I remain fascinated by the cloud-based, integrated financial management system, Workday. At a spectator level, we at Media 1 excitedly cheer the rapid rise of Workday and its premise — and promise — of enabling financial and people data to finally live and work together harmoniously in the same enterprise system. Rationalizing people data and making it visible at the top level of the organization is key to earning a maximum Return On People. The folks at Workday seem to grasp this at a level that few others yet fully understand. Yet, with rare exception, most Workday marketing lately appears to aim squarely at the CFO and the financial side of the equation, pretty much ignoring HR and Human Capital Analytics. Why would Workday choose to do that? If I were to wager a guess based on our own conversations with business leaders on both sides, it’s because of the great chasm that still exists in most organizations between Finance and HR. They don’t measure or report the same things, and, for the most part, their organizational performance isn’t measured or rewarded in ways that would motivate any compelling reason to change. Financial data is considered hard and people data soft, and in many organizations the tenor of the relationship between the two functions approaches disdain. Until that changes, business climate will be more HR vs Finance than HR + Finance — a barrier to ever achieving a Return On People.  The CFO will continue to be the key driver of enterprise financial system decisions, and marketing targeted at finance (like the Workday Infographic, below) will avoid muddying the water with talk about HR or People. Unless HR and Finance take steps to reach across silos and construct ways of measuring and influencing systems decisions together, people data will remain locked in HR systems. Finance will lack visibility to people-related KPIs such as Total Cost of Workforce. And Workday will continue to face a marketing conundrum of how to promote one of its key market differentiators and most valuable business features. Too bad.   Via Workday The post The Workday HR vs Finance Conundrum appeared first on Media 1.

A few years ago I became aware of a guy in Portland Oregon, named Tor Clausen who owns a company called Musical Furnishings (www.musical furnishings.com). It seems this gentleman had the brilliant idea that furniture, while remaining functional as furniture, could also serve as entertainment and as a tool for creativity. He designed a series of tables, benches and chests that also can be used as percussion instruments. This takes the form of various drums or xylophone type instruments. I’ve been a musician most of my life, which is almost embarrassing to claim since my playing ability nowhere matches the amount of time I have spent practicing or just fooling around for the pure joy of it. But the one thing that I have never been any good at all is percussion. Despite having reasonable time while playing other instruments, I can’t carry a beat even if it has a handle. I have little creativity when it comes to hearing drum beats and clapping can sometimes even be a challenge. Regardless of my obvious and self-admitted lack of talent in all things percussion, I could never get the concept of a musical table out of my head. Just the idea of having a musical experience integrated into something as common as a coffee table, is just so appealing to me. The context that it presents is so attractive that I couldn’t imagine putting down my coffee cup or the remote without a couple quick taps. Luckily for me, the kind folks at Media1 picked up on my intrigue for these musical tables, and for my 10th anniversary this last January, they gave me a gift certificate for one of my very own. I got to work with Tor Clausen on the types of drums and size of the table as well as the finishes. A few weeks later, I’m the proud owner of my very own musical table. Now I don’t expect that suddenly I am going to become an amazing percussionist, but I do expect, that I will get better. If I had a drum in my music room, I would probably never play it; instead I would choose to pick up my favorite guitar or mandolin, but the coffee table in my living room? How can I not walk by and try a little beat? It’s integrated into my everyday life and it has a presence that will be hard to ignore. All of this got me thinking, can we create better leaders by making sure that the opportunity to be a better leader is ever-present? How can we make professional development as irresistible as playable furniture?   The post Integration, Experience, and Discovery appeared first on Media 1.

