amped up! A team member started the countdown and expected a response. However, no one knew what he was expecting to hear and so it got a little awkward. The awkward moment stifled any momentum we were attempting to manufacture. Let’s just say … we do not have many fond memories of that season.
So, what happened?
We kicked off the season without clear goals, strategy, and roles.
Too often, this same unfortunate event happens in our organizations.
Leaders read a great book, hire a speaker with a big, fancy, canned facilitator binder, and send the calendar invites to the lucky participants. The marketing looks great, but when it’s all over, the organization has spent an inordinate amount of time and money on a program that didn’t move the needle forward as hoped.
With all that said, if you are considering a leadership development program, here are the first three steps we recommend.
Key 1: Validate the Need
Yes, random thoughts can be thought provoking after a frustrating meeting. And, yes, brilliant ideas can often emerge while enjoying an afternoon run. However, at some point, we need to gather data, align on the results, and validate the need for the program.
At Insight Leadership Group, we deploy a comprehensive Cultural Health Inventory within organizations to understand and pinpoint what is working well (and needs to continue) and what areas need more work to improve. This is a granular survey tool. So, we identify: a) what is needed, b) at which level in the organization, and c) why.
For example, every organization needs to improve communication, but communication is very broad. If you want to improve communication in your organization, it is important to know what the gap is.
Communication can mean a multitude of things. Here are a few examples:
Strategic communication distilled through the organization gets lost.
Leadership team members aren’t aligned on the vision or strategy they are expected to drive.
Team members don’t feel valued, appreciated or heard by management.
Teams have miscommunication and therefore are not working well together.
Conflict is wreaking havoc in the organization due to poor or ineffective “challenging conversations” or there’s a lack of willingness to address conflict.
___________ (fill in the blank).
You can imagine why hiring a consultant or deploying an HR Business Partner to improve communication doesn’t always work. The solution deployed isn’t always a solution to the problem.
Some needs we come across often are:
Manage as Coach
Strategic Agility
Change Management
Presentation Training
Sales
Negotiation
Emotional and Relational Intelligence
Succession Planning
Talent Calibration
Next Steps: Use data to identify the problem. That way, when a solution is created, the team members feel heard, and the leadership knows how to set the example and reinforce.
Transition: Now that you know what the problem is, you can create realistic goals for a program. Note: You have not created a program yet.
Key 2: Clarify and Align on Goals
Start the with end in mind. Clarify what you hope to happen when this program is complete. The goals should drive the program you build, determine the time allocated for the program, and define the metrics for understanding success.
For example: Do you have leaders who will most likely retire soon? Do you have team members ready to fill their roles or is there a noticeable gap causing some leaders to stay on the team longer than planned? The goal might be to fill the gap for succession planning. That means we need to get a VP ready for an SVP or C-Suite role, and we need to get a director ready for the VP role.
Another example: An organization might be losing individual contributors and attribute the gap to bad managers. The goal will be to improve retention, and we do that by showing the managers how to “manage as a coach”.
Next Steps: Clarify the goals before starting the program. When we have clear goals, we can measure success. Without clear goals, all we can do is hope we feel good about it. At this point in the process, we now know what the gap is and what the goal is. Now, we confirm who needs to participate.
Key 3: Know Your Audience (Who needs to be invited? How are they selected?)
When leaders walk into a room wondering why they are there, it’s a long journey to growth.
When leaders walk into a room knowing why they are in the room, we typically see growth and buy-in sooner and at a faster rate.
Clarify who needs to be in the room and why they need to be there. Then, we can effectively communicate this information to the participants. We want them to see the investment as an honor and not as punishment.
Think about it this way. When a leader stands up to speak without considering the audience, they can quickly lose the audience they are speaking to. The same concept goes for building a leadership program. Knowing the audience drives the creation of the program. The sessions on Relationship Intelligence we deliver for a C-Suite team during an executive offsite are quite different than what we deliver to a group of middle managers. It’s similar content but deployed differently because the needs are different.
Next Steps: Understand the audience that will benefit most from the goals you determined in the last key step. Who from your organization needs to be invited? This will help you clarify and understand your selection parameters.
Now, we are ready to build the program.
It's imperative to align on these three key steps before building and deploying a program: 1) Validate the Need; 2) Clarify and Align on Goals; and 3) Know Your Audience. At Insight Leadership Group, we specialize in building and facilitating custom leadership programs in collaboration with incredible leaders like you.
If you are considering a program build and want to see if we should work together, shoot an email or set up a call with Michael.
Let’s be sure when we kick off programs, we aren’t just manufacturing momentum like my soccer team was. Let’s prepare correctly and build off of actual momentum that drives us to success.
