Build Talent

As long as the shoe fits, the leadership development plan works right…?

Kurt Koffka, the father of Gestalt psychology, is known for saying, “The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” He is often misquoted by people who swap the word other for greater. For Koffka, though, the theory wasn’t a concept of addition, but the creation of something completely new. In other words, bringing pieces together in a coherent way doesn’t just make them greater; it actually changes them and makes something brand new.

When constructing a new house, we all know that building materials alone don’t make a house. It’s only when those materials are organized in a coherent, master-planned manner that the materials turn into something completely new — a house. Yet, when it comes to building leadership capability in organizations, we somehow think it’s okay to leave a pile of raw, discrete materials on the floor and proclaim our people leaders. One-off training workshops pile up like a stack of 2x4s, instead of actually developing leaders. These disjointed and discrete “materials” that organizations pick and choose from remain parts and not a whole.

 

Here’s What Leadership Development Plans Should Look Like

leadership development planFor organizations to truly build leadership capability, they must bring these discrete talent activities together coherently, targeting specific leader populations across a leader’s entire career for a cohesive leadership growth plan. Only then will these talent activities come together to create something completely new – competitive leadership capability.

To create competitive leadership capability, organizations frequently organize leadership professional development plans into three bodies of work: 1) leader assimilation, 2) leader expansion, and 3) leader advancement. At the end of the day, these bodies of work are aimed at improving an organization’s business results. If done apart, you’ll find a mismatch of capability and shaky foundations, but perhaps ornate design. When conducted in a systemically integrated manner, these processes create a cadre of leaders that will be the pillars of your organization.

You Need This for Effective Leadership Development Plans

Time, training, and talent–we’ll show you how to harness them all

4 Ingredients for Professional Leadership Development Plans That Build Competitive Leaders

Below are a few things every organization should keep in mind when they are working to leverage talent processes to build competitive leadership capability.

  • Build talent processes that ensure the success of an organization’s business strategy. Regardless of the talent process, leaders must become better equipped to deliver on the organization’s strategy through the specifics of their role and regular responsibilities. Organizations regularly trade off competitive impact because leadership skill development plans are removed from what leaders actually have to accomplish in the business. For talent processes to impact a business’s results, organizations must focus on implementing processes in the context of the strategic results the business wants to achieve.
  • Build talent processes so they support optimal decision-making (and leadership planning). At the end of the day organizations must make difficult decisions about their people – who they attract, how they select and onboard, what to assess and develop, and, ultimately, who to move and how best to surface backfills. Leadership training plans are intended to provide this type of decision support. To do so they must surface not only relevant but also sufficient data about their talent to effectively enable decisions that support current and future talent needs. For talent to truly become a competitive asset, organizations must make decisions about them that are competitively based.
  • Build outlines for leadership development programs that ensure your leaders are differentiated from your competitors. Your talent should be as unique as your strategy because ultimately they are the ones tasked with delivering it. Organizations often choose the best talent as opposed to the right talent. Both in selection and in development, it is important to have processes that create leaders that will uniquely outperform your competition.
  • Build interdependent talent processes. Too often organizations pick and choose processes and focus solely on work that is most familiar or where they have the most resources. Subsequently, they trade off creating something completely new for more of what they already have. Work to ensure that the outputs of one process inform the inputs of a corresponding process. For example, focus talent attraction efforts uniquely for the demographic of the soon-to-be open roles you’ll select for. Similarly, work to fill your most competitive enabling roles with the talent you have who are most aligned with the requirements of those roles. If you don’t have those leaders, work to attract them, or identify missing competence in your existing leaders and work to develop those leadership capabilities.

 

Leadership Skills Development Plans Can’t Operate in Isolation

Stop the one-offs. Talent processes must converge in an integrated way to create a new, competitively enabling future. Build an integrated set of talent processes where the whole really is competitively other than the sum of the parts.

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