Key Features:

1. Clearly articulated Individual Development Plan.

2. Project to Apply the learning.

3. Internal Coaches to support through the Learning Journey.

4. Periodic Measurement to keep track of progress.

5. Continuous Feedback to sustain learning journey.

A mid-size IT organisation was attempting to find the right leadership talent. There were a series of training programs that the organisation had invested in. The content was excellent, and was appreciated by everyone. Translation of learning to action was not up to the mark. As a result, with the organisation poised for growth in terms of customer acquisition, expanding to other cities and adding on to its portfolio of products and services, the leadership bench required to take this up was miniscule. This impacted the existing leaders who ended up playing multiple roles, which in turn stalled the growth plans.

We initiated a dialogue with potential participants, senior leaders, HR and other stakeholders. What emerged was:

1. Scope to apply learning is important. Though the content of the programs attended was excellent, the context to apply the learning was not clear.

2. Support while applying the learning was imperative.

3. What mind sets need to change has to be defined before the start of the program.

4. Measurement of progress in learning and the feedback therein is a critical component to development.

Keeping this in mind, we defined a Leadership Development Journey with the following features:

1. A Journey based Leadership Program spread over 9 months.

2. The program follows the 70 – 20 – 10 methodology.

3. Each of the participants had a well-defined Individual Development Plan signed off by the Leadership Team.

4. Each participant handled a project apart from their day job.

5. A learning journal was maintained by the participant.

6. There were quarterly evaluation, which were used as “gates” to move to the next stage of the journey.

7. 3 Immersive Learning Programs linked to Individual Development Plans.

8. Partner with Internal Coaches (who we prepared in the art of Coaching).

9. Project managed by internal L&D expert.

In the first batch there were 33 registrations. 23 completed the 9 month journey successfully. 16 were promoted by the 7th month itself. Others were promoted as and when positions opened up. Our engagement on this continued up till the 3rd batch, after which the organisation took it up on its own to manage this entire Leadership Development Program. The organisation currently uses this mainly for role transition programs.