Last Friday 37 colleagues and clients joined me for our First Annual Signature Organizational Development Roundtable where we discussed some of the major challenges organizations are currently facing. It was my hope that participants would experience:
- A deepened sense of community with Strategic Partners clients, colleagues, partners and staff
- A forum for sharing best practices related to: Managing Organizational Change, Developing and Retaining a Diverse Workforce, and Developing Leaders
- An introduction to best-in-class resources, latest tools and Strategic Partners as the go-to integrator of consulting, coaching and training solutions
- The opportunity to provide input to Strategic Partners for the 2012 client initiatives
What follows are the highlights of group discussions related to challenges and best practices in the area of Developing Leaders. Next week I will share the highlights from the Developing and Retaining a Diverse Workforce and Managing Organizational Change conversations.
Leadership Development
Challenges:
Defining Leadership
- How do we get people to think about leadership as a way of life and not just a job?
- Leadership and management are not exclusive, how do you compel employees to be a leader regardless of their title?
Difficulty with resistance to change
- How do we promote people into leadership?
- How do you motivate people to become leaders?
- How do you keep leaders from viewing coaching as a penalty?
Bridging the gap between elder senior managers and the social media millennials
- How do you fight resentment from the senior leaders who are being managed by younger colleagues?
- How do you encourage each generation to participate in peer groups that span across generations?
Best Practices:
- Conference with 6 months of follow-up to cultivate reflection
- Daily reminders of lessons learned
- Cohort groups that contain multi-generational elements
- Mentoring matching with 360° evaluations
- Putting mentors into peer groups as a place for the mentors to grow as well
- Knowledge management: engages leaders to share what they know
- Co-mentoring: the junior partner captures what the senior has to offer and teaches them how to teach that (on a blog or social media…)
The top three most valuable lessons from the Roundtable sessions that attendees shared with us:
- “I am not crazy or alone.” Networking, sharing ideas and similar challenges was encouraging.
- Specific mentoring ideas and solutions
- Best practices around organizational change
All in all, this event was a great success and I am grateful to all those who were able to attend. I look forward to next year!
Ken
P.S. Don’t forget to check in next week for the highlights from the Developing and Retaining a Diverse Workforce and Managing Organizational Change sessions.