We first published The Integrated Learning Manifesto in October of 2011. Since then, I’m proud to see that our predictions of nearly three years ago are suddenly gaining traction. Corporate learning is clearly moving away from "training" and toward Integrated Talent Development. Even the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) recently announced a brand reboot as the Association for Talent Development. We are finally starting to have the right conversations. Clearly, offering a series of training courses, even when tied to a thoughtful curriculum, hasn’t offered the promised returns on our investments in our people. But truly moving from corporate learning to integrating talent development will require much more than a name change, and we still have far to go. In dusting off the former manifesto, I was surprised at how little has really changed in three years, and how timely and relevant this Manifesto remains today. I’ve made very few changes to the original manifest, indicated here as strikeouts or italics in this updated edition. With that, please allow me to introduce you to an old friend with a new name …   The Integrated Talent Development Manifesto Corporate learning has too long been dictated by old paradigms. Over the last decade, the focus has remained on saving cost and pushing knowledge to a global workforce through disparate learning events - courses. Today a course may be delivered as self-paced online learning (WBT) or instructor led via a virtual classroom or webinar, but the underlying learning model for most corporate learners remains the same as it has been for decades. When it’s time to participate in a learning event, learners visit a Learning Management System (LMS) as the enterprise learning hub. The LMS follows a traditional classroom model for registering from a catalog of courses, recording learner progress, and reporting to management. Think about the last time you engaged in a learning activity at your workplace. Did the course give you what you needed at the right time? Did it clearly relate to your career, building on your existing skills, and moving you closer to completing a business requirement or meeting a personal career goal? Or did it feel more like something you simply had to do in order to check off a box on a list of requirements? Register. Complete. Move on. Enter Integrated Talent Development We at Media 1 believe Effective learning needs to happen as a process, not a series of disconnected events strung together out of context. The time has come for a new, integrated model for corporate learning leadership and talent development. Technology should provide a platform for seamlessly delivering carefully selected, timely, role-appropriate learning and mentoring opportunities at the right point in career development. Learner needs must drive the LMS, not the other way around. Today’s employees are people first, and talent second. People demand development experiences that help them grow and succeed, and experience is paramount to building an engaged and passionate work force. Here, in the words of your people, we declare the Integrated Talent Development Manifesto. I want to learn. I want to succeed. Help me by providing learning opportunities that are: 1. Social At home, I use social media sites to keep up to date with the latest in news and technology that affect my career. I post questions and get feedback and answers from my friends. I have much to learn from my managers and peers at work, and we don’t always work in the same office. It should be just as easy to reach out to them as it is to seek advice from my social network. Give me social media and mentorship tools behind our firewall I can use to exchange job-related information and build productive relationships with my coworkers. 2. Relevant I need to know how each learning opportunity applies directly to me and my role in the organization. If I don’t understand the purpose of a course or see what’s in it for me, don’t expect me to naturally engage with the material or automatically transfer what I learned on the job. Make it easier; help me put everything in context. 3. Self-directed Recognize that I am engaged in multiple tracks of learning simultaneously. I have to meet a number of annual HR compliance requirements and keep up with general business initiatives and personal development courses. I am taking technical courses to master the ever-changing systems and tools I need to do my job, as well as courses specific to my role in the organization. To advance my career, I am enrolled in a management leadership development program. I want visibility and control over options within each of these various learning tracks, and I want to chart my progress through each curriculum. 4. Integrated The LMS is no longer the center of my learning universe. I am also learning through social media hubs and information portals. I make regular visits to various corporate sites and systems of which the LMS is just one. Please tie everything together for me and give me a simple, integrated path across the corporate ecosystem. 5. Focused Like you, I’m busy. When I make time for learning, my other responsibilities don’t go away. In the vast and ever-deepening sea of content and learning options, please don’t make me wade through an unwieldy content store or course catalog. Make it all available, but provide good filters to direct me to exactly the right learning from which we both will get the most immediate benefit. 6. Timely Make sure that I have access to up-to-date, just-in-time learning and support for the things that matter today. Don’t try to cram a year’s worth of learning into a one-week "boot camp." Six months from now, you’d much rather I look up and work to the most current process anyway. Start Today The goal of this Manifesto is to shatter old corporate learning paradigms and spark thoughts and conversations in new directions. Meeting some of these goals requires simple changes in the way we manage our current corporate learning environment—finding new ways to direct learners through our existing curricula and across systems. These short-term goals can be accomplished in the weeks and months ahead. Others require changes in policy or implementing new technologies; establish those as long-term goals, and start planning and working toward them one step at a time. There’s no reason not to start today.       How are people developed at your workplace? Is talent development integrated into daily work activities? Contact Chris to share ideas or learn more. The post The Integrated Talent Development Manifesto appeared first on Media 1.

