Scaling Leadership Development: Developing Internal Practitioner Capacity in a Multi-National

• In Event: Integrative Leadership Development: Building Tomorrow’s Key Competencies

Short Description

The presentation of this case study will describe how internal practitioners were trained to scale delivery of a leadership development program in a multinational. By using an integrative approach combining business outcome needs with psychologically oriented 360 feedback, and a learning approach to cognitive skill development, practitioners were able to successfully deploy the program.

Detailed Abstract

This presentation describes an integrative approach to developing internal practitioner capability for delivering components of a leadership development program within a multi-national company. Within the larger program roll out, two dozen internal HR and L&OD practitioners were recruited to scale the program delivery.

The client is a Swiss based multi-national with approximately 28,000 employees. The former CEO had launched an initiative for streamlining and integrating leadership offerings in the company. At the time, there were 28 different models and programs being used across the company. A decision was reached to go with a three tiered model, using The Leadership Circle (TLC) system at the senior levels.

Deployment of this initiative was complicated by a variety of events contributing to significant turbulence. The resignation of the CEO early in the development of this initiative, followed by the uncertainty of an interim CEO while a search took place, was the first major complication. There was also more external turbulence, coming from fighting off a hostile takeover attempt by a competitor, and then accepting a takeover bid from a Chinese firm. Finally, the hiring of a new CEO, while bringing some stability, also brought substantial changes to the top leadership team composition and had multiple impacts on a wide variety of company issues.

While this was going on, demand for services led to two regions starting the process of deploying this leadership development program before it was fully designed, approved and budgeted. As well, budget limitations have meant that not all of the top levels of leaders and their teams are able to go through the externally delivered program. This led to the need for internal practitioners becoming sufficiently competent to deliver a similar program. The training and development of this group is the focus of this presentation.

As an external consultant and leadership development practitioner, I had previously encountered that internal practitioners, while often knowledgeable enough and eager, having other task demands, seldom tended to have the same capacity for program delivery as the best external practitioners. With this in mind, a design to maximize these internal practitioners’ ability to scale program delivery in the company was generated.

The focus of this work was done through a three-fold approach. One aspect was to educate them as to the specific business performance and outcome expectations the leaders they would be training face. This was crucial in order for them to be able to make a clear connection between the leadership competencies and framework they would deliver as the core of the program and the daily business concerns of those leaders.

The second component involved training them in the use of The Leadership Circle (Anderson, 2006; Anderson & Adams, 2016). For external consultants and trainers, the only requirement for using parts of this system is going through a three day TLC certification (to use the full system requires another four day certification). For these internal practitioners, there was a desire to go beyond this and provide a deeper understanding of the psychological processes involved in this work. Here, the use of extra training, coaching and personal development was combined. This was based on gaining a deeper understanding of the reactive tendencies used in TLC through the work of Horney (1945). Then this was extended through using the Immunity to Change process (Kegan & Lahey, 2001; Kegan & Lahey, 2009) to give a more personal experience and depth of understanding of the psychological components related to the approach to leadership development in the TLC framework. As well, support and practice on coaching individual leaders was provided to the internal practitioners.

The final component of the internal practitioner capacity development work was based on a learning oriented approach focused on skill development. In particular, it utilized Fischer’s dynamic skill theory (1980; Fischer & Bidell, 2006), which integrates neo-Piagetian conceptions of cognitive growth with behaviorist use of operant conditioning to situate learning in the context of domain specific skill performance. To further operationalize this model, the work of Dawson and colleagues (2002; 2005; 2011; 2003) has produced a content independent assessment of cognitive structure and processes that has then been applied to domain specific skills such as decision making. Using the Lectical Decision Making Assessment (LDMA), specific learning activities targeting subskills foundational to decision making can be designed to target learners zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978), or their ‘Goldilocks zone.’
Working with the rich data gained from having the internal practitioners go through both the TLC and LDMA, targeted skill building relevant to their capacity for delivering this leadership development program were identified and virtuous cycles of learning (VCoLs) were custom created for each internal practitioner, as well as broader VCoLs for small learning groups. Iterative application of these learning cycles built relevant skills required prior to program delivery and then utilized program delivery experience as a further ground for applying the VCoLs and deepening the skill development and overall learning.

Examples from individual internal practitioner journeys in this program and how they have applied their learning in the delivery of the leadership development program in the company will be used to illustrate the impact of the integrative design of their capacity building work on their competencies and performance.

Participant

• Jonathan Reams, Norwegian University of Science and Technology