12th July - Professor Nelson Phillips at Citibank
Thanks to everyone involved, a really good session with some interesting topics discussed. Special thanks to Professor Phillips for his excellent insight into the world of digital and to Kate at Citi for hosting.
Three topics covered:
* How we develop learning
* Leadership development approaches
* The opportunity of digital (ironically pics of flipcharts)
How we develop learning
Recommendation - brainstorm
Adopt the business current tools and ways of working
Have a design session with someone from one of the current squads and potentially have him/her as a coach
Use current team tools, e.g.:
Have a slack channel for managers, from the beginning to understand needs. No need to set strict guidelines, it is often self-regulatory.
Build an app with key management concepts
Get people together to share challenges, have most training face-to-face
Potentially have a virtual coffee club, e.g. 45 min once a month on google hangout, during which we explore a theme, for example by inviting a speaker in
As some content will be basic for some leaders: get them involved and ask them to share experience, get their views on how we want to do things here.
Involve training participants in the design: more engaging. Then iterate the process as we go along
Pilot training when we are 80% there content-wise. Be honest with the group: ‘we don’t exactly know where we’re going with this, we’re open to your input’.
Either get the most senior team to input, or create a group of volunteers to pilot the training and input
Recommendation – how we pilot
Option A: get the most senior team to experience the training first and input:
Benefits:
Most experienced team so great to get them involved in the design.
They can shape how they would like management to look like here
They will be familiar with the content & become advocates of the programme.
Drawbacks:
Not a varied group of people, can miss out on things inexperienced managers need the most
Option B: get a group of volunteers to experience the training first and input.
Benefits: more representative group of individuals
Drawbacks: might not benefit from the best version of the programme
Recommendation – when to pilot
It was mainly recommended to pilot sessions as we go along to:
Test the format: bitesize sessions every month with opportunity to practice in-between
Inform future sessions design
In practice, that means the first two sessions (of a 5-session programme) would be designed when launching the programme, but the other sessions would only be 50% ready
Leadership Development Programmes
The world of work is changing:
Leaders are being challenged to be more agile, resilient, engaging and creative whilst at the same time executing flawlessly, managing risks and developing their people who now define themselves by the life choices they make and not just by the work they do.
The critical focus is ensuring sustained behaviour change and transfer of skills to the workplace and this is best delivered through experiential real time leaning.
Globally the world of work is changing, impacted by downturns in the economy, advances in digital and the changing demographics of the workforce.
The cost of poor leadership is significant, with an estimated 32% employee turnover and 8% annual revenues attributed to this cause (Deloitte 2016, Brandon Hall, 2018).
Trends Observed
Leaders need to become facilitators
Coaching based programmes
Goal based intentional behaviour changes
Minimum viable product approach
Rapid experimentation
Different modalities e.g. 5 min podcasts
Focusing on the critical few
Shift to ‘emergent’ approaches – using expertise to unlock thinking
Organisations are set up for steady state quarters – this does not fit the new business models that require quick decision making
Re-focusing on management skills alongside leadership
Lots of digital content
Lots of people running around trying to develop ‘digital’ skills
Social purpose and impact
Talent skills market in a ‘gig’ economy
Resilience
VUCA environment
Demographics and generational differences and how to manage this
Less is more
Need to fit with how people learn
Outside work they use YouTube and Google
Leadership Development Trends
The leadership succession model remains in widespread use, with additional focus on rapidly upskilling new leaders
Some companies are moving towards development for all
Blended approaches and technology being leveraged to enable personalised learning, flexible in time and space.
There is also a trend away from the traditional exhaustive approach to leadership development, with a renewed focus on being brilliant at the basics.
Observations from Talent and Leadership Club members
A large supermarket and a confectionary company are working together to build leaders
Line managers being actively involved
Cross-system networks – having big conversations
‘Tilt’ system has been used by some for content
Face to face still exists
Buying in content
Bringing in external speakers to provide a different perspective
‘Nomadic’ has been used for self-paced integrated learning. New sessions are released each week and this also contains as social aspect.
Competitive elements – leader boards and badges. For some using digital solutions did not deliver sustainable recall of the information shared.
Experience of dissatisfaction with virtual delivery mechanisms.
Emergence of the use of scaffolded projects to support learning.
Increasing use of virtual reality
People need time to fully pay attention
Do you segment your population?
No – all self starter and skills networking.
Not attached to hierarchies
Yes – exec, senior leaders, FLLs, graduates – status and hierarchy still have weight.
High potentials are identified, tracked and supported and are regularly reviewed.
Targeted populations – learning moments that matter by grade, sector, industry.
Skills for the future
Inclusion in everything
Creating real connections through development
Coaching
Objectivity
Facilitation
Agility and redirecting silos
Career development
How do you measure success?
Psychometrics as catalysts
Employee surveys
Improvement in 360 feedback
Appraisals
Evaluation of learning outcome
The Opportunity of digital
