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SKILLSOFT The Executive Leadership Series

COACHING FOR SUCCESS: How Successful People Get Even Better with

Marshall Goldsmith June 26, 2007, 12:00–1:30 p.m. ET

PARTICIPANT GUIDE © 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

Dear Participant, Welcome to SkillSoft’s 2007 Executive Leadership Series. Today’s program is one of eight annual live, interactive presentations featuring bestselling business authors, experts, and CEOs on SkillSoft’s Leadership Development Channel. In today’s presentation Marshall Goldsmith will share his insights on how you can become a better coach and leader in your organization. Specifically, he will explain… ¾ Your role in the coaching process ¾ The key belief structures that support or hinder behavioral change ¾ An eight-step approach for behavioral coaching ¾ The keys to achieving positive, measurable, long-term change in behavior. Use these participant materials to record your notes, ideas, and questions. You will have an opportunity to submit questions before and during the program by fax, telephone, or e-mail. We encourage you to participate! Also take advantage of the postpresentation activities included in these materials to continue your learning after today’s program. Sincerely,

Shawn Hunter Executive Producer SkillSoft Corporation

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Contents INTRODUCTION About SkillSoft ...........................................................................................2 Program Objectives ...................................................................................2 About Marshall Goldsmith .....................................................................3 Program Outline........................................................................................ 4 Presentation Overview .............................................................................5 How to Get the Most from the Program .............................................6 Before the Program ....................................................................................6 During the Program...................................................................................7 After the Program ......................................................................................7 PRESENTATION Coaching for Success: How Successful People Get Even Better ...................................................................................................10 POSTPRESENTATION ACTIVITIES Program Themes...................................................................................... 25 Self-Reflection ......................................................................................... 26 Exercise: When I Get Better At….........................................................27 QUESTION SHEET APPENDIX Leadership Is a Contact Sport

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation n

Introduction

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About SkillSoft SkillSoft (www.skillsoft.com) is a leading global provider of e-learning content and technology products for business and IT professionals, primarily within the Global 5000. SkillSoft’s multi-modal learning solutions support and enhance the speed and effectiveness of formal and informal learning processes and integrate SkillSoft’s in-depth courseware-learning content, learning management platform, virtual classroom technology, and support services.

Program Objectives Today’s program is designed to help you understand… 9

Your role in the coaching process

9

The key belief structures that support or hinder behavioral change

9

An eight-step approach for behavioral coaching

9

The keys to achieving positive, measurable, long-term change in behavior.

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About Marshall Goldsmith Recently, the American Management Association named Dr. Goldsmith as one of 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years. Business Week listed him as one of the most influential practitioners in the history of leadership development. Business magazines throughout the world have hailed him as a great business educator and leader: ¾ Wall Street Journal—“one of the top ten executive educators” ¾ Forbes—“one of five most-respected executive coaches” ¾ Economic Times (India)—“one of five rajgurus of America” ¾ Economist (UK)—“one of three most credible executive advisors in the new era of business” ¾ Fast Company—“America’s preeminent executive coach.” Dr. Goldsmith’s Ph.D. is from UCLA. He teaches executive education at Dartmouth’s Tuck School and frequently speaks at leading business schools. He works with the CEOs more than 80 major corporations. Dr. Goldsmith’s twenty-three books include The Leader of the Future (a Business Week best-seller), Coaching for Leadership, and the upcoming Developing Your Successor (in the Harvard Business Memo to the CEO series).

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Program Outline Welcome by our moderator, Tracey Matisak (5 minutes) PRESENTATION: Coaching for Success: How Successful People Get Even Better (55 minutes) Intermission (5 minutes) Question and answer session (20 minutes) Wrap-up (5 minutes)

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Presentation Overview “The more successful we become, the more positive reinforcement we get—and the more likely we are to experience the success delusion. ‘I behave this way. I am successful. Therefore, I must be successful because I behave this way.’ Wrong!” —Marshall Goldsmith Marshall Goldsmith will explain why it can be so challenging for successful people to change—including the key beliefs they have about themselves and the behaviors that hold them back. He will point out that successful people are (in a positive way) delusional. They believe they are successful because of their behaviors, but many of these people have succeeded to this point in spite of some of these behaviors. Dr. Goldsmith introduced the concept of “feedforward” versus feedback. Feedforward is centered on providing suggestions only in the present and future while completely letting go of the past. In this program, he shares his proven eight-step process for behavioral coaching. Finally, Dr. Goldsmith will provide the secret to successful change (and coaching)—pick only one behavior that is going to make the biggest positive difference. Marshall will then suggest talking to the most important people in your life and involving them in helping you to change that behavior. Ask them to give ideas for the future, listen to the ideas carefully and, most importantly, follow up with them on a regular basis.

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How to Get the Most from the Program BEFORE THE PROGRAM ¾ Invite colleagues or other people in your work group to view the presentation with you, as this program provides even more value for groups. ¾ Read What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith (Hyperion, 2007). ¾ Read the article “Leadership Is a Contact Sport” by Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan in the appendix of this guide. ¾ Check out the resources at www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com. ¾ Answer the following questions: 1.

