Why an ‘affordable’ leadership program may be the most expensive mistake you make

A low-cost library might not yield results, while premium coaching could spark a game-changing ripple effect across your entire organization.

If you’re in charge of selecting a leadership development solution for your organization, your budget might feel dwarfed by the goals and needs the program must address. And while the money you have to spend is limited, the options you have to choose from—coaching, learning platforms, content libraries and more—are not. 

Image by Tung Lam from Pixabay

 All of those factors can make it difficult to identify the option that will deliver the best ROI.

An “affordable” subscription to a vast digital library of leadership videos and courses is no bargain if it doesn’t deliver the results you need. On the other hand, premium coaching for a few key executives might feel extravagant at first but ultimately create a huge ripple effect across the organization. 

It’s not that content libraries are “bad,” and coaching is “good.” The right solution for one company could be a waste of time and money in another. So how do you make the best choice based on your goals and your budget? 

Before you contact a single provider or even start reviewing the options available to you, consider the questions below. As a CEO focused on transforming leadership development through technology, I can tell you that the organizations that are clear on their answers get the best results from leadership development, no matter what their budget is or the specific programs they choose. 

What are your specific goals? 

Leadership development is too expensive (U.S. companies spend more than $81 billion on it per year) to be merely a feel-good purchase or a box to check for the year. Your investment in a program will pay off only when you know exactly what you want it to achieve. So think about your company’s priorities right now. A few examples: 

• Does your CEO want to create a coaching culture? 

• Has low performance by new managers surfaced as a problem? 

• Is innovation one of your priorities this year? 

• Is your organization worried about the state of your leadership pipeline? 

If your goals seem way out of alignment with your budget, you may have to determine which goals need immediate attention and which ones can be acted on later. For instance, if your mid-level managers are jumping ship to your competitors, developing your current leadership bench needs attention right away. On the other hand, a broader initiative to build leadership capabilities across all departments could wait. 

How many people do you need to target? 

Is a company-wide program necessary to achieve your goals? Or would it be more effective to focus on a particular department or type of employee, such as first-time managers or a new executive team?

Your answer can help you start narrowing down options. For example, if your top priority is developing a new executive team, coaching could be the right choice. It’s highly customized and effective. But your focus is on a larger group—like new managers—coaching might be out of your budget, and a digital learning platform could be a better fit. Similarly, perhaps you can send all first-time managers to a conference or bring in a facilitator for a weeklong program, but you can’t afford these options for every employee who’s interested in leadership development. 

What’s going on right now with the employees you want to develop? 

The capacity of the participants is often overlooked as a key factor in whether a leadership development solution succeeds. So, once you’ve identified the employees who’ll be part of your program, think about what might be affecting their current bandwidth to learn, grow and change. 

Let’s say you’re considering a program that would bring in a facilitator for a week of daylong classes with your managers. That might sound like an amazing development opportunity, and for some organizations, it is. But if your managers are already overextended with their workloads, this “opportunity” could become just another source of stress. Instead of paying attention and learning from the facilitator, the managers might be covertly multitasking through sessions just to stay afloat. And what if program participants don’t work onsite full time? Will a fully remote employee get the same experience as in-person participants? Will hybrid employees resent an extra day in the office?

In such cases, a program that empowers your managers to learn on their own schedule might be a better solution. You could provide them with a micro-learning app or access to a learning library. (With those options, just be sure to also give them customized learning paths. Busy, stressed managers don’t have time to sort through piles of content to figure out what they need, either.) 

Thinking through these questions will help you zero in on what your company really needs from leadership development and the type of program that best fulfills those needs. I know the vast array of options out there can seem dizzying, but this variety also means that you have a better chance of finding a program that truly aligns with what you need and can afford. The more clarity you can bring into the selection process, the more likely you are to avoid costly mistakes and choose a leadership development program that delivers the results you need. 

This article was originally published by Neena Newberry in Fast Company.

3 ways to fix the ‘broken rung’ on the career ladder

I was disappointed, but not surprised when I opened the most recent Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org. Why? Well, just read this: 

For every 100 men promoted to manager in 2018, 79 women were promoted. And this year, just 81 women were. As a result of this “broken rung,” men significantly outnumber women at the manager level, which makes it nearly impossible for companies to support sustained progress at more senior levels. 

Image by geir fløde from Pixabay

What’s stopping us from fixing the broken rung? I often think about this question since my company focuses on high-performing women leaders. Based on our experiences, here are some recommendations for companies to get more women moving up over the broken rung on the leadership ladder. 

Rethink What a Leader Looks Like 

In organizations that have always had predominantly male leaders, a bias against women (whether conscious or subconscious) can emerge. It’s easy to see how this might happen: We base our ideas about what a leader should be based on the leaders we know. So, we may be predisposed to identify men as high performers who should receive leadership development.

You might think that the solution here is redefining what high performance is at your organization. But I’m advocating an even bigger shift: What if we dropped the whole idea that leadership development is reserved only for “stars”? That approach simply wasn’t feasible in the past due to budgetary concerns. However, the tech revolution in learning and development has created scalable solutions that open opportunities up to more potential leaders. 

Choose Development Options That Fit Packed Schedules 

Do you know a woman who isn’t busy? On average, women in the U.S. actually spend a few hours less per week on their jobs than men do. However, they spend more time than men do on household tasks, parenting, and caregiving for older family members.

