In some cases, our clients have a strong understanding of the needs of their people and are seeking our help to create new programs and development experiences for identified needs. In other cases, our clients know that they want to enhance leadership capability within the organization but also want us to help them assess their needs from the ground up. We most often start by assessing the development gaps of a leadership population, a subset of a population or a specific executive. With client input, we determine the goals and objectives of the development experience that will best fill the identified gaps and bring about change necessary to drive future success. Our work in the needs analysis phase can include gap analysis across a wide variety of constituencies, from the CEO to customers. It often includes surveys, but typically also leads to comprehensive qualitative interviews and development-population discussions. We often complete this phase with a discussion of aligning the potential design work with other ongoing Talent/HR initiatives.

We design concrete, implementable learning that will fill identified gaps. When designing a new leadership development experience, we create unique and custom solutions that draw from a large set of successful experiences and programs. For 30 years we have been designing and delivering world-class programs and processes. Our solutions very often rely on pulling together disparate outside resources with leading-edge content that cannot be matched at a single university program or by a single consultant. Importantly, we are always designing experiences to be maximally impactful. Our arsenal includes a number of formats and experiences that make each event unique. These might include, for example, immersion and simulation experiences, strategic education with real-time C-Suite action learning and discussions that inject new content from renowned thinkers. Other approaches include holistic development programs that couple the classroom with internal mentoring, external assessment and coaching. The best solutions also encompass participant accountability and follow-up requirements.

In order to deliver world-class leadership development to our clients, we maintain an extensive network of experts in many fields critical to today’s leaders. These include faculty from prominent universities like Harvard, Stanford and Wharton, thought-leaders and strategists at elite think-tanks, and applied consultants with expertise across the spectrum of possible topical areas. If, however, we do not have the exact resource we need within our network, we use the network to source, diligence, preview and negotiate with whomever will be needed to deliver the most dynamic and impactful solution for our client. We always work directly for our clients, never for an external content expert or university. We are not a speakers bureau and earn absolutely no fees from anyone other than our clients. In that way, our interests are always aligned with those of our clients. In fact, we find that because we are known by our network, we typically can negotiate substantial discounts that our clients cannot obtain directly from these providers.

Once a design has been completed, resources identified and dates scheduled, we frequently work with our clients on the messaging to the development population. We understand how critical it is to position development experiences in a way that motivates those involved to fully engage and appreciate the strategic leadership opportunity that they are receiving. We guide our programs and experiences through roll-out. We bring administrative implementation resources on staff, if needed. We not only work in conjunction with clients on the delivery of new programs, but also on transferring the knowhow and expertise of new programs or experiences to our clients, so that they have the capability to run and maintain them over time, if desired. We often times come back to revisit programs or processes with our clients to make updates or adjustments, and are pleased to be a part of subsequent designs or tailored modifications.

We want our clients to know the true value of the strategic investment being made on behalf of any programs or processes we design. Our goal is to assess the on-the-job application of development outcomes and measure the cost benefit of their new development initiative. We want our clients to understand the Level 3 and Level 4 outcomes in the commonly used Kirkpatrick evaluation model. Specifically, we are not just seeking to understand reactions and learning (our standard Level 1 and Level 2 evaluations can do this well). We help clients assess the on the-job behavior changes and content application of new learning, as well as the impact of those changes on the organization. We want our clients to have valid and reliable data on application and impact. For clients that want us to conduct Level 3 and Level 4 analyses after development roll-out, the survey and interview data is combined with all other existing Level 1 evaluation data for a comprehensive report on the cost-benefit of the development initiative. This type of ROI data from leadership development initiatives helps our clients differentiate themselves internally and externally. Typical client outcomes include greater internal support and sponsorship for the development initiative, critical information being leveraged in the succession planning process, and heightened attraction and retention of star talent.

During design and development phases, we work closely with clients to identify places that we can tie new processes and programs to existing Talent Management processes and systems. More often than not, our clients want to do this for maximum impact. With any talent pool, new leadership skills and new knowledge can be hard to assimilate at first. Old undesired patterns can resurface only weeks after a program or experience has ended, especially if a program ends without accountability. We seek to make accountability part of the design. We want to work with Talent/HR to measure leadership against newly acquired learning. Our goal is to reinforce not only the implementation of the new learning but also the teaching and coaching of others within the organization.