Have you had success in changing a specific behavior that was important to you? If yes, how were you able to change the behavior? _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________

2. Think about the best coach you have ever had either personally or professionally—what made her or him so effective? _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 3. Why is behavioral change is so difficult? _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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DURING THE PROGRAM ¾ Participate! Contribute to the discussion. ¾ Ask questions. If you are participating in the live presentation of this program, call in, fax, or e-mail your questions. (See the Question Sheet in the Forms section of this guide for contact information.) If you are taking part in an encore presentation, share your questions with the Site Coordinator and your colleagues. ¾ Follow along with the presentation; make notes in the space provided beside each slide in this guide. AFTER THE PROGRAM ¾ Apply what you’ve learned! Review the list of dos and don’ts on the following page with a colleague or members of your team to help you apply Marshall’s coaching methodology. ¾ Complete any activities you started during the presentation. ¾ Complete the postpresentation activity that begins on page 25. ¾ Fill out the course evaluation online: www.targetlearn.com/courses/course.asp?CourseID=1102.

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Dos and Don’ts for the Behavioral Coaching Process DON’T

DO

STEP 1. ASK  Wait for a better time to ask  Come across as doubtful or skeptical  Put yourself down

 Be concise  Be clear  Be positive

STEP 2. LISTEN  Use “no,” “but,” or “however”  Make excuses  Exhibit impatience or anger

 Pay undivided attention  Capture what is being said  Clarify what you have heard

STEP 3. THINK  Engage in “delusional” thinking  Prove the feedback is wrong  Validate “this is just the way I am”

 Assess the benefits of change  Assess the costs of the current behavior  Decide if it is worth it to change

STEP 4. THANK  Use a dejected tone  Act artificial  Be insincere

 Say “thank you” quickly  Use their first name  Be genuine

STEP 5. RESPOND  Critique the feedback  Respond to too many things  Overcommit

 Be brief and focused  Be positive  Feedforward

STEP 6. INVOLVE  Stick with your fan club  Expect instant help  Take up too much of their time

 Include as many as you can  Keep the process upbeat  Vary involvement as needed

STEP 7. CHANGE  Procrastinate  Give into “feeling like a phony”  Expect instant success

 Break the elastic limit  Maintain momentum  Make change visible

STEP 8. FOLLOW UP  Dwell on the past  Brag, gloat, or show off  Become complacent

 Check your ego at the door  Politely push for specifics  Reinforce the process

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

Presentation

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Coaching for Success: How Successful People Get Even Better

Goals for Today • Understand classic challenges faced by successful leaders. • Know how to use feedforward, a tool that is being successfully implemented with leaders around the world. • Learn a proven model that you can use to develop yourself—with successful benchmark examples. • Be ready to coach your people and help them achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. • Understand new applications of peer coaching.

Teaching Leaders What to Stop

“We spend a lot of time helping leaders learn what to do, we don’t spend enough time helping leaders learn what to stop.”

Peter Drucker

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Key Beliefs of Successful People • I have succeeded • I choose to succeed • I can succeed • I will succeed

I Have Succeeded • We have a great belief in our previous success. • This belief gives us the confidence we will need to achieve even more success in the future. • Successful people are delusional! The more successful we become the more delusional we get. • We all want to hear feedback that is consistent with the way we see ourselves. We all tend to reject feedback that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves. • The more successful we become, the harder it can be to hear negative feedback.

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I Choose to Succeed • We do what we do because we choose to, not because we have to. • Choose to—leads to commitment; have to— leads to compliance. • The more committed we are to a path, the harder it is for us to admit it is the wrong path. • Attempting to change the behavior of successful adults who have no interest in changing is a waste of time.

I Can Succeed • We believe that we have the capability to make a positive difference in the world. • Not only are successful people delusional, successful people are superstitious. • Superstition is the confusion of correlation and causality. • The more successful we become, the more we are in danger of falling into the “superstition trap.”

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I Will Succeed • Successful people are optimists. • Optimists tend to overcommit. • Successful people face the danger of chronic overcommitment. • Why we don’t do what we know we should do!

Feedforward • The feedforward exercise • Letting go of the past • Listening to suggestions without judging • Learning as much as you can • Helping as much as you can • Learning points to help you be a great coach

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Developing Yourself as a Leader and Partner • • • • • • • •

ASK LISTEN THINK THANK RESPOND INVOLVE CHANGE FOLLOW UP

“Leadership Is a Contact Sport” • Summary impact research • More than 86,000 participants • Eight major corporations • Published in Strategy+Business

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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The Eight Corporations • • • • • • • •

Aerospace/Defense Financial services Electronic manufacturing Diversified services Media Telecommunications Pharmaceutical/Healthcare High-tech manufacturing

Commonalities • Multi-rater feedback • Feedback consultant • One to three areas for improvement • Discussion with co-workers • Ongoing follow-up • Custom-designed mini-survey

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Change in Leadership Effectiveness My co-worker did no follow-up

