When building your bench strength it becomes imperative to grow the leaders on your team.  But how do you successfully do that?

Of the five major barriers to building a talent pipeline the top two concerns are lack of time and lack of accountability. Over 51% of all survey respondents agreed that organizational leaders are not being formally held accountable for their contributions related to developing others.   (This is from a report released by the Human Capital Institute.)

Follow up, continuity in learning and direct application to their job are all essential parts of a necessary program to grow your leaders.  Studies have found that the brain learns best by personal experience (hence why work experience or on the job training works so well), then by visceral learning (this is by seeing someone else do what you need to or by hearing a great story or analogy that brings you in to the experience) and thirdly you learn by reading or having some talk to you.

Any training program you give should have LASTING results, not just an enthusiastic hype.  Just today I talked with a potential client that is coming to us because one of his members came to our ProGOtiation program over three years ago and since that time she has had remarkable SUSTAINED changes in how she negotiates.  That is what you are looking for.

So hold up a measuring stick to your programs by asking:

Which of our programs result in changes you SEE and FEEL at least ONE year after people attended?  Keep those programs because they are working.

For all other programs that don’t show results ONE year after people attended,go back and check and see if you have personal experience and visceral experiences built in.  Check if you have a direct way for them to apply it IMMEDIATELY back at the office to their own work. They have to see it, feel it and use it for it to stay with them.

And lastly, make sure your top leaders have gone through your programs and they walk the talk.  They are your true coaches and people will look to them to see how “important” learning really is.

One of our clients had their entire SLT team come through our program before they launched it with their sales team.  Here is it 10 years later and as their new hires come through our program we hear them saying things like , “wow that is what Brad does” or ” so that is where marketing got the idea to.”  I love it!  It means that their senior management is constantly modeling what they learned so it IS a part of their CULTURE.

Take time today to evaluate your training program so that the time invested reaps benefits for years to come.

Want to make sure you are viewed strategically?  Join us for our next Managing Your Message Experience.  Seats are limited so check it out soon!