How Leadership Development Impacts Productivity

Now that we’ve looked at what we’re up against when we can’t find anything in the budget for developing our leaders and we’ve worked through some things we need to consider to make sure any leadership training we do provide is really worth it, let’s start closing the loop by looking at how we can be sure we’re creating a true development process rather than just checking a box by doing a bunch of talking without any doing…

The “How Leadership Development Impacts Productivity” part is really simple to answer! In fact, we looked at that as we started this process… Think back to the Harvard Business Review quote I shared previously stating that “increased commitment can lead to a 57% improvement in discretionary effort… which produces, on average, a 20% (more) individual productivity.” That’s stinking huge! Now add to that what I shared from the SIS International Research study citing that “a business with 100 employees spends an average downtime of 17 hours a week clarifying communications.” If that doesn’t increase a business’s overall productivity, I’d hate to see what other issues they have!

And guess what… earning that additional discretionary effort and minimizing those communication issues tie directly back to leadership development! If you’re still not convinced, I’d challenge you to answer two more questions:

• Who was the one person you’ve worked with that you were willing to run through a wall for?
• And who have you ever worked with that provided you with a crystal-clear picture of why even the most difficult task mattered?

My guess… each of the names you’re thinking of were effective leaders! And if both questions just happened to cause you to think of the same person, that leader was responsible for some really high productivity!

But hold on Wes… What if that person wasn’t my supervisor or manager?

Fair question, but I’m not about to confuse a position or title with defining whether or not someone is an effective leader! As we wrap this up, we’ll look at a few key things we can be sure to put in place to build a leadership development process, rather than just checking the box with some one-off training, and we’re able to capture the return on investment in our overall productivity. Let’s start by looking at what we need to do to make sure none of this is left to chance…

You Can’t Keep It In The Box!

As we started looking at whether or not Leadership Training Is Worth It, I shared the story of the construction crew getting the fancy new tool they had been asking for then leaving it in the box the next time they performed the task the tool should have been used for… I also explained how frustrated the owner of the company was when he saw that - with the key point being when he saw that… One thing that tends to complicate determining the impact of any investment into developing our folks in leadership roles is that seeing how that training is used requires a different perspective. Far too many business owners and executives believe it’s not something we necessarily see - and that’s just not the case! If we really want leadership development to impact productivity, we absolutely have to make sure we’re seeing how any form of training we provide is used.

Before I move on, I need to make sure you don’t miss the importance of the two very different terms I just used… Training and Development are often used interchangeably but they’re as different from one another as Leadership is from Management! Training is generally done within a specific time frame, and usually covers a set criteria. Development is more of a process that goes on indefinitely - unless the person achieves perfection and doesn’t see any reason for continuing to grow…

With those differences in mind, we need to make sure there’s extreme clarity on something to have any hope of the initial training we provide turning into an ongoing development process. If we think back to the construction crew not using their fancy (and expensive) new tool, you’d think actually taking it out of the box and putting it into action would have been a no-brainer - and you’d be wrong! There clearly wasn’t a firm expectation in place for how they’d be accountable for showing a return on the investment the owner had made in that tool. While that may be tough to imagine when we’re talking about an actual tool, that’s exactly what I’ve seen happen hundreds of times when team members go through training on a topic that’s lumped into the soft skill category. The owner or exec hasn’t set clear expectations for the changed behaviors they need to see following the training, and in turn, those new tools also stay in the box!

Don’t get me wrong here, turning leadership training into leadership development isn’t something that will look exactly the same for each of our team members. Quite honestly, it will look different in every individual situation because, well, we’re dealing with individuals! But we still need to be clear about our expectations from the very beginning regarding how any training we invest in needs to be applied and about the results that need to be achieved through the process! Then we need to provide support along the way so there’s at least a chance of turning that training into development…

21 Days to Form a Habit…

Every single time Cindy and I kick off one of our Emerging Leader Development courses, whether it’s tailored and delivered on-site for a specific organization or in a public session with folks from multiple different organizations, we set the expectation that each participant identifies the specific action steps they can implement in their own role right away. I stress that we’re not playing tee-ball so no one will get a trophy (certificate of completion in this case) for just showing up! Much like that fancy tool that the construction crew had but didn’t use, there’s not a single thing we cover in the course that will make a difference if the individual participant refuses to apply it…

Here’s the thing though, it’s not always quite as simple as picking up a new tool. In just about every situation I’ve ever seen, that guy or gal in the leadership role has been doing things a certain way for years! And even when they truly want to take action on something new, it can be incredibly hard. Have you ever heard someone say that it takes 21 days to form (or change) a habit? 