A question was recently posed in a LinkedIn Onboarding forum asking whether onboarding for new hires should be different from onboarding employees following an acquisition. I give a resounding, "YES!" which is, in fact, one of the drivers behind our Xperiocity philosophy and technology. Let’s break it down. I believe that good onboarding focuses in three main areas: * Organization * Role * Self and others A new hire who has never worked in your organization, and especially one new to managing others, will benefit from a robust onboarding program with focus in all three areas and touch points throughout the first full year . However, the approach needs to be tailored differently for "Reboarding" employees who aren’t completely new to all aspects of the job and organization. For example, assuming that they received strong learning and development in their prior company, acquired employees making a lateral role shift likely need a Reboarding experience that focuses most heavily on their new Organization - culture, strategy, brand ambassadorship. Contrast that to Reboarding for an in-company person making a lateral move, who presumably has already been acculturated but will need to focus heaviest on mastering her new Role. Over the past decade, there has been a strong push away from New Hire Orientation to true Onboarding, and these scenarios illustrate why this is more important than ever. In today’s rapidly changing work environment, organizations require a robust and flexible Onboarding program that can be tailored to developing groups of employees in their unique situation. A holistic learning approach, delivered in the workflow using an experience-driven platform such as Xperiocity, makes this possible.   The post Onboarding Following Acquisition: Reboarding appeared first on Media 1.

Bill Brandon recently interviewed Gene Pease, founder and CEO of Vestrics, for Learning Solutions magazine. Gene has been using Human Capital Analytics to measure Return on People for a long time, so it doesn’t surprise me a bit that this article hits the nail on the head. My favorite observation: when it comes to measurement, L & D is where Marketing was 10 years ago. Gene is spot on. As Learning still is in many organizations today, Marketing was at one time a necessary, but shrinking, budgetary line item, and measuring marketing ROI was somewhat of a dark art. Today, marketers are increasingly being asked to justify their spend, and are relying on increasingly sophisticated testing and measurement in order to do so. Today’s savvy marketers are well versed in analytics, including making predictive hypotheses and using A/B testing to sample results for continuous improvement. New learning delivery platforms like Xperiocity are designed with that in mind. However, the enterprise marketing measurement problem lived more or less within a single discipline. It was arguably easier to educate and effect radical change when everyone under the Marketing umbrella read the same journals, attended the same conferences, and relied on similar tools and methodologies. When your competitors all began using email marketing, it was fairly easy to see the consequences of not jumping on the bandwagon. Pretty soon, the question became not whether or not you should be doing it, too, but how well you are doing it and where you are getting the greatest return on your efforts and spend. Your marketing people knew where the bar was, and you could hold them accountable for moving it in the right direction. In L&D, we’re just dipping our toes in the Human Capital Analytics water. We’ve come a long way from measuring ROI through butts in seats, and most organizations have instituted some form of  enterprise Talent Management. However, overcoming the next hurdle in measurably improving people development will be much more difficult. Unlike marketing, Human Capital measurement crosses organizational boundaries. It requires taking a holistic view and a cross-disciplinary approach, aligning business strategy across recruiting, talent management, learning, OD, line of business leadership … The larger and more traditional the organization, the harder it is to affect change across internal functions and disparate systems. It’s especially difficult when leadership doesn’t yet readily feel the pain of failing to invest in learning and development strategies that promise measurable Return on People. Those who do feel it — those working to develop the organization’s people — can not affect cros-functional organizational change from the bottom up. Improved talent development methodologies and measurement must be initiated by decree from the top down. The good news, because the barriers to entry are so high, organizations that take the risk early will surge ahead and reap early rewards. This change will come - it must! But oh, my, what a bloody uphill battle we are waging in the trenches. Smart leaders will send in the cavalry now. ————————- Read the full Gene Pease interview in Learning Solutions here. The post Analytics: What Marketing Can Teach L&D appeared first on Media 1.

