Setting leaders up to thrive

Encourage managers to try small jumps, take relatively small risks and see who emerges

By Dave Crisp

When you consider the book Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin (mentioned in an earlier post), there are many interesting implications for leadership and development of leaders. We do very little training of leaders. At best, most companies might manage the equivalent of a couple of days in-house or a week-long seminar at various institutions, some better than others. That’s once or twice in a typical career — hardly continuous learning.

Often what’s taught in such programs is more supervisory basics – how to discipline, how to give and follow up an assignment. That’s hardly advanced leadership. In fact, the concepts of the boss setting fixed goals, following up and disciplining shortfalls, if over-used, are certain to detract from the deeper objectives of leadership — which include coaching and encouraging employees to take initiative, risk trying their own new ideas and driving further than the coach/leader expects.

So if training isn’t extensive, how do our leaders get the 10,000 hours of concentrated practice needed to develop true skill at this highly complex task. The answer seems to be that in most cases (82 per cent, as we’ve pointed out from one study previously) they don’t. They remain at a “starter” level of leadership skill that in turn extinguishes employee engagement with a few months.

The best practice organizations in leadership development use a range of tactics. They train, they ensure coaching and mentoring (whether internally or externally provided), they send people on developmental visits, they rotate people from assignment to assignment designed to fill in gaps in their experience and background. They try to ensure these on-the-job projects and roles are increasingly challenging and they try to support learning continuously.

If the best we can expect is about one-half of a manager’s time dedicated to new or “leadership” tasks versus routine stuff, it would take about 10 years to get 10,000 experience on those skills. That’s probably pretty optimistic, since most people won’t be continuously challenged, but will be marking time at least some of those years. Moreover they may not have support or guidance steadily to push progress.

However, we know that, given the right background, some individuals can learn at highly accelerated rates in jobs they’re “not quite ready for,” that challenge them enormously in ways they haven’t experienced before, but find an ability to live up to. The person who suddenly finds themselves in charge in a crisis and excels is a well-known phenomenon. That way, you pack 10,000 hours into a much shorter duration.

The problem is we can’t always engineer that sort of exceptional learning experience. As with so many events in life, it’s only if the individual decides for herself she wants to try and exerts immense effort that this can work. You could throw lots of people into challenges that seem over their heads only to find they are in fact swamped and you’ve hurt that individual’s chances. Some would do better in the next challenge, but there is no guarantee of that and in the mean time, you’ve created a bad result for the organization as well.

From a complexity science view, your best bet is to assume it may take at least 10 years to hone leaders skills and set them on a path with continuous learning challenges, support and varied experiences, watching all the time for those who seem to have the potential to make a significant learning jump in a very large challenge.

Complexity science, however, doesn’t suggest the success rate will be 100 per cent. More likely fewer than one-half would survive a big jump in responsibility. The science shows situations advance through continual trial and error with the emphasis on a few succeeding while many fail. So it’s probably better to encourage many managers to try small jumps, take relatively small risks and see who emerges with greatest effectiveness. At least then you have a learning culture that supports the bigger jumps when they occur.

If the penalties for small failures are negligible, you can move those who don’t do as well to a new learning experience quickly and keep them growing. The more you can engineer this right across the board in your organization, the more effective leaders will begin to emerge along the way. And these will be true leaders who can take the organization far into the future faster, exactly the type we need for the continuous innovation companies need to survive and thrive.

Dave Crisp is a Toronto-based consultant with a wealth of experience, including 14 years leading HR at Hudson Bay Co. where he took the 70,000-employee retailer to “best company to work for” status. For more information, visit www.crispstrategies.com.