Getting Maximum Value from Executive Education/Leadership Programs
Daniel R. Tobin
Some years ago, I met with one of the senior managing partners of a large accounting and consulting firm. He proudly told me that his firm was sending 3,000 of their associates to a leading business school to hear two days of lectures by one of the well-known leadership gurus. The program would run over the course of the summer, with associates flying in to the school in groups of 200.
I asked him how they were preparing the associates for the experience and what they had told the associates the firm would expect them to do with what they learned. He replied, “They’re all very smart. They’ll figure out what to do with it.”
I knew this guru’s work well, and it was excellent material, but without any preparation beforehand, and with no expectations set for what the associates would do when they returned from the program, I figured that the firm was wasting $1 million or more.
Last year, I met with the vice president of power generation at a public utility. He told me that nine of the top eleven people in his business unit, including himself, were eligible to retire in the next five years and “I have no idea where we are going to find replacements for them.”
I asked him if they had considered some type of leadership development program to prepare the next generation of leaders for the business. “I sent one guy to a very expensive leadership program for a week – nothing changed. A total waste of money!”
I spoke with Joe, the person who had attended the program. “It was a great program. I learned a lot, and I changed a lot. But I got back here and nothing else had changed, other than having a week’s worth of work to catch up on. I suggested some new ideas to my boss, and he said that everything was working fine – no need for change. So, I’m really doing nothing with what I learned.”
These are the same two stories, with one on a much larger scale that they other. The leadership guru in the first case had great material that could have been used well by the firm if there had been a plan in place to use it. The program that Joe attended is very well known and highly-rated by attendees, and could have been very valuable to Joe and his employer, if it had been used.
Many companies, large and small, have made the same error in sending their employees, one or thousands, to external executive education or leadership development programs. How could these companies better ensure that they got value from these programs? It takes these five steps:
- Diagnosis
- Planning
- Attending the program
- Follow-up to the program
- Follow-through
Step 1: Diagnosis
Before investing in an external development program, you need to understand what problem you are trying to solve. Assuming that you have one or more employees who have been identified as having high potential for future leadership roles in your organization, you should start by conducting a 360° assessment to identify each employee’s strengths and areas needing development. The results of the assessment should be reviewed with the employee, the employee’s manager, and a human resources staff member. This group should reach agreement on which competencies the employee should focus on improving – the employee’s learning agenda.
Step 2: Preparation
Once all parties have agreed on the learning agenda, the employee, working with the HR staff, should survey the many executive education and leadership development programs available in the market to find the one that will best meet the employee’s learning needs.
All of these programs, whether university-based on from a training vendor, have counselors available to provide guidance to potential participants. If necessary, you can also ask to speak to one of the instructors/facilitators of the program to ensure that the content and format of the program are a good match to the employee’s learning needs and learning style.
The final step that should be taken before sending the employee to the program is a meeting involving Joe, the HR director, and the employee’s direct manager to set expectations for what the employee would learn and how he or she would use that learningupon returning from the program. “Here’s what we expect you to learn from the program, and here’s what we want you to do when you return.” The post-program assignments might include an expanded job description, a new job, a special project assignment, or another way of enabling the employee to apply his or her learning at work.
Step 3: Attending the Program
The employee will now go somewhere to attend the selected program. It will be very helpful to the employee’s concentration on what will be learned if the manager ensures that the employee’s responsibilities are covered while attending the program, rather than having the employee be constantly interrupted by phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. It will also help the employee’s concentration if he or she is not worried about all the work that will be piling up in his or her in-box while attending the program.
Step 4: Follow-Up
Given that there were a number of expectations set before sending the employee to the program, it is vital that the manager and the HR director follow up on those expectations.
Once Joe returns from the program, the HR director and direct manager should meet with the employee again to follow-up on their initial meeting. “Here are the expectations we had set before the program. How well did the program help you meet those expectations?” The meeting should also be used to reinforce the plan for the employee to use what he or she learned, either in the current job or in the new job or special assignment that had been agreed upon earlier.
This meeting is also an opportunity for the employee to tell the others, based on what was learned, what he or she plans to do in his current or new role and what support he or she will need to accomplish this from them or from others. Based on this conversation, the employee should develop an action plan and a new set of goals against which they will measure success.
Step 5: Follow-Through
It is then up to the manager and HR director to follow through on the new assignment by meeting with the employee on a regular basis to check on progress and to develop a sense of when the employee will be ready for a larger leadership role in the business unit and the company.
Had these steps been taken in either of the example cases, the employees and their organizations would have reap many more benefits from their investment in these external programs, and the employees would have been on track for future leadership roles in their organizations.
Dan Tobin is a consultant on leadership development programs and corporate learning strategies. His new book is Feeding Your Leadership Pipeline: How to Develop the Next Generation of Leaders in Small to Mid-Sized Companiesis being co-published by ASTD and Berrett-Koehler. He can be reached at 914-630-1937 or at
© Daniel R. Tobin