Fitting leadership development into the middle of all of this isn’t easy. That’s why I believe that micro-learning opportunities are especially important for women. At my company, we’ve seen women embrace the quick lessons (think two to seven minutes) that our learning platform provides. 

Give More (and More Useful) Feedback 

Researchers have found that women receive less actionable feedback than men do. Additionally, feedback given to men encourages them to focus on big-picture, strategic issues while women get more guidance to focus on details and delivery. It’s not hard to see how the feedback that men get does more to shape them into future leaders. This is an issue to address both collectively and individually.

As an organization, what is your feedback culture like? Do you need to change policies to ensure that all employees get feedback that prepares them to lead? If you deliver feedback yourself, pay attention to whether you treat men and women differently. You have an opportunity to really help women own their abilities as leaders and demonstrate them to others. For example, after a meeting, give your report positive feedback for voicing her ideas, plus some strategies on what to do the next time she gets interrupted.  

I want to leave you with another sobering fact from the Women in the Workplace report: 

At the current pace of progress, it will take 22 years to reach parity for white women—and more than twice as long for women of color. Put another way, it will take 48 years for the representation of white women and women of color in senior leadership to reflect their share of the U.S. population. 

That’s hard to read, but it also motivates me to do even more to help women reach parity faster. I hope you’ll join me, both by taking action yourself and by pushing for discussions about leadership parity at your organization. Let’s make sure the next Women in the Workplace report has better news to share.       

This article was originally published by Neena Newberry in Fast Company.

Bite-size learning can fill employees' craving for development

As someone in the leadership development space for over 15 years, I’ve seen a big gap emerge between how much employees want (and need) to learn on the job and how much they’re able. I believe the solution to this problem will come from thinking small—at least in leadership development content—to bite-size learning.

Image by reallywellmadedesks from Pixabay

The desire to learn isn’t the problem 

One reason I love my work is that I get to fulfill employees’ desires to learn and evolve professionally. In one survey, more than nine of 10 respondents said learning opportunities would motivate them to stay with their employers longer. About the same number believe that learning and development increase engagement. Meanwhile, HR executives say they are feeling the pressure to provide more training 

That pressure isn’t just coming from employees, though.  Executives are losing sleep over whether their employees have the skills and potential to become their organization’s future leaders. 

So if executives believe employees need more development, and employees want to learn more themselves, what’s the problem? 

Too little time, too many distractions 

First, we’re all squeezed for time these days. More than half of workers say their jobs have gotten more intense and demanding. We already recognize that overstuffed schedules lead to burnout. But they also take a toll on learning and development. Over 40% of employees lack time for training and education. Another study found that employees have an average of 24 minutes to spend learning during an average workweek. 

And those minutes probably don’t all come at the same time. We’re only able to spend an average of three minutes on any task before being interrupted or switching to do something else. 

While we joke about our goldfish-like attention spans these days, the reality isn’t funny. Typically, we can only pay attention to one screen for 47 seconds at a time. 

It’s hard to think about taking even a half-day away from work for leadership development in this kind of work environment.

Teach in the way people learn 

When my company was developing New Lens, our own learning platform, we knew we had to design it for busy, distracted users. Our embrace of micro-learning content is part of a larger trend.    

“We have to teach in the way people learn,” leading analyst Josh Bersin says. “People want engaging, bite-size learning that is integrated into everyday work. Twenty minutes feels too long in this day and age. Focus on content that is two to seven minutes long.” 

Priyanka Mitra of the research firm Everest Group is another advocate for “bite-size” learning: “This less-is-more approach often aligns well with the modern learner, who grapples with shorter attention spans and limited time availability.” 

Today’s technology makes it possible for training and development to be available wherever and whenever we can engage with it. Imagine a busy professional who wants to build her leadership skills, but who can’t find room on her calendar for a full-day, offsite development class. However, the same professional has a few minutes between meetings each week she can use to complete lessons on her phone. 

When bite-size learning is better 

It’s important to note that bite-size development content isn’t just a response to our harried schedules. In some situations, shorter, more accessible material is actually a more effective way to learn. 

As you’ve probably experienced yourself, knowledge is easier to retain when you can put it into practice. Let’s imagine two employees, Carmen and Vanessa, who want to get better at leading productive meetings. 

Carmen attends a daylong offsite event that’s packed with information. Vanessa uses a learning platform that delivers five- to seven-minute lessons and that she can access from any of her devices. While the offsite event provides useful advice on meetings, the pace of the training makes it hard for Carmen to remember every point. Back on the job, it’s a pain to dig through the materials to find the relevant information when she needs it. 

But with the learning platform on her phone, Vanessa can easily access relevant information when she needs it—for example, when she’s creating a meeting agenda—and view the material as many times as she needs to for retention. 

“Where bite-size learning excels is that it recreates the ‘spacing’ that learners need because it’s designed to be returned to again and again,” says Ryan Chynces, senior manager of online education at Hootsuite. “(T)he learner’s effort of going back and retrieving that material makes it easier for them to recall it later down the line.” 

Longer-format forms of leadership development are not going away. And, as an experienced executive, consultant, and leadership development expert, I don’t want them to. But I’m also excited about the different forms that learning can take today. By embracing bite-size learning alongside traditional methods, we can create a more flexible, accessible, and effective approach that better serves both organizations and employees. 

This article was originally published by Neena Newberry in Fast Company.