The Human Skills Gap: What Leaders Need Now

A new Deloitte survey confirms what I've observed in helping top companies develop their leaders: Human skills drive career advancement and organizational success. The survey found that 87% of employees believe skills like adaptability, leadership, and communications are the key to advancing at work. Yet only about half think their companies truly value these human capabilities over technical skills.

Image by Daniel Mena from Pixabay

This disconnect between what employees need and what organizations provide mirrors what I've seen in my work. Time and again, I’ve seen talented professionals hit a ceiling because a gap in their human skills keeps them from reaching their full potential as a leader.

The Real Keys to Leadership Success

Through coaching senior executives, I've found that success hinges on capabilities that sometimes still get minimized as “soft skills.”

• Seeing the big picture and being strategic. Leaders who can zoom out, connect dots across the organization, and think strategically are invaluable. Effective leadership today requires the mental agility to understand complex systems and spot opportunities.

• Communicating with influence and impact. The Deloitte survey found that 61% of employees prioritize communication skills. Your message matters, but how you deliver it – with clarity, confidence and awareness of your audience – often matters more.

• Building relationships and networks. It's telling that teamwork and collaboration topped the list of desired skills in the Deloitte survey (65%). Success doesn’t happen in isolation. Leaders need to build authentic relationships, navigate organizational dynamics, and create strong networks.

• Developing others. The survey highlighted a concerning trend: 94% of respondents worry future generations will enter the workforce without necessary human skills. This is why coaching and developing others is so critical. Strong leaders don't just perform well themselves – they build capability in others.

Why Tech Training Alone Falls Short

The Deloitte survey revealed that about 60% of employees believe their companies focus more on immediate business needs than long-term skill development. I’ve observed the same thing. Companies sometimes get so focused on the latest technology that they lose sight of how important enduring human capabilities are.  

While both individuals and companies must adapt to new innovations, it’s notable that 70% of respondents report learning a technical skill that later became obsolete. In contrast, human skills are truly timeless. The ability to think strategically, communicate effectively, build relationships, and coach others will never go out of style.

A Better Way Forward

This research validates what led us to develop New Lens®, our leadership development platform. We built New Lens specifically to address the human skills gap, focusing on the leadership capabilities that truly drive success at all levels – from strategic thinking to impactful communication to relationship building.

We help leaders develop these capabilities through a combination of:

• Practical, relevant content that can be immediately applied.

• Peer and expert coaching that reinforces learning.

• Connection with others to build lasting networks and support systems.

Take Action

If you're concerned about the human skills gap in your organization, I invite you to explore how New Lens can help.  If you’d like an invitation to our next demo on 11/14 at 9 CT, register here: https://lu.ma/04cqige5. You can also visit www.newlensleadership.com or contact us at info@newlensleadership.com. Let's work together to build the human skills your leaders need, not just for today, but for long-term success.

Four Factors That Make Or Break A Learning Platform

We’re in the midst of a technological revolution that’s transforming leadership development. As you probably know, though, the array of high-tech options for leadership training can be overwhelming. So how can you make the best choice for your organization?

Based on user feedback from when we created our leadership development platform, my company identified four factors that make all the difference in whether a high-tech learning solution succeeds or fails at an organization:

Image by Ghasoub Alaeddin from Pixabay

1. Usability: Can employees get up and running quickly?

There’s a simple truth about learning platforms that often gets overlooked: It doesn’t matter how great the platform’s content is if your employees struggle to use it. Remember, your people are already squeezed for time and distracted. A learning platform that feels like too much work is a platform that will eventually be ignored. So as you are selecting a learning platform, keep these usability questions in mind:

• How easy is it to navigate the platform? Does using it feel intuitive?

• What kind of training—and how much training—will your employees need to use the platform? Keep in mind that they have different experiences and comfort levels with using technology. They will also have different learning styles.

• Is the platform usable on different devices? According to Deloitte, mobile-only work will rise even more over the next several years—which means that platforms that only work on computers may soon be obsolete.

2. Engagement: Do employees want to keep learning?

After ensuring that your employees can use a platform, there’s another big question to consider: Will they want to use it? To keep employees engaged in learning, a platform must be relevant to their needs. If it doesn’t teach them skills they can apply, their interest will wane quickly. Effective platforms allow for customized learning paths, and they’re designed to help learners take what they’ve learned out of the platform and into their jobs. I’m sure you already know from your own experiences that you learn the most when you turn theory into practice. That’s why my company built our learning platform on the framework of learning, reflecting and then taking action.

3. Connection: Does the platform bring employees together?

When you imagine your employees using a learning platform, do you picture them interacting individually with their computers or phones? If so, it’s time to update that mental image. Leveraging the power of high-tech learning does not mean removing the human touch from leadership development. Connection is simply too important for both helping employees learn and setting them up for success in your organization. As you select and implement a learning platform, consider how it will help you bring employees together. A few ideas:

Utilize collaborative learning.