  Implementing an assessment for 360 degree feedback can be a complex and daunting process. Data collection can be difficult and both participant and rater anxiety can be high. The good news is that these types of problems can be avoided and addressed before a facilitator or coach ever receives the 360 feedback report. Successful implementation begins at the planning phase. 1. Understanding the Purpose   The first step for successful 360 degree feedback is understanding why a 360 is being used. Is this for development purposes only? Does the organization hope to gain insight into overall development gaps? Is the assessment being used as part of a review process? Understanding the purpose of the assessment, how the data will be used and who will have access helps define the communication plan to participants. Being honest and transparent about intent is key to gaining participant trust, rater trust and getting honest feedback and reliable data. 2. Have an Internal Champion   Once the purpose of the 360 assessment has been established the announcement of the assessment should come from a senior leader or internal champion inside of the organization. Having the first communication from someone internal lets participants know that this is an important process to the organization and that leadership is supporting the process.  In this communication the purpose of the assessment should be clearly stated and the intended use of the data should be clear. This announcement is creating the foundation and setting expectations for the entire 360 assessment process. 3. Let Participants Own the Process    After the 360 degree feedback has been distributed it’s important to let participants take control of the process, this increases participant engagement from the start. Allow participants to choose their own raters, distribute access to the assessment and be accountable for receiving feedback. During this phase it is helpful to coach participants on how to both select raters and communicate with their raters. Participants should select raters that will provide honest and constructive feedback not just those who will give glowing reviews.  In order to have a well-rounded 360 participants should ask for feedback from all rater categories including peers, direct reports and bosses.  Prior to distributing the assessment to raters participants should personally inform raters that they have been selected to provide them with feedback, the intention of the feedback and that ratings will be confidential. Again, the intent of this communication is to establish rater trust. 4. Be Aware of Rater Fatigue   When distributing a 360 assessment it is just as important to consider the impact the assessment will have on raters as it is the participant. You are relying on raters to give constructive, thoughtful and honest feedback and this takes time.  A 360 assessment will take at a minimum 20 minutes for a rater to complete per participant. If you have a single boss with 8 direct reports this is 2-3 hours of time devoted to an assessment that is being added to an already busy schedule. There are a few ways to address this. A. Coach participants on how to select raters. Although an individual may work with up to 30 peers, direct reports, and supervisors they may only have contact with 10-15 of those on a daily or weekly basis. Narrowing the rater pool to those that participants work with most closely will provide higher quality feedback and decrease the amount of time raters are required to complete assessments. B. Roll out the 360 in waves. If you are distributing a 360 with a large number of individuals in the organization it may be beneficial to roll out the assessment in batches over the course of several months instead of all at once. C. Be thoughtful about the amount of time you give raters to complete a 360. Make sure you consider the organizations culture in terms of responsiveness and the current workload. A 360 can typically be completed in a 2-4 week time frame. 5. Make Sure the Learning Transfers   The most important part of a 360 assessment is creating the opportunity for participants to select actionable items that they can work and improve on when they return to the office. However, how do you know that improvements are being made? Creating a way to reassess and measure improvement is key. Often times organizations re-administer an entire 360 to measure improvement. What we know is that individuals can only make significant progress on 3-5 goals over the course of 8-12 months. It is more beneficial to target and reassess those specific goals instead of re-administering the entire 360. This streamlined process is also less disruptive to the organization and more cost effective. Interested in learning more about best-in-class 360 assessments?  Discovery Learning, Inc. can help! The post 5 Tips for Successful 360 Degree Feedback appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

Earlier this year, we suggested five steps to help you assess and improve your leadership development program. You can read the original post here. We’re back with four additional recommendations to implement in the planning stages of your program to improve your organization’s leadership development.   1. Get sponsorship from senior leaders. When it is clear that your leadership development program is important to the organization, participants will be more engaged in learning. During an executive training program at a large Canadian retailer, a very senior executive drove over four hours to kick off the program with a fifteen-minute speech to the participants. The senior executive’s visible sponsorship of the program sent a clear message that the program was important. Gaining tangible buy-in from senior leaders is a crucial way to get participants to invested in their own development from the start. 2. Avoid cramming too much content into one program. Although it is tempting to cover as much ground as possible, it is a mistake to overdo it with content. People need time to reflect, process, and talk about the information you are presenting. Rather than try to do everything in one program, identify the most important learning areas you want to cover and plan enough time for people to develop meaningful takeaways.  