Through all the years I worked in behavior-based safety, I studied habits extensively. In a quick internet search, a habit was defined as “a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.” The same search also mentioned that The American Journal of Psychology defined it as a “more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience.”

How does either of those definitions tie back to the folks we guide through our courses actually putting something they’ve learned into practice? Their existing behaviors, which are likely habits, have been in place for quite some time. While habits can indeed be made or changed in 21 days, that’s only if the new behavior can be sustained without reverting back to the old behavior. If we’re working to implement a new approach but slip back into our old routine ten days in, we haven’t formed a new habit and will likely have to start the entire process over.

The challenging part in turning any leadership training into an actual leadership development process is providing the support necessary for that individual to stick with their new behavior(s) long enough for a habit to be established! Not only do Cindy and I set the expectation from the very beginning that each individual outlines the action steps they can put in place right away, we challenge them to share those with us as well as with their manager so they can have someone to collaborate with and be accountable to. Just as importantly, we want their manager to have an opportunity to provide them with the ongoing support they’ll need to make a lasting change in their leadership behaviors!

In a perfect world, that gets the job done… But we’ve come to realize that not many of us live in a perfect world - so we also created a process we refer to as Strategic Leadership Coaching that we offer to organizations and individual course participants when they don’t have the time or resources internally to support the change; we act as an extension of the manager or business owner to help ensure leadership behavior really are developed, not just trained… And we’ve been able to see the impact on productivity on profitability firsthand as we’ve done that!

With all we’ve covered to this point, I believe you can make a strong case that the resources for leadership development are already in every company’s budget. But there’s one thing that I’ve seen derail organizations with even the best of intentions…

Urgent or Important?

If we really want our investment into leadership development to make a visible difference on productivity over the long haul, there’s a hurdle we cannot afford to stumble over! Even after making sure expectations have been clearly communicated and the necessary support has been provided to initiate real behavioral change, I’ve seen more organizations get tripped up by this one thing that likely all other obstacles combined… What’s that one thing?

Consider this scenario before I spell it out… You’re knee-deep in a task that needs to be done by the end of the day when your phone rings. It’s one of your key team members asking you to help them work through an issue that will only take a few minutes. As a leader, you’re responsible for supporting your team so you stop what you’re doing to give them a hand. You get stopped twice on the way there, then pulled away once more while you’re attempting to help them. By the time you’ve been able to work through the issue that only took a few minutes, an hour and a half is gone. As you go back to your desk to pick up where you left off on your own project (that’s still due to go out by the end of the day), you’re pulled away once more for something that has to have your attention RIGHT NOW… Not a big deal though, only two hours have passed. You still have time - until the next urgent need pops up, then the next. At 4pm when most everyone is shutting down for the day, you’re finally able to close your door and silence the phone so you can make one last push to get your project wrapped up before the deadline. That’s when you realize you have a board meeting at 5pm and a 30 minute drive to get there…

When that project you need to get done is for a customer, or has some other type of traditional payout tied to it, I’d guess that any of us would be likely to push some of those distractions aside throughout the day to make sure it actually gets done. The challenge I’ve seen all too often with leadership development has been where all the busy-ness that comes with those daily distractions tends to stop the new behaviors we’re working to implement dead in their tracks! The urgent derails the important…

If we truly want to capture that productivity and profitability that we’re losing in so many areas of our budget, by simply shifting some investment to developing the leaders on our teams, we’ve got to make sure blocking the time for training is important to everyone involved but we also need to prioritize every step of the development process that follows so habits can be formed and the culture we’re working to create can be sustained! We all have the same amount of time each day. The long term results we achieve will depend on the things we give that time too… Will that be the busy-ness of the urgent or the importance of capturing that lost profitability through an investment in developing your leaders?