Why you should stop outsourcing leadership development

A version of this article was first published on Troy Media www.troymedia.com/2016/09/11/stop-outsourcing-leadership-development/

If you ask a successful leader to recall his or her most impactful development experience, chances are it happened while on the job engaged in real work.  This was reinforced on a recent project designed to help organizations transfer and retain the business-critical knowledge of retiring baby boomers (a copy of the report can be downloaded at apgst.ca/projects/pdfs/APGST-KnowledgeTransfer-Report-2016-WEB.pdf).  Interviews with over 40 successful, long-tenured leaders confirmed the best development takes place on the job.  For example, an assignment that stretches one’s personal resources; the opportunity to work side-by-side with a mentor; struggling and succeeding with a challenging project.  While we have long known that most development happens in the workplace, we continue to rely on external, formal training to build leadership capability.  There are 5 key reasons to shift away from traditional leadership training and development and turn your focus toward helping employees develop critical skills and capabilities while they work.

1. Traditional approaches to development are not producing robust talent pipelines.  In spite of the time and energy we have invested in identifying and developing leaders of the future, waning gaps in the talent pipeline persist in most organizations.  For some reason, we have not been able to sufficiently prepare managers to step in and fill the gaps created when key leaders move on.  Our emphasis on external training and development as key strategies to prepare leaders has not been successful.  In contrast, the evidence suggests the most powerful ways people learn critical capabilities is by actively engaging in real work, most often alongside those who have the knowledge, skills and wisdom they need to develop. 
2. Traditional approaches to development are not resulting in better business performance.  While organizations have invested heavily in training and development, we have not seen a commensurate uptick in overall business performance.  One reason for this may be that external training is too generic (“Develop Your Leaders, Transform Your Organization”, Harvard Business Press, 2011).  For example, a business school strategy course may provide you with exposure to different strategic planning models and tools but fail to hone your ability to think and operate strategically in your business, in your marketplace, with your teams, confronting your particular challenges.
3. Traditional approaches to development focus narrowly on the chosen few.  Employee development is often tied to formal succession planning, which limits its scope.  Because external development is expensive, organizations are forced to bet on a chosen few ‘high potentials’.  In reality, all employees are an appreciating asset and benefit from intentional development; their value is enhanced as they grow and mature.  Rather than over-invest in a few possible successors, organizations need to build up the knowledge and expertise of all their employees.  The only way to do this, realistically, is by embedding learning into the organization and into the day-to-day experiences of all.
4. Traditional approaches to development are designed for learners of the past.  As Baby Boomers transition out of the workplace and Millennials transition in, organizations will need to do learning differently.  While Boomers are comfortable with formal classroom- and text-based learning, young employees expect learning to be hands-on, interactive, and just-in-time (“Bridging the Gaps: How to Transfer Knowledge in Today’s Multigenerational Workplace”, Conference Board of Canada, 2008).  Shunting people off to a campus for a weekend locked up with an instructor, a powerpoint deck and a stack of case studies is so…1999.
5. Traditional approaches to development fail to engage and leverage your most valuable asset - your internal experts.  An organization’s best training resource isn’t a course list; it is its cadre of seasoned leaders and experts.  Those are the people who have the nuanced understanding of the issues, the war stories to share as cautionary tales, the insightful coaching to provide.  When we fail to design learning that draws on their deep knowledge and expertise it is like installing plumbing and failing to turn on the tap.  While on-the-job learning that engages both internal experts and learners is more complex to design and deliver, it has a much higher chance of delivering results. 

At some point, we are going to have to face the fact that outsourcing leadership development isn’t working and probably isn’t going to suddenly start working.  At the same time, we know on-the-job learning is a far superior way to develop people.  Isn’t it time we put that knowledge into practice?

Sources
This article was inspired by a 10-month project sponsored by APGST that took a deep-dive look at how organizations can transfer and retain critical knowledge as baby boomers exit the workplace in record numbers.  This project reinforced for me that importance of embedded learning as a critical leadership development approach.  A full biography of research that informed my recommendations can be found in the final report, which is a resource guide for HR practitioners and leaders on how to engage in critical knowledge transfer.