Building an Evidence-Based Leadership Development Program

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1 Building an Evidence-Based Leadership Development Program Guiding Principles and Strategies for Success from L-3 Communications Don Ledbetter Corporate Director of Management and Organizational Effectiveness Evidence indicates that people are more engaged in elearning when they separate the learning from work.

2 P. 1 Detecting a Need for Transformational Leadership A prime contractor in aerospace systems and national security solutions and a leading provider of a broad range of communication and electronic systems, L-3 considers its commitment to providing innovative solutions one of its core missions. During succession planning, Ledbetter and his colleagues noticed that some employees were reporting the same development goals year after year. The executives determined that employees were not growing professionaly in meaningful ways that would prepare them for the future, where the world is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA). Rather than criticize the lack of development or the lack of change in the development programs, we asked ourselves, Why aren t employees developing? Why aren t employees changing their development plans? says Ledbetter. One of the benefits to having an established coaching or leadership development program is the pipeline of wellprepared leaders. The executives realized that the organization s future leaders needed resources, a clear path and most importantly direction on how to fully develop into exceptional leaders. Moving Forward Countless teams and leaders around the world are held back by the belief that they cannot create or design a program until they have explicit approval from the senior leaders in the organization. Ledbetter and his design team colleagues made the decision to rely on the team s inventiveness, creativity and passion to build a transformational leadership development program model. The group, known as the Executive Leadership Development Program design team or design team, drew inspiration and fundamental knowledge from expert sources, including How to Grow Leaders by John Adair and Grow Your Own Leaders by Matthew J. Paese, Audrey B. Smith Executive Coaching for Results

3 P. 2 and William C. Byham. The team took on this major initiative without a dedicated budget or staff, but with the knowledge that their efforts would benefit the managers, leaders and the organization as a whole. The design team was challenged with developing a program that would be self-funded. After calculating the cost of the program, they established an internal charge-back schedule that would make the program self-funding and accordingly, self-sustaining, and they notified different business units of the price per employee for attending the program. The leaders of the business decided how many employees they would send to the leadership program, based on each business unit s budgets and goals. A lack of outside resources often forces professionals to be flexible and resourceful. Ledbetter and the design team discovered their collective education and experience enabled them to function as subject matter experts on the components of their leadership development program. After selecting topics of interest and relevance and performing extensive research, each member reported to the design team, giving the entire team a solid foundation on which to build the structure of their program. The basic principle in leadership development is that an organization should never give a team leadership role or position to someone without training. Implementing Evidence-Based Management While Ledbetter and the design team believe the best practices of companies are worthy sources of inspiration, they agree that these practices should be improved upon, not merely imitated. To build a transformational leadership development program, the design team adopted evidence-based management as their core principle. How to Grow Leaders Rather than rely on experience or best practices or good practices we looked for evidence of effectiveness that they

4 P. 3 worked, says Ledbetter. While building and researching different aspects of the program, the team examined scientific data and systematic reviews on which strategies actually worked and which ones fell short. Evidence-Based Training Methods by Ruth Colvin Clark was one resource that helped the team debunk common myths and avoid training methods that are popular yet ineffective. Clark s book, along with Gary P. Latham s Becoming the Evidence-Based Manager, laid out a variety of useful techniques that have been proven to deliver desired outcomes. The design team s research into 360-degree assessments revealed that commonly used numerical output reports often cause technically oriented professionals to focus on the numbers themselves, rather than on the important message the numbers represent. Drawing from additional evidence, the team utilized assessment tools that identified each participant s top three strengths, as well as an area for development. Your job as an evidence-based manager is to help your people break the I can t do it cycle Research from the International Journal of Evidence-Based Coaching and Mentoring revealed that merely identifying strengths and areas of development wouldn t lead to change in 74% of situations. However, participants show significantly improved results when they also prepare personalized development plans and involve their managers in the planning process and evaluation. With these additional components in place, participants are 90% more likely to following through with their development plans. Becoming the Evidence-Based Manager Using evidence-based management gave the design team confidence that they were implementing practices that work and that would lead to meaningful changes for the participants. Crafting the Program Structure With evidence-based management as the core principle, the