Percent

40

20

Table 1 Company A Company B

0

Company C

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Perceived Change

Company D Company E Avg Leader

Change in Leadership Effectiveness My co-worker did a little follow-up

Percent

40

20

Table 2 Company A Company B Company C

0 -3

-2

-1

0

1

Perceived Change

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

2

3

Company D Company E Avg Leader

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Change in Leadership Effectiveness My co-worker did some follow-up

Percent

40

20

Table 3 Company A Company B Company C

0 -3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Perceived Change

Company D Company E Avg Leader

Change in Leadership Effectiveness My co-worker did frequent follow-up

Percent

40

20

Table 4 Company A Company B Company C

0 -3

-2

-1

0

1

Perceived Change

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

2

3

Company D Company E Avg Leader

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Change in Leadership Effectiveness My co-worker did consistent or periodic follow-up

Percent

40

20

Table 5 Company A Company B Company C

0 -3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Perceived Change

Company D Company E Avg Leader

Key Learnings • Follow-up works. • The “program of the year” doesn’t work. • This process works around the world. • Many leadership development programs measure the wrong things! • This process works at home as well as work. • There is no reason that internal coaches cannot be as effective—or even more effective—than external coaches!

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The “Is It Worth It?” Exercise • Pick a key behavior • Focus on one benefit at a time • Listen to and learn from others

When behavioral coaching will not work • The person doesn’t want to change • “Written off” by the company • Lacks business or technical knowledge • Wrong strategy or direction • Integrity or ethics violations • Person in wrong job • Person in wrong company

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Coaching for Behavioral Change • Involve the person in determining desired behavior for this position. • Involve the person in determining key stakeholders. • Recruit key stakeholders to be part of the change process.

Coaching for Behavioral Change • Collect feedback. • Analyze results. • Have the person respond to key stakeholders. • Provide ongoing suggestions. • Follow up. • Conduct a mini-survey to measure change.

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Team Building without Time Wasting • Assessing “where we are now” vs. “where we need to be.” • Determining the key behavior for team-wide change. • Determining the key behavior for team member change. • Using feedforward for ongoing follow-up. • Using mini-surveys to measure success.

Sample Mini-Survey Team Items: 1. Clarifies roles and expectations with fellow team members. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . –3 – 2 – 1 0

1

2

3 NCN NI

2. Supports the final decision of the team (even if it was not his/her original idea). . . . . . –3 –2 –1 0

1

2

3 NCN NI

1. Genuinely listens to others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . –3 –2 –1 0

1

2

3 NCN NI

2. Strives to see the value of differing opinions . . –3 –2 –1 0

1

2

3 NCN NI

Individual Items:

How has this person followed up with you on areas that he/she has been trying to improve? (Check one.) ___ No Perceptible Follow-Up ___ Little Follow-Up ___ Some Follow-Up ___ Frequent Follow-Up ___ Consistent (Periodic) Follow-Up What can this individual do to become a more effective team leader or member?

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Questions that Make a Difference • Writing your daily questions • The value of peer coaching • Why the daily question process works so well

Determining What is Really Important for You to Change

• As a person • As a professional

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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To order What Got You Here Won’t Get You There • To order from 800 CEO READ • Call 800-236-7323 (ask for Dylan— extension 203) • E-mail: [email protected] • To order from Barnes and Noble: go to www.BN.com

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

Postpresentation Activities

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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Program Themes According to Marshall Goldsmith… 1.

What are the four key beliefs of successful people? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________

2. What is the major difference between feedback and feedforward? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 3. When will behavioral coaching not work? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ 4. Why is leadership a contact sport? ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________

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Self-Reflection What ideas, concepts, or examples resonated with you the most? Why? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

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Exercise: When I Get Better At… Read the following article by Marshall Goldsmith (published in Workforce Performance Solutions, October 2005) and complete the exercise that follows.