Try to focus on one or two behavioral competencies and demonstrate how they may be connected. 3. Frame it in terms of exploring real business issues. Get people to bring real business challenges to the program to engage in problem-solving.  Then give people break-away activities to encourage exploring those specific issues. People want to solve problems. When you incorporate experiential learning into your leadership development program, participant engagement will increase. Coupling experiential learning with exploration and discussion of relevant business challenges helps participants to make deeper connections between their development experience and their behavior patterns at work. By doing so participants will feel like they have some tools to take back with them which greatly helps increase engagement with leadership development beyond the class-room. 4. Keep it safe. When people feel threatened and exposed, their ability to transfer short term to long term memory decreases dramatically. Create a non-judgmental learning environment by avoiding framing development challenges in terms of "right" and "wrong" answers or solutions. Instead shift the focus to understanding different styles of leadership and participants will be more willing to engage. For most leadership traits individuals have preferred style that they defer to.  It is important to help leaders understand what other styles and techniques exist. Then empower those leaders to adapt their go-to style to maximize effect for the situation and target audience. Discovery Learning, Inc. has been designing custom leadership development programs for global organizations for over 20 years. We are happy to serve as a resource to the leadership and organizational development community. Contact us to set-up a consultation to start maximizing the impact of your leadership development budget. The post 4 More Ways You Can Improve Your Leadership Development Program appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

When it comes to success at the leadership level, the ability to communicate a plan, make informed decisions quickly, and influence effectively are crucial factors that have a direct impact on an organization’s bottom line. One study found that for every five GMs Cox Enterprises sent to a four-day leadership development program with a soft skills focus, the organization could count on adding $3.57 million dollars in revenue. Read the full article, "Turning Leadership Into Dollars," for details.   You know leadership development is valuable. So how do you communicate the value of LD training to a budget-conscious organization in a way that demonstrates the clear impact of LD on the bottom line? We have two big suggestions for selling leadership development to your organization. 1. Identify and engage the stakeholders directly Find out who is sponsoring the initiative and ask critical questions to identify clear goals for the program. Maybe customer satisfaction ratings are down and the team leader wants to see a 50% increase in satisfaction ratings. Perhaps employee turnover rate is high, not only increasing onboarding costs but slowing down production as new employees get up to speed. The CEO wants to slow the rate of turnover by developing more effective leaders capable of inspiring and engaging employees. Asking questions like, "What specifically would you like to see change?" and "What do you want to see your people doing differently?" will not only make it easier to design a successful program, but will also create measurable goals. Pointing to a specific objective and comparing a snapshot of how it looked before and after your leadership development program will help make the case for LD training’s impact on the bottom line.  It is important to recognize that there can be multiple factors contributing to your organization’s success on the agreed upon targeted outcomes. It would be folly to attribute all of your organization’s success to the effects of leadership development. There is a logical barrier to attempting to make that connection as well as some potential political pitfalls. Instead try to reach an agreement in advance of what part of that success can be attributed to leadership development. Let’s build on the above turnover rate scenario as an example. Let’s say the stakeholder wants to see a reduced employee turnover rate of 5% over the next 12 months. It is possible, and likely your organization has already done so, to calculate the savings to an organization if this goal is achieved.  Try to reach agreement in advance as to what percentage of the associated organizational savings will be attributed to Leadership Development training. While there may still exist some ambiguity as to what that percentage should be, it is an excellent starting point for demonstrating in a tangible way the value of the development investment. Laying this groundwork and being able to successfully deliver the agreed upon goals provides a tremendous platform and organizational buy in when soliciting expanded budgets in the next cycle. 