For example, you could form cohorts of employees who work through a leadership development program at the same time and meet regularly to talk about how to apply what they’re learning in the specific context of your organization.

Incorporate sponsorship and mentorship.

Consider assigning more experienced employees to meet regularly with employees using your platform to talk with them about how what they’re learning applies in your organization.

Involve managers.

The most effective platforms enlist managers to help amplify learning and make sure that the material being taught aligns with organizational goals

4. Practicality: Can you build on what’s already working?

My company has been helping develop leaders since 2008. That means we’ve seen a lot of learning and development trends come and go. We’ve also seen too many companies obsess over having the “latest and greatest” program. Yes, your leadership development solution should incorporate up-to-date information and be relevant to today’s work environment. At the same time, though, don’t assume you have to toss out your current program and start from scratch with a high-tech solution. Instead, consider what already works for you when it comes to developing leaders and how you can build on that. Any learning platform you choose will get better results if its content aligns with your organization’s goals and values.

Technology has huge potential to address the increasing need to develop more leaders. But implementing the right solution isn’t as simple as just giving everyone a login to your new platform. By considering the four factors we’ve talked about here as you choose your learning solution, you’ll help ensure a strong return on your organization’s investment in learning technology.

This article was originally published by Neena Newberry in Forbes.

5 Factors That Weaken Your Leadership Pipeline

Have you had a chance to download our new white paper, “Transforming Leadership Development Through Technology: A Strategic Imperative”?

We created this report when we saw that today’s change-filled business environment is making it increasingly difficult to cultivate the leaders that organizations need. Only 12% of companies report confidence in their bench of prepared future leaders, according to DDI's Global Leadership Forecast 2023. 

What’s behind this crisis? Here are a few factors we’ve identified. Each is covered in more depth in the white paper. 

1.   Training Budgets Are Stretched Thin

There’s no question that leadership is valuable. But that value can come at a hefty cost. Executive coaching can run from $200 to $3,500 an hour, and the average length of a coaching engagement is nine months. Bringing a leadership trainer in for a class of 15-20 people also has a daily price tag in the thousands of dollars.

2.   Potential Leaders Get Overlooked

Because of those budget realities, organizations tend to limit leadership development to high performers and high potentials. That means we’re missing out on the skills and talents of countless other potential leaders.

3.   Employees Say They’re Too Busy

Time also gets in the way of leadership development. For busy professionals, finding room for training in their packed schedules is a tall order. In one survey, employees said they have only about 24 minutes for learning during a 40-hour week. That’s no surprise when we consider that 55% of workers say their jobs have gotten more intense and demanding.

4.   Distractions Take a Toll

But a lack of time isn’t the full story. Even if an employee manages to set aside an hour to take an online course, they may have trouble focusing on it for long. The average amount of time that people spend on any single event before being interrupted or task switching is about three minutes. Our attention spans are taking a beating: The average time we can pay attention to one screen is 47 seconds.

5.   The Forgetting Curve Is Real

Leadership development isn’t just about what employees learn. It’s about what they retain. You’ve probably heard about the “forgetting curve”: A week after training, those busy, distracted employees we’ve been talking about will remember only about 10% of what they learned. Why does this happen? Info just doesn’t stick in our minds if it’s not relevant to us or we can’t use it immediately.

Transform Your Approach to Leadership Development

If these problems are affecting leadership development at your organization, our white paper can be your roadmap to solving them and building a stronger leadership pipeline. In it, you’ll learn how technology now enables to do some pretty cool things:

• Create training that makes a real difference in just a few minutes.

• Make learning and development happen every day.

• Expand access to leadership development.

To learn more, get your free copy of “Transforming Leadership Development Through Technology: A Strategic Imperative.” We’re excited about all the possibilities that the tech revolution in L&D creates. And we think you will be, too. Check out our white paper, and then join the conversation about it on LinkedIn.

How to Strengthen Team Relationships with Collaborative Learning

As a firm that helps top organizations develop their leaders, we get a firsthand look at emerging trends in learning and development. Three years ago, the coronavirus pandemic caused a sudden and massive shift to remote learning options. But, in recent months, we’ve been seeing the pendulum swing the other way.

In-person learning programs are on the rise again. One reason? Remote work has decreased the sense of connection among employees. Two-thirds of remote workers report feeling isolated or lonely at least part of the time. More than half of hybrid and remote workers also report having fewer work friendships.

Photo by fauxels

We’re seeing especially strong interest in collaborative learning. This article will help you better understand collaborative learning, its benefits and how you can implement it in your organization.

What Is Collaborative Learning?

Collaborative learning is centered on employees sharing their knowledge and expertise with each other. It can take many forms. For example, if your organization has a program that pairs employees for mutual mentoring, that’s collaborative learning. Affinity groups or employee resource groups can also create opportunities for employees to learn together.