When I Get Better At…” In my younger days, as a newly minted Ph.D. and organizational behavior consultant, I would challenge my clients to pick one to three areas for personal improvement. As I grew more experienced, I began to realize that three was too many. The problem was not a lack of motivation or intelligence—these were brilliant, dedicated leaders. The problem was that they were just too busy. They all had profitability goals, growth goals, quality goals, customer goals, health goals, and so on. Multiply each of the types of goal by three and you quickly reach a number of goals that is not only impossible to achieve, but also impossible to even remember. What I teach my clients now is to pick the one area for personal change that will make the biggest difference, and to focus on that. If we pick the right area for change, increased effectiveness will almost always influence other aspects of our relationships with people. For example, more effective listening will lead to higher scores in all kinds of related behaviors, such as building teamwork, increasing customer satisfaction, and treating people with respect. Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D., a psychologist and author of about 20 books, has a wonderful exercise that helps answer the question, “Is this change really worth it?” Between five and eight people sit around a table, and each person selects one behavior to change. One person begins the exercise by saying, “When I get better at…” and completes the sentence by mentioning one benefit that will accompany this change in behavior. For example, one person may say, “When I get better at being open to differing opinions, I will hear more great ideas.” After everyone has had a chance to discuss their specific behavior and the first benefit, the cycle begins again. Now each person mentions a second benefit that may result from changing the same behavior, then a third benefit, continuing until the facilitator ends © 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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the exercise (usually after six to eight rounds). Finally, participants discuss what they have learned and their reactions to the exercise. When Branden first explained this exercise to me, I was polite but skeptical. I couldn’t see the value of simply repeating the potential benefits of change over and over. My skepticism quickly went away when I saw the process work. Branden and I were facilitators at a large conference that included many well-known leaders from corporations, nonprofits, the government, and the military. The man sitting next to me was a high-ranking military leader and directly responsible for thousands of troops. He also was highly judgmental and seemed to be proud of it. For example, when conference participants discussed the topic of character, he said, “I respect people with real character, and organizations, like mine, with real values. I don’t believe in this situational crap!” When we began Branden’s exercise, he said, “When I become less judgmental…” as his behavior to change. I was amused and thought that this would be interesting. True to my expectations, the first time around he coughed and grunted a sarcastic comment. The second time around he was even more cynical. Then something changed. When he described the potential benefit the third time around, he wasn’t being sarcastic anymore. Several rounds later, he had tears in his eyes, and said, “When I become less judgmental, maybe my children will speak to me again.” Since that day I have conducted this exercise with several thousand people. Many start with benefits that are “corporately correct,” such as “This change will help my company make more money,” and end with benefits that are more human, such as “This change will make me a better person.” I will never forget one hard-driving executive who chose “When I get better at letting go.” His first benefit was that his direct reports would take more responsibility, and his final benefit was that he would probably live to celebrate his 60th birthday. As the exercise progresses, one of two realizations tend to dawn upon participants. Some see the deeper meaning and become

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

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convinced that it is worth it. My advice to these people is simple: Get started on changing now. Others begin to feel like they are just “making up” benefits to complete the exercise. It doesn’t seem real. My advice to them is equally simple: Don’t waste your time. If you feel you have to make up reasons why you should change, your heart won’t be in the process, and you ultimately won’t put in the effort required. Now, it’s your turn to pick a behavior that you may want to change. Complete the sentence, “When I get better at…” over and over again. Listen closely as you recite potential benefits. You will be amazed at how quickly you can determine if this change is worth it for you. Please indicate below what you want to change and how you can benefit. When I get better at… ____________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ …I will get the following benefits: 1. _____________________________________________________________ 2. _____________________________________________________________ 3. _____________________________________________________________ 4. _____________________________________________________________ 5. _____________________________________________________________ 6. _____________________________________________________________ 7. _____________________________________________________________ 8. _____________________________________________________________

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

Question Sheet

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

Coaching for Success, June 26, 2007

Question Sheet Use this form to write your question or for discussion among your colleagues. Please write clearly. Your name (optional): ________________________________________________________________________________________ Your organization: ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Your location (city, state, country): ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Your question (25 words or less): ____________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Send your questions by… PHONE: In the U.S. Outside the U.S.

1-800-218-0204 1-303-262-2130

FAX: In the U.S. Outside the U.S.

1-877-892-0170 1-646-349-3661

E-mail:

[email protected]

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

Appendix LEADERSHIP IS A CONTACT SPORT

© 2007 by Marshall Goldsmith and SkillSoft Corporation

The “Follow-up Factor” in Management Development

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Leadership Is a Contact Sport by Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan

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Illustration by Robert Goldstrom

Leadership is not just for leaders anymore. Top

companies are beginning to understand that sustaining peak performance requires a firm-wide commitment to developing leaders that is tightly aligned to organizational objectives — a commitment much easier to understand than to achieve. Organizations must find ways to cascade leadership from senior management to men and women at all levels. As retired Harvard Business School professor John P. Kotter eloquently noted in the previous issue of strategy+business, this ultimately means we must “create 100 million new leaders” throughout our society. (See “Leading Witnesses,” s+b, Summer 2004.) Organizational experts Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard have defined leadership as “working with and through others to achieve objectives.” Many companies

are stepping up to the challenge of leadership development and their results are quite tangible. In Leading the Way: Three Truths from the Top Companies for Leaders (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), a study of the top 20 companies for leadership development, Marc Effron and Robert Gandossy show that companies that excel at developing leaders tend to achieve higher long-term profitability. But it sometimes seems there are as many approaches to leadership development as there are leadership developers. One increasingly popular tool for developing leaders is executive coaching. Hay Group, a human resources consultancy, reported that half of 150 companies surveyed in 2002 said that they had increased their use of executive coaching, and 16 percent reported using coaches for the first time.

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Howard Morgan (howard@ howardjmorgan.com) is the founder of 50 Top Coaches, a collective of many of the world’s leading executive advisors. He specializes in executive coaching as a strategic change-management tool. He is co-editor of the forthcoming book The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching: 50 Top Executive Coaches Reveal Their Secrets (John Wiley & Sons, December 2004).

