For the third year running, Leader and Manager Development tops the list or HR leaders’ priorities.
75% of businesses have invested in growing their Manager and Leader programs, yet they are not seeing results.
Traditional, one-off workshops and seminars on this topic don’t make an impact.
Being a facilitator of learning for 10+ years, I am well aware of the challenges of one-off events. I know within a few minutes in front of a group of people, who are the minority who truly are there to learn, the ones in the room who are eager to explore; who want to connect their current outcomes to how they are showing up to where they want to go – and are deeply curious to discover their gaps and how to plug them. These people are few and far between.
Most of the time, the majority of people who sign up for voluntary one-off workshops are there for the jolly – for the free food (definitely pre 2020). And for those volun-told to come on the training? Even fewer of those get much out of the one-off workshop.
A one-off event is not enough to help most people to make change because change is tough.
The reason making any change stick is that we hold two strong yet opposing beliefs within our core self:
1) I want to be accepted for who I am without having to change
2) I want to discover my challenges so I can grow, change, and be the best version of myself
As behavioral change is hard – those of us who have joined a gym in January with high expectations of the best body ever- do know that around 80% of us will have given up by the end of the month. It’s easy to see why competing thought number 1 often wins.
So if you have managers and leaders who might be technically excellent but failing their people miserably, without intervention and connection to consequences, and a sustained program, there is simply no reason for that person to change.
For something complex, one-off events don’t offer a good ROI. Just the same as going to the gym one time does not make most people change behaviour forever overnight.
So what does work? A program which facilitates repeated peer connections with networking, team building’ a program that has practical elements and practice. Regular connections with others on the same journey as you and having an end goal – a personal development plan that the person creates and can adhere to, harnessing whichever resources along the way to help them make it stick – this is best shared with their manager - to boost accountability and support.
The Be A Better You philosophy for these types of programs is a customized group of focused workshops interspersed with regular smaller group support and challenge groups, coaching, homework assignments and creation of the self-directed development plan. And self-awareness is enhanced with the use of a valid and robust psychometric assessment, and for those we use the suite from Thomas North America.
Link to the article: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-10-15-gartner-survey-finds-leader-and-manager-development-tops-hrleaders-list
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