A Model for Executive Development

Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D.
President, The Edelstein Group
Consulting Director for Executive Programs
University of California, San Diego

David J. Armstrong Jr., Ph.D.
Consultant to Management
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Executive Summary
New organizational structures and cultures are placing a premium on new management behaviors and skills. Management behavior that has worked in the past is viewed as out of sync with the workplace and, in many cases, leads to the demise of the heretofore successful executive.

Corporations invest in a variety of programs to help executives remain in step with the changes around them. Disappointed with past results, companies are demanding accountability and asking: What are we getting for our money? What difference does the program make to the company and in the work-life of the executive?

“Training” is differentiated from “development” and the special requirements of development are articulated. A model which develops executives and helps them modify management behavior is described.

Finally, the results of a study of over 56 executives and managers who participated in a process utilizing this model between 1987 and 1992 are presented.

A Model for Executive Development
©1994, Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D. & David J. Armstrong Jr., Ph.D.

Background
Many millions of dollars are spent each year by corporations in an effort to modify executive/management behavior and to develop “people skills,” such as two-way communication, influencing others, motivating others, working effectively with others in teams, focusing on results decisively, and developing and supporting subordinates.

Typically, corporations spend their money in an effort to effectively deal with three types of situations:

1. When executives or managers are faltering on the job, usually because of how they are going about doing their job as opposed to not knowing what they are doing. (Example: The technically brilliant Director of Engineering who alienates people because of his perfectionistic, dictatorial, control oriented approach to working with other professionals).
2. When executives or managers have been promoted up the organization and do not intuitively grasp how they need to do their jobs differently. (Example: The highly competent, focused and aggressive manager who is promoted to an officer level position and is unaware of the need to broaden his/her perspective by taking a company-wide officer's view of what is going on and the need to develop rather than compete with those around and below him/her in the organization).
3. When executives or managers are not able to make changes in style necessary to keep up with the changes dictated by new corporate structures, re-engineering, or evolving cultures and norms that directly impact executive and management behavior. (Example: An executive who has achieved considerable success with a command/control style and micro-management style of managing is not sure how to deal with empowerment, and consequently feels overwhelmed by an increased span of control).

However, at best, the hopes of these companies are only partially fulfilled. More often, they are left thinking that the training company promised more than was delivered. This is because modifying executive and management behavior is difficult. What makes executive and management development so difficult is that it entails modifying long held patterns of behavior which are currently maintained by corporate culture, incentive systems, and the executiveís and managerís own psychological style.

A Prototypical Problem:
An example would be a 48 year old business executive who receives feedback that he is a micro-manager and very controlling. Feedback tells him he does not delegate well or sufficiently. He, of course, does not view himself this way. In fact, he prides himself on his carefulness, followup and attention to detail. Whenever he hears feedback concerning his delegation ability, or lack thereof, he turns it around. He thinks the complaining subordinate is insecure, fears exposure and consequently does not want his work reviewed. Furthermore, what makes an accurate assessment of this situation difficult is that inevitably there are kernels of truth in the executive's perception, allowing him to hold this view rather than examine his own behavior.

The Prototypical Solution:
The executive's boss, tired of hearing feedback from people two levels down that the executive still manages in a command-control style, searches for a training program which will address this issue. Serendipitously, a brochure crosses his desk describing a 2-day course on Effective Delegation in the Age of Empowerment and Flattened Hierarchies.

After some arm twisting he convinces the executive to go, but only because it is in Santa Fe, New Mexico in January. The executive is very busy, is already away from home on business enough, and does not see what the course has in it for him. However, he goes! He goes and has a good time. He meets several people whose company he enjoys and has several pleasant dinners. The trainer is of high caliber and the material is very professional. The conceptual models about delegation are clear and make a lot of sense.

In fact, as the trainer is reviewing the material, the executive finds himself not only agreeing wholeheartedly with what is being presented, but honestly thinking he already acts in this way. He finds himself thinking about who else in the company would benefit from this information, including his boss, and makes a list of who else to pass the information on to. Discerning little relevance for himself he does not see how to apply it to his own situation. To himself he thinks: Doesn't he get good results? Doesn't he always make his numbers? He believes he gives plenty of freedom to those few subordinates who deserve it - who have the same perfectionistic standards as he. Certainly they don't really want me to change an approach that has been working!

The executive returns with a lot of ideas and is able to pick out the poor delegators around him. To them he passes on information and ideas. His customers (his subordinates) are amazed at how much he seems to know, but how little he seems to be able to make use of the information with regard to his own behavior.