Yet even “executive coaching” is a broad category. In reviewing a spate of books on coaching last year, Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer identified at least three types of coaching: behavioral change coaching, personal productivity coaching, and “energy coaching.” (See “My Coach and I,” s+b, Summer 2003.) Our own upcoming book, The Art and Practice of Leadership Coaching: 50 Top Executive Coaches Reveal Their Secrets (written with Phil Harkins, to be published by John Wiley & Sons in December 2004), includes discussions about five types of leadership coaching: strategic, organizational change/execution, leadership development, personal/life planning, and behavioral. Given the increasingly competitive economic environment and the significant human and financial capital expended on leadership development, it is not only fair but necessary for those charged with running companies to ask, “Does any of this work? And if so, how?” What type of developmental activities will have the greatest impact on increasing executives’ effectiveness? How can leaders achieve positive long-term changes in behavior? With admitted self-interest — our work was described in the Crainer–Dearlove article, and is frequently cited in reviews of and articles about leadership coaching — we wanted to see if there were consistent principles of success underlying these different approaches to leadership development. We reviewed leadership development programs in eight major corporations. Although all eight companies had the same overarching goals — to determine the desired behaviors for leaders in their organizations and to help leaders increase their effectiveness by better aligning actual practices with these desired behaviors — they used different leadership development methodolo-

gies: offsite training versus onsite coaching, short duration versus long duration, internal coaches versus external coaches, and traditional classroom-based training versus on-the-job interaction. Rather than just evaluating “participant happiness” at the end of a program, each of the eight companies measured the participants’ perceived increase in leadership effectiveness over time. “Increased effectiveness” was not determined by the participants in the development effort; it was assessed by preselected co-workers and stakeholders. Time and again, one variable emerged as central to the achievement of positive long-term change: the participants’ ongoing interaction and follow-up with colleagues. Leaders who discussed their own improvement priorities with their co-workers, and then regularly followed up with these co-workers, showed striking improvement. Leaders who did not have ongoing dialogue with colleagues showed improvement that barely exceeded random chance. This was true whether the leader had an external coach, an internal coach, or no coach. It was also true whether the participants went to a training program for five days, went for one day, or did not attend a training program at all. The development of leaders, we have concluded, is a contact sport. Eight Approaches

The eight companies whose leadership development programs we studied were drawn from our own roster of clients over the past 16 years. Although all are large corporations, each company is in a different sector and each faces very different competitive pressures. Each company customized its leadership develop-

strategy + business issue 36

Marshall Goldsmith (marshall @marshallgoldsmith.com) is a founder of Marshall Goldsmith Partners, a leadership coaching network. He has worked with more than 70 major CEOs and their management teams and is the author or coauthor of 18 books on leadership and coaching. His most recent book is Global Leadership: The Next Generation (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003).

Each participant received mini-survey summary feedback from three to 16 co-workers. Colleagues were asked to rate the participants’ increased effectiveness in the specific selected behaviors as well as participants’ overall increase (or decrease) in leadership effectiveness. Co-workers were also asked to measure the degree of follow-up they had with the participant. In total, we collected more than 86,000 mini-survey responses for the 11,480 managers who participated in leadership development activities. This huge database gave us the opportunity to explore the points of commonality and distinction among these eight very different leadership development efforts. Three of the organizations permitted their names to be used in articles or conference presentations, enabling us to reference them in this report; the rest have requested anonymity, although we are able to describe their sector and activities. Two of the organizations also have allowed their results to be published elsewhere, without disclosure of the organization’s name. The companies whose programs we studied were: • An aerospace/defense contractor: 1,528 managers (ranging from midlevel to the CEO and his team) received training for two and a half days. Each person reviewed his or her 360-degree feedback in person with an outside consultant. All received at least three reminder notes to help ensure that they would follow up with their co-workers. • A financial-services organization: At GE Capital, 178 high-potential managers received training that lasted five days. Each leader was assigned a personal human resources coach from inside the company. Each coach had one-on-one sessions with his or her client on an ongoing basis (either in person or by phone).

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ment approach to its specific needs. Five of the eight focused on the development of high-potential leaders, and between 73 and 354 participants were involved in their programs. The three other companies included almost all managers (above midlevel), and involved between 1,528 and 6,748 managers. The degree of international representation varied among organizations. At two companies, almost all of the participants were American. Non-U.S. executives made up almost half of the participants in one company’s program. The other five had varying levels of international participation. Some of the companies used traditional classroombased training in their development effort. In each of these companies, participants would attend an offsite program and receive instruction on what the desired characteristics were for leaders in their organizations, why these characteristics were important, and how participants might better align their own leadership behavior with the desired model. Some companies, by contrast, used continuing coaching, a methodology that did not necessarily involve offsite training, but did rely on regular interaction with a personal coach. Some companies used both offsite training and coaching. Along with differences, there were commonalities among the programs. Each company had spent extensive time reviewing the challenges it believed its leaders would uniquely face as its business evolved. Each had developed a profile of desired leadership behaviors that had been approved by upper management. After ensuring that these desired leadership behaviors were aligned with the company vision and values, each company developed a 360-degree feedback process to help leaders understand the extent to which their own behavior (as perceived by co-workers) matched the desired behavior for leaders in the corporation. All eight placed a set of expectations upon participants. The developing leaders were expected to: • Review their 360-degree feedback with an internal or external consultant. • Identify one to three areas for improvement. • Discuss their areas for improvement with key co-workers. • Ask colleagues for suggestions on how to increase effectiveness in selected areas for change. • Follow up with co-workers to get ideas for improvement. • Have co-worker respondents complete a confidential custom-designed “mini-survey” three to 15 months after the start of their programs.

