How to Design Training Program for Senior Management
Cultivation of future leaders is vital to a company’s long-term health. And yet, despite maintaining a succession plan, many companies experience newly appointed leaders fail, are ill prepared for the job for which they were groomed. Take an example of Coca Cola – Robert Goizueta’s second in command, M. Douglas Ivester, who became the CEO after Goizueta’s demise. He was forced to leave the organization because of plummeting share price, bad marketing and poor handling of quality of product. He failed, because, despite of having mastered one area of management, he couldn’t master the other aspects of Senior management like public relations, marketing, merger and acquisitions, getting alignment by building consensus and handling multiple stakeholders.
Understanding the Gap in Succession Planning
Stepping into the big shoes isn’t a problem alone, planning for the line of succession is. It is too narrow and conservative in approach to bridge the skill gap that can fail even the most promising senior management.
The HBR Study: Bridging the Succession Planning Gap
In one of the studies by HBR on factors that contribute to a leader’s success or failure, a handful of companies has succeeded in developing strength by approaching succession plan as more than mere updating list of potential candidates. The best approach to train your senior management for them to climb the next step in the ladder is to combine succession planning and leadership development programs which will manage the talent roster across the organization.
Many companies, traditionally, practice succession planning and leadership development program in silos but they should go hand in hand, as, their goal is common – getting right skills for the right position.
Drawing on the experience of experts in this domain, following are the three pillars for setting up a strong training program for senior management that not only develops them but also help in building a firm, steady and reliable pipeline of talent:
Three pillars for setting up a strong training program for senior management
Spot the Vital Positions
Spotting the vital position which are essential to long-term health of organization. They are typically difficult to fill, are highly unlikely individual contributor role and are generally found in established areas of business and are critical for future growth.
Pivot the Development
By getting succession planning and leadership development together, we get the best of both worlds that is bridging the skill gaps required for senior managers to move up in the ladder. Taking the example of Ivester, leader of finance management. Had he been trained on other aspects of management; he wouldn’t have faced the CEO debacle. Training coupled with real-life exposure to variety of jobs like job rotation, special projects such as setting up a new office in another country, etc. will do wonders in developing the senior managers. Action-learning programs are another way to provide developmental experience who are asked to look beyond departmental silos to solve the strategic problems and thus learn more about general management skills.
Consistent Progress Checks
A blend of leadership development and succession planning enables you to focus on measuring the success for longer period of time. There are various tools to deploy for these progress checks like 30-60-90 surveys, knowledge check assessments basis the Kirkpatrick model.
Conclusion
Therefore, it is important to ensure the above points while design the training program for senior management.
