MindLeaders: Fueling the Learning Revolution

Leadership Mastery Demands Experience

Leadership development programs utilize many different tools to help build future leaders. Everything from courses to workshops to books can help the beginner begin to establish some level of competence. The trick is moving from competence to mastery. In this month’s issue of Leadership Excellence Kim Lamoureux argues leadership mastery is only attained through experience. Thus companies who wish to create a team of exceptional leaders will establish ways to accelerate learning experiences.

Creating experiential learning opportunities for leaders isn’t a quick and easy solution. (And throwing a new leader into the role with a “sink or swim” attitude isn’t what we’re talking about.) Lamoureux suggests three methods for incorporating learning experiences into your leadership development program.

1. Simulations – Lamoureux’s examples center on in-person simulations where a team role plays different situations. However, online simulations and decision trees can provide this element as well. As usual, a blended approach will likely yield the best results.
2. Job Rotation – Many companies choose the best and brightest for their rotation programs. Rotating members through different jobs provides quick experience and a broad base of knowledge to draw on when making business decisions. It also allows management to see the relative strengths and weaknesses of participants and choose roles that fit them well for permanent placements.
3. Action Learning – Action learning uses small teams to work on and solve business problems. I see this as more of a leadership practice approach. A bit more involved than a couple hour role play simulation but not as long-term as a two year job rotation. The team is assigned a business problem project and then leaders are evaluated on ability to perform under pressure, define recommendations, deliver solutions, and how well the team functioned as a group.

I particularly like the action learning approach. Maybe it’s because I worked in project management for so long, but projects are good crucibles for molding talent. Projects allow for fixed-deadlines and show how well people behave themselves when under pressure to deliver results. It also gives people a framework to work within that they are familiar with while trying to learn new skills.

While these three methods are great suggestions, I’m sure there are other effective techniques to give young leaders some good learning experiences. What other experience-based activities have you seen in leadership development? Were they effective?

Be Smart with Your Human Capital Management Practices

Aberdeen Group has released a research report called Intelligent Human Capital Management: Workforce Analytics Drive Profit and Performance. First let’s state the obvious. Despite the recession, the importance of Human Capital Management (HCM) is increasing. But while more and more companies are aware of the importance of HCM, they also realize that not all HCM practices are created equally.

To get the best bang for the buck, you must have metrics. And as we all know, it is very difficult to get everything in place to make data-driven decisions when it comes to people and their performance levels. However, it is something that best-in-class companies do, and do well. Other best-in-class practices include:

·     Integrating HR, talent management, and other organizational data to see future and current needs (break down those information silos).

·     Training leaders on how to use analytics and reporting systems.

·     Creating standardized HCM metrics (what doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done).

·     Making reports available down to the line manager level (don’t keep that information at the top of the organizational chart).

·     Improving processes so that data is accurate and timely (and available for decision making).

Bottom line: Good HCM requires collaboration between many different areas of the organization – HR, IT, line managers and strategic leaders. Unless your organization fosters collaboration between these groups, uses a system that everyone is trained on, and implements appropriate workforce metrics HCM is unlikely to give the performance gains that it could.

What do you think? Is there enough collaboration between HR, IT, and management in your organization to foster strong HCM practices?

ASTD 2009 Thoughts and Themes

The American Society for Training & Development's annual conference wrapped up last week in Washington, DC. As always, it was a crazy-busy time of talking to attendees at the MindLeaders booth in the Expo and attending some sessions to hear some latest and greatest thoughts on the industry. I had a great time!

Now, with some recovery time under my belt, a few thoughts have begun to settle to the top in my brain. For those of you went or would just like to pretend you did:

Just in case you weren't sure: The economy is still down
The attendance and expo floor testified that the economy is still hitting us all hard. I don't know what the attendance numbers were compared to years past, but the crowd felt a good bit lighter. Sessions still had good attendance, and the people that made it had extra motivation to be there, so the overall effect was kind of a "conference concentrate" - just add water!

Sadly, there were obviously some expo businesses that pulled out, too, as evidenced by the booth-sized "lounges" that dotted the expo floor. From the silver-lining club: it was nice to have some extra chairs to rest tired feet.

Recovery? Any time now, please.

This year's hot topic: Baby boomer retirement
Every year at the MindLeaders booth, there seems to be one phrase that makes people stop in their tracks and want to talk more. Every year, it's a different phrase. This year's phrase was "Baby Boomer retirement." We've all known the retirement wave has been coming for some time, but it must really be at our doorsteps now.

And to pass along the resources I was handing out like crazy to the people who were focused on this, check out the MindLeaders Leadership Roadmap and our new "Leadership in Crisis" white paper for some of our best thinking about ways to build up the next wave of leaders and manage that succession pipeline.

Is there a technology divide among trainers?
This is another topic I've seen the roots of for a few years now, but this was the conference that some people (mostly my techie-lovin' friends and contacts) really started talking about it: are we starting to see a serious technology divide in the training industry?

At one end of the spectrum, we have people who enthusiastically embrace and adopt each new technological advance that comes along: social media, virtual environments, Web 2.0, online classrooms, you name it, they'll try it. At the other end remains a sizeable and adamant contingent who rely on classrooms and manuals to do their teaching and view technological advances with suspicion and/or outright disdain.

Personally, probably obviously, I tend toward that techie-lovin' side of the spectrum. MindLeaders as a company, even though we're all about pioneering new ways to bring technology into training, does a lot of careful study to make sure that the technology we're using is stuff that is readily-accessible for our clients and can bring proven value, an excellent middle ground to strive for.

There will always be a spectrum of positions to this question, but this was the first year that I started to worry about that steadfastly non-techie group, especially because ASTD itself seems to only be tentatively addressing this issue. Are we risking the industry being branded with a "luddite" label and being left behind?

All three of these themes aren't fully-baked, but I wanted to throw the lot out to hopefully stir some deep-thinkin'. What were your impressions from the conference, or if you didn't go, what have you seen from your own vantage point?

Maximize your leadership development and succession planning efforts

Are you happy with your leadership pipeline? Do you have a succession plan that will cover the changing needs of your business? Are you ready for the wave of retirements that's coming?

If you answered no to any of those questions, chances are your leadership development and succession planning programs aren’t providing the value they could. Properly trained leaders are more likely to make tactical decisions that will increase the value of the business and ensure ongoing success. Effective leadership development reduces attrition of outstanding performers and raises the capabilities of everyone in the talent pool.

Our new white paper “Leadership in Crisis: How to Maximize Leadership Development and Succession Planning” will help you capitalize on your leadership development and succession planning efforts by examining the following questions:

• How are poor leadership development practices costing your company?
• What makes an effective leadership development program?
• Are star performers the best place to look for future leaders?
• What do you need to teach your talent pool to ensure a robust leadership pipeline and succession plan?

Download Leadership in Crisis: How to Maximize Leadership Development and Succession Planning and let us know what you think!