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Personal Touch

The overarching conclusion distilled from the surveys in all the programs was that personal contact mattered — and mattered greatly. Five of the corporations used the same measurement methodologies, while three used a slightly different approach. All eight companies measured the frequency of managers’ discussions and follow-up with co-workers and compared this measure with the perceived increase in leadership effectiveness, as judged by

co-workers in the mini-surveys. The first five firms — the aerospace/defense contractor, GE Capital, the electronics manufacturer, the diversified services company, and the media company — used a seven-point scale, from –3 to +3, to measure perceived change in leadership effectiveness, and a five-point scale to plot the amount of follow-up, ranging from a low of “no followup” to a high of “consistent or periodic follow-up.” They then compared the two sets of measurements by plotting the effectiveness scores and the follow-up tallies on charts. The remaining three firms used slightly different measurement criteria. The telecommunications company used a “percentage improvement” scale to measure perceived increases in leadership effectiveness, as judged by co-workers. It then compared “percentage improvement” on leadership effectiveness with each level of follow-up. Johnson & Johnson and Agilent measured leadership improvement using the same seven-point scale employed by the first five companies, but they did not categorize the degree of follow-up beyond the simple “followed up” vs. “did not follow up.” As noted earlier, follow-up here refers to efforts that leaders make to solicit continuing and updated ideas for improvement from their co-workers. In the two companies that compared “followed up” with “did not follow up,” participants who followed up were viewed by their colleagues as far more effective than the leaders who did not. In the companies that measured the degree of follow-up, leaders who had “frequent” or “periodic/consistent” interaction with co-workers were reliably seen as having improved their effectiveness far more than leaders who had “little” or “no” interaction with co-workers. Exhibits 1 to 5, on pages 76–77, show the results among the first five companies, which, despite their different leadership development programs, used the same measurement methodology. This apples-to-apples comparison shows strong correlations across all five companies between the degree of follow-up and the perceived change in leadership effectiveness. In the exhibits, “perceived change” refers to the respondents’ perception of their co-worker’s change in leadership effectiveness; for example, a rating of “+3” would indicate that the co-worker was seen as becoming a much more effective leader; a rating of “0” would indicate no change in leadership effectiveness. “Percent” refers to the percentage of survey respondents grouped around a given rating; for example, in Exhibit 1, between 30 and 42 percent of respondents gave a “0”

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• An electronics manufacturer: 258 upper-level managers received in-person coaching from an external coach. They did not attend an offsite training program. They were then each assigned an internal coach who had been trained in effective coaching skills. This coach followed up with the managers every three to four months. • A diversified services company: 6,748 managers (ranging from midlevel to the CEO and his team) received one-on-one feedback from an external coach during two training programs, each two and a half days long, which were conducted 15 months apart. Although there was no formal follow-up provided by the coach, participants knew they were going to be measured on their follow-up efforts. • A media company: 354 managers (including the CEO and his team) received one-on-one coaching and feedback during a one-day program. An external coach provided follow-up coaching every three to four months. • A telecommunications company: 281 managers (including the CEO and his team) received training for one day. Each leader was given an external coach, who had continuing one-on-one sessions with his or her client. • A pharmaceutical/health-care organization: Johnson & Johnson involved 2,060 executives and managers, starting with the CEO and his team, in one and a half days of leadership training. Each person reviewed his or her initial 360-degree feedback with an outside consultant (almost all by phone). Participants received at least three reminder notes to help ensure that they would follow up with their co-workers. • A high-tech manufacturing company: At Agilent Technologies Inc., 73 high-potential leaders received coaching for one year from an external coach, an effort unconnected to any training program. Each coach had one-on-one sessions with his or her client on an ongoing basis, either in person or by phone.

Leadership is a relationship, not between the coach and the “coachee,” but between the leader and the colleague.

Ask and Receive

In a way, our work reinforces a key learning from the Hawthorne studies. These classic observations of factory workers at suburban Chicago’s Western Electric Hawthorne Works, which Harvard professor Elton Mayo made nearly 80 years ago, showed that productivity tended to increase when workers perceived leadership interest and involvement in their work, as evidenced by purposeful change in the workplace environment. Our studies show that when co-workers are involved in leadership development, the leaders they are helping tend to become more effective. Leaders who ask for input and then follow up to see if progress is being made are seen as people who care. Co-workers might well infer that

