Eight years ago I made a hard right turn in my business. (Or maybe, based on the theme of this article, I should say I made a strategic turn.) I stopped providing leadership development and started saving companies from themselves. I know that sounds extreme but hear me out. The global investment in leadership development is over 300 billion with over half of that (169 billion) occurring in North America. And yet… despite this significant investment most organizations fail to get real, strategic advantage from their investment (source).

I’m not a person who thinks “Maybe if I try harder it will work;” instead I stand back and ask, “Why isn’t this working? and how can I change the outcome?”

After much analysis and reflection, it hit me: Most leadership development is done randomly - there’s no continuity between the learning content [in other words – a lot of random courses] AND there is no connection between what people learn and their on-the-job behavior.

Companies are doing leadership development without a strategy.

The answer to the question “How can I change the outcome?” is this: I need to help companies set their people strategy first.

Once you know who is in the pipeline for future leadership roles, then you are able to conduct development activities purposefully. You’ll reap better results and you’ll be spending your money wisely, not wastefully.

THREE STEPS TO BEGIN DEVELOPING YOUR STRATEGY

1) Update all of your job descriptions.
Have the incumbents take the first pass at this. They know what they do in reality. In addition to a list of “to-do’s” ask them to list all the skills they employ while doing their work. For example, a CSR would list listening skills, being able to verbalize and explain things well, writing skills (for the notes they put in the system), mastery of at least one and probably three different software systems, and more. I would allot 2 weeks to a month for this activity because responsibilities fluctuate from day to day and you want a complete picture of the role and skills. If you have more than one person in a role, you might bring them all together at the end of the process and have them compare and contrast their descriptions to create one that they all agree on.

2) Make a chain of job descriptions.
Start lining up your collected job descriptions in “order.” For instance, an entry-level clerk can go on to become a clerk supervisor a unit manager a division manager, and eventually a general manager. When you put these job descriptions end-to-end you’ll see the natural progression of skills and you’ll know what to start proactively teaching your up-and-coming leaders. For instance, a clerk might need to master a lot of factual information in order to answer the public’s questions, while a clerk supervisor or manager will need to be better skilled at emotional intelligence, listening and giving feedback, perhaps presentation skills, and more.
NOTE: You will have to extrapolate some skills from the job descriptions, for instance, dealing with angry customers will translate to conflict management, negotiation, or recognizing bias.

3) Develop career paths and learning paths.
Now that you have a path of career progress for each role, make it a formal document so that people see the future of their career with your company. AND “overlay” learning requirements on top of each role. For instance, now, instead of promoting someone to supervisor and hoping they have appropriate conversational skills, you’ll require them to have that training before they are promoted.

I promised three steps, so I’ll stop here, but the next level of strategy aligns with more purposeful performance reviews, coaching and/or mentoring, and analyzing job descriptions and skills for lateral movement which opens more possibilities for career advancement within the company and maximizes your leadership development return on investment.

If you’d like to learn more about these next levels of strategic people development, Contact Us!