Teaching Philosophy Strategy Academy
- 1. 1… Leadership philosophy In 2014, McKinsey & Company’s most read McKinsey Quarterly article was “Why leadership-development programs fail”. In this article, four common mistakes are outlined that their research has shown to diminish the effectiveness of leadership programs: 1. Overlooking Context: a leadership-development program is founded on general principles which can apply to any organization; 2. Decoupling reflection from real work: off-site lessons learned do not result in changed behaviour on the front line; 3. Underestimating mind-sets: programs aim to repair troublesome symptoms, yet fail to address the root causes of why leaders act the way they do; 4. Failing to measure results: businesses often do not track development in leadership performance over time, nor the role of the development program in leadership performance. We recognize these four mistakes as ever-present challenges and are confident that our teaching philosophy successfully addresses them. In this article, we would like to share our leadership programs’ underlying principles in order to inspire you to improve your leadership program.
- 2. 2Overlooking Context The issue Overlooking Context: A program is founded on general principles which can apply to any organization. Our approach We believe individual development should not be “one-size-fits-all”, but instead should be aligned with the organizational vision. This means Strategy Works, in collaboration with our clients, looks at how our programs can develop people in order to improve their ability to help realize the corporate vision. In short, we believe personal development and organizational development need to go hand in hand. This way, a program is not founded on general principles which can apply to any organization, but, instead, contribute to each specific organizational context, thus creating maximum impact. A good example in which this principle has been successfully applied is in the leadership program we created for Toyota material handling group (TMHG), the global leader in counterbalanced forklifts. TMHG’s vision entailed greater collaboration between business and staff. To this extend, we co-created a program that taught the participants state-of-the- art HR knowledge, as well as a means to address strategic issues. The participants’ personal development, thus, contributed to a stronger HR department that was able to contribute to the organization’s strategic issues. This stronger HR department, in turn, contributed to realizing the organizational vision. Apart from the overall goal, all exercises, workshops and business cases in this program are specifically tailored to make participants’ personal development contribute to achieving organizational goals. ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT What does the organizational v ision mean … … f or my team … … and f or me personally . How can I change my behav ior … … to build a stronger team … … to contribute to realizing the v ision. Case Study
- 3. 3Overlooking Context The issue Decoupling reflection fromreal work: Off-site lessons learned do not result in changed behaviour on the front line Our approach Our approach to linking reflection to on-the-job learning is by incorporating a business case in the program. Participants form teams in which they tackle a real life company issue. We encourage their management to select business cases that have an immediate bearing on achieving the corporate vision. Participants apply what they have learned from our trainers and hone their skills by reflection in an offsite location to translate their learning experiences to a more abstract level so that they can apply them to other contexts in the future. If a program has multiple session, participants often start work on their business cases on the sessions themselves, complete them in-between and receive feedback in the next session. For the last 6 years, Strategy Academy has facilitated the international Young Talent Program at Tebodin-Bilfinger, a multidisciplinary consultancy and engineering firm active with 4900 experts in industry, health oil and gas, chemicals, infrastructure, property and energy and environment. The key objective of this program is to develop leadership competences in high-potential engineers that are primed to take future management positions. In order to develop this understanding, the Tebodin-Bilfinger board of directors sets these 25 high-potentials five challenging business cases that have a strong link to the the corporate vision. We guide the participants through solving these business cases, with an emphasis on both practical problem solving skills, as well as the character traits required to solve these types of problems. The end result is presented to the board of directors, making the alignment between personal, team and corporate vision of paramount importance. Case Study
- 4. 4Overlooking Context The issue Underestimating mind-sets: Programs aim to repair troublesome symptoms, yet fail to address the root causes of why leaders act the way they do; Our approach Though it can be tempting to look for tools and methods on how to shift underlying mind-sets. We believe the best way to manage differences in mind-sets is by accepting them as inevitable. We do not see them as opposites, however, but as paradoxes. We operate under the premises that leading requires managing paradoxes. One leader may prefer to take an organizations unique resources as a starting point, while another might focus more on meeting in the market. In our training programs, we help participants to understand their own preference, as well as its inherent advantages and disadvantages. At the same time we teach them to appreciate the value of another, even opposing, mind-set. By having two or more leaders with different mind-sets collaborate, they can often achieve the best of both worlds. Strategy Works actively applies this principle in our critically acclaimed contribution to the TU Delft executive master on Safety, Health and environment. This program helps participants to develop competences to manage strategic issues. Although applying practical tools and methods to a business case relevant to the participants is key, this program also seriously addresses mind-sets. We teach people to understand other people’s mind sets and help them understand why different people see things differently. We believe for all our programs to be effective, then need to contain both these practical and underlying elements. Solving a business case, relevant to our participants’ real-life work situations, creates a great means to address the issue of underlying mind-sets. Participants are challenged to test their rational solutions in the context of people which approval they need to make them happen. The health and safety master is a good example, because, due to being part of a staff function, these participants deal with differing mind-sets from people in the business on a very regular basis. Case Study RESOURCES MARKETS
- 5. 5Overlooking Context The issue Failing to measure results: Businesses often do not track development in leadership performance over time, nor the role of the development program in leadership performance. We aim to maximize the impact we have on the future of the participants within their organizational context. In order to show our participants progress, and thus the program’s effectiveness, we apply four ways to measure results: 1. Program evaluation: Querying participants on how they experience the program. 2. Assessment: Measuring competences before and after the program to spot developments 3. Career development: Gauging promotions and professional evaluations of participants until 1 year after the program 4. Implementation of the business case: Evaluating the impact of the business case assignment that is central to the program. Our experience has show that these four tools offer great insights into the effectiveness of our programs, but also offers valuable data on how to continuously improve on them. We hope this response to McKinsey’s critique on leadership programs has triggered you to think on how you can improve your own programs. Should you whish to know more about what Strategy Works can do for you in improving an existing program, or designing a new program to help you meet your organizational goals, feel free to contact us. Our approach -7 days Program +7 days + 6 months Program evaluation Career development Implementation of the business case Pre assessment Post assessment #1 Post assessment #2 STRATEGY WORKS | STRATEGY ACADEMY PARKLAAN 1 3016 BA ROTTERDAM +31 10 440 85 22 D.KRADOLFER@STRATEGY-WORKS.COM