It all starts off with noble intentions and great expectations. Organizations invest thousands to send a manager off to some Leadership Development Training, with high hopes of getting a return on their investment, and of seeing some measurable change in managerial performance.
The normal result is a large invoice for the training and related costs, and a new PowerPoint slide hung on the wall, with some convoluted model or diagram that’s supposed to change our lives, and solve all organizational ills.
How do managers and organizations get is so wrong?
They have the right idea, but they make the same mistake that any of us that has ever been on a diet before has made. We think that some temporary action, and new package on an old bit of knowledge will make a difference. Here’s a blinding flash of the obvious: if you want to lose weight, eat more veggies, eat less of everything else, and try to exercise more. Most importantly, make these changes habits rather than a temporary intervention.
Organizational and Leadership Development is no different. Figure out what behaviours you want your managers to display, and take action to make those behaviours into habits. This is incredibly easy conceptually, but much harder in practice. You need to look at your reward systems, development systems and processes. Part of your answer may include training, but only then as part of the solution.
We did some work with PepsiCo, who are generally well recognized as very competent at Leadership Development Activity. Their development model calls for 10% Leadership Training, with the balance of development activities taking other forms such as coaching, job-shadowing, special assignments, and secondments.
Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely believe that quality leadership is the stargate to better production, increased quality, improved safety, and better cost control. I just think that organizations that attempt to bridge their leadership quality gaps via training are taking the easy way out, and burning shareholder money to boot.
Just like most of us don’t need another diet book, but rather the discipline to use one of the 44 we already own, leaders don’t need another day in a classroom – they need help making habits out of the things they learned last time.