5 P. 4 design team organized the Executive Leadership Development Program (ELDP) into four main components: 1. Assessment 2. Development Coaching 3. Core Learning Experience 4. Continuous Learning The heart of the program was the core learning experience, which consisted of two in-person multi-day programs. Based on evidence that learning is more effective when it s spread out over time, the core learning experience began with a three-day session followed by a two-day session several months later. As time went by, participants requested more topics and more time to cover them so the design team increased the length of inperson sessions to four days in the first session and three days in the second session, before finally building out the program to a 10 day experience, divided into two five-day sessions. The program designers helped participants prepare for these sessions by sending them relevant getabstract summaries to review in advance. It is much more difficult to cut the budget of a learning and development organization that has credible, documented evidence of business impact than one that has only measures of training activity. Drawing knowledge from resources like Executive Coaching for Results by Brian O. Underhill, Kimcee McAnally and John J. Koria, Ledbetter and the design team capitalized on evidence that coaching is an essential leadership training component that facilitates transformational change. They partnered with the leading provider of professional coaching, using International Coaching Federation (ICF) certified coaches to work closely with participants over the course of one year. The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning To foster compatible coach/participant partnerships, the team provided each participant with a narrative profile and a video profile of three different coaches and allowed participants to select the coach they connected with best. The coaches began working with participants immediately, preparing them for their assessments, debriefing them on their strengths and areas

6 P. 5 for improvement and collaborating to create comprehensive development plans. During the core learning sessions, coaches and participants had frequent interactions, meeting between learning sessions, during meals, and after each day s sessions. The coaches observed their participants interactions in the classrooms, conducted group sessions to discuss common challenges, and paired together accountability partners who maintained contact with each other long after the core learning sessions ended. As part of the continuous learning component of the program, the coaches held webcam-enabled calls or in-person meetings with employees at least once every month. They used this time to conduct coaching sessions, follow up on development goals, and determine how the accountability partnerships were functioning. They also encouraged participants to apply their new skills and knowledge, while on the job using many of the approaches in The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning by Calhoun Wick, Roy Pollock, Andrew Jefferson and Richard Flanagan Pfeiffer. Executive coaches can help leaders bridge the huge gap between understanding what to do and actually doing it. Identifying Transformational Activities Following the second year of the program, the design team received feedback from senior leaders, some of whom expected to see more changes in the employees who completed the training. The design team identified and implemented additional transformational activities two of which were the tripleloop learning process and photo story telling. The goal was to transform good managers into great leaders. Executive Coaching for Results Triple loop learning consists of three steps: 1) having an experience, 2) reflecting upon that experience and 3) doing things differently and more effectively as a result of the first two

7 P. 6 steps. While some development programs focus on experiences, or simply on experiences and reflection, L-3 implemented all three steps in each program activity. As part of this process, employees used ipads to keep a journal about their experiences. Ledbetter and the design team knew that the triple loop learning and the journal reflections inspired participants to make valuable discoveries and adopt new perspectives and behaviors that enabled personal transformation. On the final day of the core learning experience, participants chose from 100 different 8 x 10 black and white photos of buildings, highways, windmills, flowers and other everyday landscapes and objects. The leaders instructed all the participants to select two images - one that best represented who they were when they began the learning journey and another that represented who they had become at the end of the core-learning program. The participants returned to the class and shared their reasons for choosing each image. Making the connection between where they started and how far they had come was a powerful and truly transformational experience. An action planning process provides an opportunity for participants to identify specific actions they will take to improve a selected businessimpact measure. Incorporating Mobile Learning Each program participant received an ipad, which Ledbetter and the design team used to deliver learning and coaching tools. The team discovered that learning on a tablet was appealing because content was not delivered on the same platform as their work; most professionals associated work with any task carried out on their workplace computers. Measuring Leadership Development Evidence indicates that people are more engaged in elearning when they separate the learning from work, Ledbetter points out. The design team also discovered that participants were more likely to bring home their ipads than their computers, adding to the benefit of delivering getabstract and other supplementary learning tools on their mobile devices.

