Leveraging Technology To Amplify Leadership Development
Can technology help firms create sustainable leadership development modules?
Today almost every company invests huge amount of money on developing leadership pools. Many companies including Fortune 500 companies allocate billions (1) of dollars for learning and development of the top management. And no more it is just another yearly budgetary task; developing leadership cap has become a critical business strategic priority for all companies in this rapidly evolving business environment. Learning and Development (L&D) departments in all the companies have suddenly gained a spot light because of the increase in the value they add to the different horizontals and verticals of the organization. They work in delivering high-intensity training, workshops, in-person knowledge sharing seminars and conferences with an objective to empower and motivate the senior leaders and high-valued individuals in an organization.
As the organizations evolve, the methods and processes of operating also transform into more efficient ways of doing things. Though the L&D departments strive hard through conventional methods of developing leadership levels, it has been found in a recent study (2) that 62% of business leaders say that they have leadership gaps and only 17% of them feel confident in delivering high class strategic output. As per the recent Fortune survey, “only 7 percent of CEOs believe their companies are building effective global leaders, and just 10 percent said that their leadership-development initiatives have a clear business impact.”
The number clearly conveys that there is a problem. Something is missing in leadership development. As per Harvard Business Publishing report (3), “only 7% of the organizations feel they have a Best in Class leadership development program”. Traditional L&D methods are not proving to be very effective in equipping C-suite leaders and other high-level executives with latest business models and strategic evolution. Leadership level individuals who attend the workshops, in-person training and other forum connect fail to take away with them the resources, motivation and focus, and apply them on their jobs. Clearly there is a gap which has to be filled in order to accelerate the leaders learning process and provide new tool for a new learning experience. It is about time to utilize the overarching power of technology to support the leaders in their development.
Can technology help firms create sustainable leadership development modules? Can it empower them to get absorbed in continuous learning even with when workshops and in-person training is over? Well, the answer is — yes. Many companies have already started piloting new L&D models enabled by technology that moves with us.
Make it a continuous learning experience, not just a learning session
Though there are limitations in common L&D practices such as workshops, seminars, in-person training sessions, but these high-valued, informative and tailored best practices are not going away anytime soon. What current scenario demands is the integration of the new technology with existing models to drive the leadership development. Modern coaching groups and in-house L&D departments are utilizing technology to enhance the learning experience of high-valued and executive class individuals. The leadership teams are being empowered with Web 2.0 tools like podcasts, e-modules, webcasts, and simulation based learning and so on to help them retain and recall the information and the key learning they acquire in workshops to take business decisions. One would be happy to agree with a point that this model is very much similar to the “Just in Time” approach. Here, instead of raw material inventory; we are talking about the information availability.
Quoting a personal example, Ford, my former employer, is closely working with Oracle, Saba, to build self-directed learning and development platforms. Similarly companies (4) like GE, Motorola, Phillips and others are also investing heavily on training and virtual learning portals. By doing this, the information evaporation doesn’t happen. It becomes a continuous learning experience which is learner-led and data driven. Therefore, technology can play key role in building leadership development programs what are faster, more flexible and digital platforms enabled.
Design for the transfer of knowledge (KT)
Senior leaders in most of high-level organizations are subjected to job rotations as part of company’s strategy to provide them 360 degree view of the organization. Now the outgoing leader has to transfer the knowledge and key learning to the incoming leader to ensure smooth transition of roles. This happens by sharing — experiences, challenges faced, best practices used, in the form of storytelling and files transfer. It becomes cumbersome and time consuming. Therefore, modern tools like simulation platforms, podcasts, digital decision tracker, etc. enabled by technology can replace the facilitator-workshop model and save a lot of time which can be now used to take better and informed decisions.
When talking about the knowledge transfer, one just can’t ignore the social media platforms which are effective in building interpersonal skills and at the same time establish professional connections. Online communities like LinkedIn are creating opportunities for leaders to interact and learn from other current and future leaders, listen to leadership webinars, share and gather industry trends — all at tap of a screen. Another trending way through which CXOs reach the mass is Vlogs, a short video blog, via which key information and announcements are cascaded to all the levels. The bright side of this channel is that it stays live online and can be accessed by succeeding CXO in the future.
And it’s already happening!
Knolskape (5), a leader in talent transformation solutions for modern workplace and Leaderonomics, Asia’s leading leadership development company have come together to build technology driven simulation-based development programs for the companies based out of Malaysia. These programs will contain a blend of technology and traditional practices of leadership development. Many other companies around the world have realized the gap we talked about and are building solutions enabled by experiential technologies like simulations, tailored e-modules, and gamification etc. to accelerate leadership development.
Many other high-level organizations are introducing virtual simulations and virtual reality (VR) in their L&D programs. For example, Walmart has partnered with STRIVR (6), a VR start-up to enhance training and learning experience of the employees at different level. These tools help in enhancing leaders’ skills and give them a platform to apply strategies in virtual systems before going to real-time business environment.
What we saw in the form of sci-fi in the 1983 movie War Games has become the reality of today, where intelligent machines help humans take calculated decisions to increase the probability of success. Now what becomes interesting is seeing the amount of significant impact these new technology driven leadership development programs will have on strategy, culture and overall growth of an organization.
So let’s wait and watch!
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References –
1- https://www.td.org/insights/1642-billion-spent-on-training-and-development-by-us-companies
2- https://www.kornferry.com/institute/leadership-development-ceos-strategic-powerhouse
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