leaders who don’t respond to feedback must not care very much. Historically, a great deal of leadership development has focused on the importance of an event. This event could be a training program, a motivational speech, or an offsite executive meeting. The experience of the eight companies we studied indicates that real leadership development involves a process that occurs over time, not an inspiration or transformation that occurs in a meeting. Physical exercise provides a useful analogy. Imagine having out-of-shape people sit in a room and listen to a speech on the importance of exercising, then watch some tapes on how to exercise, and perhaps practice exercising. Would you ever wonder why these people were still unfit a year later? The source of physical fitness is not understanding the theory of working out; it is engaging in exercise. As Arnold Schwarzenegger has said, “Nobody ever got muscles by watching me work out!” So, too, with leadership development. As Professor Drucker, Dr. Hersey, and Dr. Blanchard have pointed out, leadership involves a reliance on other co-workers to achieve objectives. Who better than these same co-workers to help the leader increase effectiveness? Indeed, the executive coach is, in many ways, like a personal trainer. The trainer’s role is to “remind” the person being trained to do what he or she knows should be done. Good personal trainers spend far more time on execution than on theory. The same seems to be true for leadership development. Most leaders already know what to do. They have read the same books and listened to the same gurus giving the same speeches. Hence, our core conclusion from this research: For most leaders, the great challenge is not understanding the practice of leadership: It is practicing their understanding of leadership.

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rating — that is, they saw no change — to leaders who “did no follow-up.” Leadership, it’s clear from this research, is a relationship. And the most important participants in this relationship are not the coach and the “coachee.” They are the leader and the colleague. Most of the leaders in this study work in knowledge environments — in companies where the value of the product or service derives less and less from manufacturing scale and, to use Peter Drucker’s formulation, more and more from the processing and creation of information to define and solve problems. In discussing leadership with knowledge workers, Professor Drucker has said, “The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.” Our studies show that leaders who regularly ask for input are seen as increasing in effectiveness. Leaders who don’t follow up are not necessarily bad leaders; they are just not seen as getting better.

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Exhibit 1: My Co-Worker Did No Follow-Up

Percent

60

40

20

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

2

3

2

3

Perceived Change Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D

Company E

Mean Leader

60

Percent

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Exhibit 2: My Co-Worker Did a Little Follow-Up

40

20

-3

-2

-1

0

1

Perceived Change Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D

Company E

Mean Leader

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Exhibit 3: My Co-Worker Did Some Follow-Up

40

20

-3

-2

-1

0

1

Perceived Change Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D

Company E

Mean Leader

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Percent

60

Exhibit 4: My Co-Worker Did Frequent Follow-Up

Percent

60

40

20

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

2

3

Perceived Change Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D

Company E

Mean Leader

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Exhibit 5: My Co-Worker Did Consistent or Periodic Follow-Up

Percent

60

40

20

-3

-2

-1

0

1

Perceived Change Company A

Company B

Company C

Company D

Beyond the basic finding — that follow-up matters — several other conclusions arise from our research. For example, the eight-program study indicates that the follow-up factor correlates with improved leadership effectiveness among both U.S. and non-U.S. executives. As companies globalize, many executives have begun to wrestle with issues of cultural differences among their executives and employees. Recent research involving high-potential leaders from around the world has shown that cross-cultural understanding is seen as a key to effectiveness for the global leader. (See, for example, Marshall Goldsmith et al., Global Leadership: The Next Generation, Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003.) Our study addressed this issue as it affects leadership development programs. Nearly 10,000 of the respondents in the eight companies whose programs we reviewed — almost 12 percent of our mini-survey sam-

Company E

Mean Leader

ple — were located outside the United States. We found that the degree of follow-up was as critical to changing perceived leadership effectiveness internationally as it was domestically. This was true for both training and coaching initiatives. At Johnson & Johnson, there were almost no differences in scores among participants in Europe, Latin America, and North America. The group seen as improving the most was in Asia. In analyzing the findings, J&J determined that the higher scores in Asia were more a function of dedicated local management than of cultural differences, again supporting the correlation between a caring, contact-rich leadership and its perceived effectiveness. That follow-up works globally contravenes assumptions that different cultures will have differing levels of receptiveness to intimate conversations about workplace

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Inside and Outside

Interaction between the developing leader and his or her colleagues is not the sole connection that counts. Also vital is the contact between the leader and the coach. Our third major finding concerns that relationship: Both internal and external coaches can make a positive difference. One reason coaching can be so effective is that it may inspire leaders to follow up with their people. Agilent Technologies, for one, found a strong positive correlation between the number of times the coach followed up with the client and the number of times the client followed up with co-workers. The coach, however, does not have to be part of the company. This conclusion was readily apparent when we compared the two companies most distinct in the composition of their coaching corps. Agilent used only external coaches. GE Capital, by contrast, used only internal coaches from human resources. Yet both approaches produced very positive long-term increases in perceived leadership effectiveness. Given the apparent ease of accessibility to internal coaches, firms might naturally use this finding to justify “going inside.” But there are at least three important variables to consider in determining whether to use an internal HR coach: time, credibility, and confidentiality. In many organizations, internal coaches are not given the time they need for ongoing interaction with the people they are coaching. In some cases, they may not seem as credible as trained development experts. In other cases, especially those that involve human resources personnel filling multiple roles, there may appear to be a conflict of interest between a professional’s responsibilities as coach and as evaluator. If these