8 P. 7 Strengthening and Measuring the Impact of the Program Ledbetter and the design team wanted to ensure that participants continued to sharpen and implement their leadership strategies long after the end of the program. The team began by providing all participants with getabstract subscriptions, empowering them to access summaries relevant to their training and to reinforce important ideas on transformational change. The design team developed Post Heroic Era Leaders a forward-looking program component that focuses on the ongoing success of the participants and the sustainability of the leadership development program. The organizers also trained prior participants to act as leaders teaching leaders, and model best practices to the burgeoning leaders within their teams and departments. The journey is always the same for leadership development; at the end of the day, learning to effectively lead people remains a transformational process. To measure the effectiveness of the program, Ledbetter and the design team arranged for third party objective evaluations after each year s program. These evaluations assessed participant reactions, the application of their training, the impact on the organization, ROI and other meaningful data that s explored in Measuring Leadership Development by Jack Phillips, Patricia Pulliam Phillips and Rebecca L. Ray. After completing the program, participants widely reported: Measuring Leadership Development stronger communication with co-workers improved ability to listen to team members higher levels of achievement of development goals promotions to roles of expanded scope and responsibility In the short term, 83% of participants reported significant improvement in business growth, their abilities to build effective teams and their leadership skills in a challenging environment

9 P. 8 filled with Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA). Fifty five percent of participants reported gains in those same areas over the long-term (one year or more). When examining the impact on L-3 as a whole, the design team collected evidence that the program delivered an ROI of 28.7% (2011 to 2013). The design team achieved the goal of creating an Evidence- Based Leadership Development program that transformed good managers into effective leaders. The participants and their leaders are active in the leaders teaching leaders approach for applying the learning and ensuring the ongoing value of the program. The results reported by the participants and confirmed by audits established the personal, organizational and positive financial impacts of the program. The real work begins when the course ends. The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning

10 P. 9 Subscribers of getabstract can click here for the bundle of book summaries mentioned in this case review. To reach Don Ledbetter by , click here: DonLedbetter@outlook.com Achieved Results The L-3 program designer team reported a program ROI of 28 times the investment ( ) 55% indicated significant improvement in business growth; 77% of managers of the participants reported that the leadership development program met or exceeded their expectations; 83% had a return on expectations of improved business results and more effective leadership capabilities. getabstract, Inc NE 30th Ave., Suite 315, Aventura, FL 33180, USA getabstract AG, Alpenquai 12, 6005 Lucerne, Switzerland or info@getabstract.com

11 P Don Ledbetter Corporate Director of Management and Organizational Effectiveness Don Ledbetter is the Corporate Director of Management and Organizational Effectiveness at L-3, a leader in the aerospace and national security industry with 48,000 employees. An acknowledged authority in human resources and organizational leadership, Don is known for his innovative approaches to developing leadership skills and problem-solving techniques at large, multinational organizations. A hands-on mentor and business partner, he delivers practical and proven workplace applications that enhance both top-line business growth and bottom-line profit performance. In addition to working for L-3 for over 20 years he is an adjunct professor at the University of the Incarnate Word teaching over 17 Human Resources and Organizational Development courses and creator of leadership and management courses, Don has honed his expertise over a lengthy business career in a variety of industrial settings, including retail sales, the steel industry, automotive manufacturing, biotech, robotics, and computer graphics. He holds a MBA and Ph.D. in business administration with an emphasis in organizational leadership from University of Phoenix and post-doctorate work at North Central University and is the recipient of numerous professional certifications including SPHR-HRCI, SCP-SHRM, CKM, and SFBP. Don s work has been cited in Business Week and other management-related journals, and he is a sought-after speaker and presenter whose insights inspire and exhilarate.