2. During the design phase, keep Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Training Evaluation Model in mind When you consider the desired outcome of a leadership development program, the objective is typically a change in behavior. Whether it is a large-scale change in company culture or a smaller shift in the way a team works together, trainers generally aim to reach Level 3 on the Kirkpatrick model: getting participants to apply what they learned in the leadership development program on the job. Organizations are often most concerned with the 4th level, Results or ROI. Will your training program impact the bottom line of the business? The fact is that everyone wants to focus on the 4th level when they set out to sell an LD program to their organization, but they don’t know how to do the first three levels. Many trainers are familiar with the Kirkpatrick model, but unfortunately it’s pretty unusual to see training programs that succeed at reaching beyond level two. This is where the first point comes into play. If you ask critical questions of the stakeholders and establish measurable goals for your program ("What specifically would you like to see your people doing differently?"), you are better able to design a program that will have measurable results for your team. Incorporating post-measure tools (like the Discovery Leadership Profile 360 Plus program or follow-up coaching) will help you track the effectiveness of your desired outcomes and measure whether training really "sunk in" and affected participant behavior or just scratched the surface. Designing a program with a strategic focus on the first three levels of the Kirkpatrick Model will be critical in demonstrating to your organization that your leadership development program will reach that desired 4th level, results or ROI. Ultimately, we know that training in soft skills has a profound impact on the bottom line. In the article "Turning Leadership into Dollars," all five Cox Enterprises GMs studied were seasoned executives with years of experience in their roles. They knew their jobs inside and out. Their organization was looking for a way to help them become even better leaders. The four-day leadership program DLI designed with Cox Enterprises involved the critical stakeholders in establishing clear, measurable goals, it aimed at reaching the first three levels on the Kirkpatrick Model, and it made a $3.57 million dollar difference. By conscientiously laying the groundwork for your program by keeping both of these suggestions in mind, you will be better equipped to persuade a budget-conscious organization of the value of leadership development. The post Selling Leadership Development to Your Organization appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

Anyone involved with leadership assessment and development has war stories about ineffective use of leadership assessment tools. Dr. Chris Musselwhite offers a few  guidelines for effective and ethical leadership assessment. - Even a good assessment can be misused. We’ll assume you are using assessments that are valid and reliable. But, even good assessments can be misused. Don’t be guilty of over-simplifying a multi-dimensional person into an over-simplified cookie-cutter prototype of a leader. Assessments are designed to provide insights and glimpses into the behavioral preferences of an individual, not to provide a blueprint. - Preferences are only preferences. Personality preferences help us to understand our tendencies. Some of our tendencies may be quite pronounced and may color the lenses through which we view our surroundings. My experience is that rather than introduce constraints, understanding this creates options. Better understanding how I interpret and respond to my environment offers me options for growth and development. Understanding how others interpret their environment gives me the opportunity for adaptability and flexibility. - Preferences do not equal behaviors. Preference is about my most natural inclinations for reacting and responding. It also colors how I interpret the behaviors of others. My behavior is only dictated by my preferences when I am blind to those preferences. Knowledge is power. - The focus of assessment should be developmental. Leadership assessment should be about improving leadership effectiveness so when assessment is used for hiring or promotion, don’t try dressing it up as leadership assessment. Assessments that are validated for developmental purposes may not be validated for hiring and promoting. In addition to ethical concerns, this can also have serious legal implications. - Don’t be lazy. People are complex so don’t use personality assessment as a substitute for listening and asking good questions. People are not labels so don’t use them. - Confidentiality is supreme. Leadership assessment should be confidential. If I choose to share an insight that I have learned about my natural preferences or someone else’s perceptions about my effectiveness then it is my choice. Contact Discovery Learning, Inc. to learn more about incorporating Leadership Assessment into your Leadership Development Program.  The post Ethical Leadership Assessment appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..

In our latest installment in our "Ask the Expert" series I had the opportunity to talk about effective decision making, experiential learning and other topics with Christine Pencak, Director of Global Talent and Organizational Development at BorgWarner. Christine has spent the last 20 years leading talent and organizational development departments. She has worked with the automotive industry since the mid-1990s and came to BorgWarner in January of 2005. Nash Musselwhite- "In your role as Director of Global Talent and Organizational Development how have you helped to shape development programs at BorgWarner?" Christine Pencak- "Development programs in BorgWarner are part of the strategic fabric of the company. We have never had an "off the shelf" training curriculum that was put together by the HR department without involvement of line management  I often get feedback from consulting firms regarding the degree of rigor and involvement of the highest level people in whatever we do in the development arena. This level of management engagement in the upfront work is how I strive to shape a learning agenda that drives business objectives. We really have an incredible level of buy in at senior levels of our organization. Our executives so embrace their experience with the PressTime simulation that this November we are doing a special run of the simulation for Vice Presidents who have come on recently who haven’t gone through that simulation." NM- "What are the overall goals and objectives of BorgWarner’s development programs?" CP- "Our Company has  a growth goal of becoming a $15 Billion dollar company by 2020.  An enterprise strategy in support of that goal is to develop, retain, and attract the talent needed to support that growth.  