Embracing collaborative learning doesn’t mean that you solely rely on your employees’ expertise, though. For example, our New Lens® app delivers bite-sized lessons on key leadership skills and gives options for learning with a cohort. Our WOW! Program℠ also utilizes the power of collaborative learning by combining audio lessons with in-person meetings.

What Are the Benefits?

At Newberry Solutions, we’ve seen organizations that provide collaborative learning reap a number of benefits:

• First, relationships among employees get stronger, which is especially important in this new era of remote work. Even before the pandemic, I frequently advised clients to pay more attention to their peer relationships (not just relationships with their bosses or direct reports).

• Feelings of isolation decrease. Instead of feeling alone in dealing with an issue, employees feel like their challenges are shared and that they can lean on each other.

• Collaborative learning can feel more relevant. Both employees and employers are tired of training programs that fail to address what they experience at work. Whether you are using outside content (such as the New Lens® app) or not (as with an internal mentoring program), collaborative learning focuses on effective solutions for your organization,

• Learning becomes more accessible. With how busy everyone is, it can be hard to get away for a conference, offsite or other event. Collaborative learning sets the stage for what The Josh Bersin Company calls “growth in the flow of work.” This kind of learning can happen every single workday.

Put Collaborative Learning into Action

This week, I want to challenge you to look for ways to drive collaborative learning for your team. Could you put them together in small groups to share their expertise? Or perhaps you could team up with other department heads to help your teams get to know each other and learn about each other’s work. We’re also happy to tell you more about our New Lens® app or WOW! Program℠. Just reach out for more info.

Are You Leveraging Your Coaching Skills?

In the past few years, we’ve seen a big shift in expectations for leaders. Previously, leadership largely followed a “command and control” model. Leaders figured out what to do and told others to do it. But today we value a new kind of leader — one who’s skilled at coaching employees to find their own solutions.

“Increasingly, coaching is becoming integral to the fabric of a learning culture—a skill that good managers at all levels need to develop and deploy,” Herminia Ibarra of London Business School and leadership trainer Anne Scoular wrote in Harvard Business Review.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Honing your coaching skills benefits your team members and the organization as a whole, as well as your own career path. (In fact, we believe so strongly in the power of coaching that we created the New Lens app to make coaching easier for leaders and more accessible to employees at all levels.) In today’s article, I’ll help you assess where you are now with your coaching skills and how you can coach more frequently and more effectively.

How Coaching Pays Off

As an executive coach myself, I can tell you that coaching delivers real results, including:

• Greater self-awareness

• Improved critical thinking skills

• Less turnover (94% of employees would stay longer at a company that helps them learn)

• Improved engagement and motivation

But providing regular coaching can be a challenge for managers. With recent workforce cuts at many companies, schedules are tight. Furthermore, according to Chief Learning Officer, managers may lack the skills to be effective coaches: “Most managers are hired or promoted based on their tenure with the organization or past experience in non-managerial roles. They’re chosen based on legacy rather than skills. They may have what it takes to run the business, but they often lack the ability to support, motivate and empower a team.”

The Definition of Coaching

To strengthen your coaching skills, let’s take a look at how often you’re currently coaching. To do that, we have to first understand what coaching is — and isn’t.

The International Coaching Foundation defines coaching others as “a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

This definition of coaching from tennis coach Timothy Gallwey also applies to coaching in the workplace: “"Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."

Many of the common interactions we have with our reports do not qualify as coaching, including:

• Telling someone exactly what to do.

• Giving them advice on what to do.

• Offering them performance feedback.

Instead, coaching is more about listening and asking powerful open-ended questions to help someone else challenge their thinking, broaden their perspective and get unstuck.

Based on these definitions, how are you doing as a coach to your direct reports? How often are you asking coaching questions vs. giving directions or providing feedback?

Listen and Ask Questions

Now let’s think about how you can coach more frequently. A good starting point is to keep an eye out for coachable moments as they arise during your day. You don’t have to coach constantly. It’s not the right solution in every situation. For example, in a high-risk, high-visibility scenario, it’s probably safer to give direct instructions in the moment and then coach later.

When you identify good opportunities for coaching, remember to practice active listening. Pay attention to what your direct report is really communicating and don’t just wait for your chance to talk. By listening deeply, you can identify questions that can help employees develop their own solutions. A common mistake here is to ask leading questions that are more about nudging the person to the solution you would choose. Instead, your questions should sound more like these:

• “What’s most important to you about this issue?”

• “What problem are you really trying to solve?”

• “What have you tried already, and what did you learn from that?”

A New Way to Coach

In addition to the coaching you provide, you can also look for other ways to offer your team members more coaching. Technology now makes the benefits of coaching more accessible than ever. Our New Lens app, for example, can supplement your own coaching with content that’s targeted to common situations we’ve seen our clients face. Schedule a demo now.