perceptions exist, then external coaches may well be preferable to internal coaches. But internal coaches can overcome these obstacles. At GE Capital, the internal coaches were HR professionals who were given time to work with their “coachees.” Coaching was treated as an important part of their responsibility to the company and was not seen as an add-on “if they got around to it.” Moreover, the coachees were given a choice of internal coaches and picked coaches they saw as most credible. Finally, each internal coach worked with a leader in a different part of the business. They assured their coachees that this process was for high-potential development, not evaluation. As a result of this thorough screening process, client satisfaction with internal coaches was high and results achieved by internal coaches (as judged by coworkers) were very positive. Inside or outside, we discovered that the mechanics of the coach–leader relationship were not a major limiting factor. Our fourth finding was that feedback or coaching by telephone works about as well as feedback or coaching in person. Intuitively, one might believe that feedback or coaching is a very “personal” activity that is better done face-to-face than by phone. However, the companies we reviewed do not support this supposition. One company, Johnson & Johnson, conducted almost all feedback by telephone, yet produced “increased effectiveness” scores almost identical to those of the aerospace/defense organization, which conducted all feedback in person. Moreover, all the companies that used only external coaches similarly found little difference between telephone coaching and live coaching. These companies made sure that each coach had at least two one-on-one meetings with individual executive clients. Some coaches did this in person, whereas others interacted mostly by phone. There was no clear indication that either method of coaching was more effective than the other. Although sophisticated systems — involving some combination of e-mail, intranets, extranets, and mobile connectivity — are available, follow-up needn’t be expensive. Internal coaches can make follow-up telephone calls. New computerized systems can send “reminder notes” and give ongoing suggestions. However it’s done, follow-up is the sine qua non of effective leadership development. Too many companies spend millions of dollars for the “program of the year” but almost nothing on follow-up and reinforcement. Companies should also take care to measure the

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behaviors. But the universality of the follow-up principle doesn’t imply universality in its application. Leaders learn from the people in their own environment, particularly in a cross-cultural context. Indeed, research by the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C., has shown that “encouraging feedback” and “learning from those around us” are both central to success for leaders in cross-cultural environments. Companies with successful leadership development programs encourage executives to adapt the universal principle of follow-up and the frequency of such conversations to fit the unique requirements of the culture in which they working. Despite other cultural differences, there seems to be no country in the world where co-workers think, “I love it when you ask me for my feedback and then ignore me.”

Continual contact with colleagues is so effective it can succeed even without a formal program.

Learning to Learn

Of even greater import is this: Continual contact with colleagues regarding development issues is so effective it can succeed even without a large, formal program. Agilent, for example, produced excellent results, even though its leaders received coaching that was completely disconnected from any training. In fact, leaders who do not have coaches can be coached broadly by their coworkers. The key to changing behavior is “learning to learn” from those around us, and then modifying our behavior on the basis of their suggestions. The aerospace/defense contractor and the telecommunications company used very streamlined and efficient train-

ing processes and “reminder notes” to help leaders achieve a positive long-term change in effectiveness, without using coaches at all. If the organization can teach the leader to reach out to co-workers, to listen and learn, and to focus on continuous development, both the leader and the organization will benefit. After all, by following up with colleagues, a leader demonstrates a commitment to selfimprovement — and a determination to get better. This process does not have to take a lot of time or money. There’s something far more valuable: contact. +

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effectiveness of their leadership development initiatives, and not just the employees’ satisfaction with them. Our results indicate that when participants know that surveys or other methods of measuring program effectiveness are slated to occur three to 15 months from the date of the program, a higher level of commitment is created among them. This follow-up measurement creates a focus on long-term change and personal accountability. Although measuring outcomes would seem to be second nature for most companies, the success of leadership development programs has conventionally been assessed through the satisfaction of the participants. This metric is of limited relevance. Among the companies in our study that offered leadership development training, virtually all participants came away highly satisfied. At the aerospace/defense contractor and Johnson & Johnson, the average satisfaction rating among more than 3,500 participants was 4.7 out of a possible 5.0. Executives loved the training, but that didn’t mean they used the training or improved because of it.

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Resources Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer, “My Coach and I,” s+b, Summer 2003; www.strategy-business.com/press/article/22062 Elizabeth Thach, “The Impact of Executive Coaching and 360 Feedback on Leadership Effectiveness,” Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4, 2002; http://fiordiliji.emeraldinsight.com/ vl=2762214/cl=12/nw=1/rpsv/lodj.htm Marshall Goldsmith, “Ask, Learn, Follow Up, and Grow,” in The Leader of the Future: New Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the Next Era, edited by Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith, and Richard Beckhard (Peter Drucker Foundation and Jossey-Bass, 1996) Linda Sharkey, “Leveraging HR: How to Develop Leaders in Real Time,” in Human Resources in the 21st Century, edited by Marc Effron, Robert Gandossy, and Marshall Goldsmith (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) Diane Anderson, Brian Underhill, and Robert Silva, “The Agilent APEX Case Study,” in Best Practices in Leadership Development — 2004, edited by Dave Ulrich, Louis Carter, and Marshall Goldsmith (Best Practices Publications, forthcoming 2004) Marshall Goldsmith, Cathy L. Greenberg, Alastair Robertson, and Maya Hu-Chan, Global Leadership: The Next Generation (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2003)

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