You can have the best strategy, and a market that wants your products, but you have to have people to run your businesses. That is the overall goal. Having more people willing and able to step up and lead our businesses today and in the future. Our organizational competency model has been in place since 2003. We don’t use competencies to simply build job descriptions. Rather, the BorgWarner Product Leadership Competency Model applies to every professional at every level in the organization. It defines the human capabilities we need to execute our strategy and achieve our vision.  That organizational model is integrated into all of our human resource processes and tools. There is real power in that approach. While the model has been in place for several years, we do identify certain competencies for targeted focus and development.  Right now, those priorities are Influence, Conflict Management, and Decision Making. Our CEO has determined these three to be essential in our operating model which is, in a nutshell, having decision making authority and accountability reside at our plants, closest to the customer. In our operating model, the functions are here to support the operations The people within the functions are expected to have a global perspective; they bring best practices and efficient processes to the operational leaders, helping inform and influence decisions that are made at the local level." NM- "Let’s explore those three strategic competencies some more." CP- "Our value proposition is product leadership in the marketplace. It requires innovation at its core and innovation needs to be centered around markets and customers. We empower leaders to run their businesses, and expect them to grow their businesses.  There are few, if any, top down directives in our company. So a balance between collaboration and speed is critical to our success.    We are investing a lot of effort into developing our talent to work across boundaries to make high quality, timely decisions that are best for the company. So, being able to bring expertise to the table and influence decisions, while managing the constructive conflicts that are inherent in local accountability/global strength operating model is a large focus for us now. NM- "So with the decision making competency your focus is not so much about closing a gap as it is about continuing to ensure you have high quality decision makers?" CP- "Right! And a lot of what we do at BorgWarner is learning through others and stories. For example, we our development initiatives incorporate high levels of experiential activities, giving people the chance to learn from others. Our flagship leader development program incorporates Discovery Learnings Press Time simulation and the Decision Style Profile. How people attempt to influence others, manage conflict, ultimately make decisions are key learning from the experience.   Additionally, include exposure to executives where program participants can ask our senior most leaders their "lessons of experience."  Very often those questions are about making tough decisions and communicating those decisions to employees.  What comes out loud and clear, is that high quality decision making is important, that often you have to make decisions with limited or incomplete information; but in all circumstances, the implications for people need to be considered in a way that reflects BorgWarner’s respect for people. Our up and coming leaders consistently comment that the Press Time simulation and our executive stories strengthen their understanding of leader expectations here. .   In sum, we have multiple threads running through our development programs that reinforce that competence, even in indirect ways." NM- "What are some of the additional tools that you are using to help develop effective decision making?" CP- "Where we focus on decision making as a consideration for leadership development is really at the mid to upper level of the organization. Our focus is on two aspects of decision making; timely decision making and high quality decision making As I mentioned, we use Decision Style Profile, and we couple it with a personality instrument (The Occupational Personality Questionnaire), and a multi-rater assessment (Denison Leadership Development Survey)   In 2015 and beyond, we are taking our existing curriculum to a new level. You will have to talk to me in a year or two to see how we are doing. NM- "How do you measure the success of your development programs?" CP- "We keep a close eye on the career progression of talent that attends our programs. Additionally, we have annual self and boss assessments of the Product Leadership Competencies as part of our performance management and development process.  And finally, every 2.5 years our executive level population goes through a 360 feedback process.   In addition to focused, individual development plans being the outcome of that, I look at the group data to understanding the rank ordering of the competencies, from highest to lowest over time.  This informs our development investment decisions.  Perhaps it goes without saying, that we also employ traditional program evaluation methods. NM- "What advice would you give to other leadership and organizational development professionals based on your experience focusing on decision making, influence and conflict management as strategic competencies?" CP- "If you are a global company like BorgWarner, be mindful of the cultural differences in how leadership competencies play out in various countries.  Be clear on the outcomes you are striving for, but be open to, and embrace, different behaviors that get to the same end point. Effective decision making is a critical competency for contemporary leaders. Discovery Learning, Inc. has been designing resources, tools and programs to help some of the world’s most innovative companies develop their leaders to be more effective decision makers. Find out more about how Discovery Learning, Inc. can improve the effectiveness of your leadership development efforts! The post Developing Leaders to Be Effective Decision Makers appeared first on Discovery Learning Inc..