Why the Training Program Did Not Yield the Desired Result
Training and Development Needs
While often the terms “training” and “development” are used interchangeably, they are substantively different and can be best characterized as opposite ends of a continuum. What is the difference? On the one end of the continuum is “pure training” which focuses primarily on adding skills that increase an executiveís proficiency on a specific task (learning to use a new E-Mail system, or learning to implement a new accounting system). “Pure development” engages the executive in a process which modifies core parts of the executive and his/her behavior.

If training and development needs are different from one another, then it makes sense that programs designed to deal with these needs must take these differences into account. However, this has been difficult to do since, as pictured in Exhibit 1, training and development needs co-exist and it is not easy to determine where one ends and the other picks up. Therefore it is not clear when a training need becomes a development need requiring a development program. Consequently, in a “shotgun” approach many training programs incorporate aspects of development as do development programs (including the one described here) incorporate aspects of training. Absent a clear understanding, the failure to distinguish between training and development needs has resulted in solutions being applied to the wrong problem.

The training field has never defined a suitable model for executive development as far as modifying an executiveís core behavior is concerned. On one extreme are the now infamous T-groups, which encouraged an emotional catharsis, but did not demonstrate integration of newly learned behaviors nor transference of learning to the workplace. On another extreme is conceptual learning imparted by a group/classroom approach, in the hope that if executives are taught concepts they will understand the implications for their own behavior and apply these concepts at work. What has been missing is a method of learning that combines the best parts of both approaches (an appreciation for the role emotion and conceptual learning plays in modifying behavior) and provides the executive fresh and accurate self-knowledge. Just as importantly, the learning must not stop there, but continue through the experimentation, practice and involvement with colleagues that is necessary to actually change the executiveís management behavior.

Of course, at each point of the continuum, elements of training and development come into play. For example, as in the case just presented, learning and practicing principles and techniques of effective delegation is an important training activity. However, helping the executive accurately assess his current behavior is a development activity which includes both helping the executive to realize there is something he needs to learn how to do better, and then helping him become adept at changing the behavior. The key is to accurately determine the type of behavior in need of change and then design a program that is responsive to it.

Exhibit 1: The Training - Development Continuum

Another aspect of the same issue is what often passes for management and executive training and development is really assessment - the identification and description of an executive's strengths and weaknesses. The search for new grids and instruments by which to describe an executive's behavioral tendencies seems to know no end. Even the now ubiquitous 360( feedback programs are designed to provide a view of the executiveís current impact. What they all have in common is that they help executives identify where they are but do not help them get to where they want and need to be. In effect, instead of assessment just being a point of departure, it has become the destination for many of the programs that represent themselves as developing executives and managers.

A Model Which Responds to the Demands of Development
Clinical psychology and the business world have had an almost allergic reaction to one another. Armed with arcane terminology and a focus on the past, clinical psychologists are perceived as out of touch and their knowledge and skills of limited value to those dealing with the harsh realities of the business world. However, the business of clinical psychology is behavior change and people development; the field is a repository of knowledge with which the task of executive development may be seriously addressed. Due to the antipathy between the two worlds, it has not been evident how to bring this knowledge to bear, nor how to adapt the one to one, multi-session model to the workplace. Lastly, oftentimes, clinical psychologists have been limited by their own paradigms, which encourage the view that problems are caused by intrapsychic (internal) conflicts and consequently miss the important role that organizational systems, procedures and culture play in shaping organizational behavior.

Exhibit 2: The Training - Development Continuum: The Implications that What Is Being Worked On Has On How It Is Delivered

Factors Which Need to Be Accounted For In Any Serious Attempt to Develop Executives and Modify Their Behavior
Executives and managers don't know what they must do in order to grow, develop and remain responsive to the work world around them. First, like people in general, executives strive to maintain psychological homeostasis. They tend to do what has worked in the past and stick with old habits. Second, they screen in and screen out information which is contrary to or reinforces their view of the themselves and the work world around them. Information or feedback that contradicts their self-concept is considered suspect and discounted. Third, whatever feedback does get through is subject to the executiveís complex psychological processes such as rationalization, minimization, intellectualization and projection. These psychological processes take the punch out of the feedback and distort the message. The net result is that the executive is not affected by the feedback and senses no reason to change.

Fourth, it is an organizational truism that as executives move higher up in an organization, the more out of touch they can become because they receive less straight forward feedback. Typically, those around them edit their comments about the impact of their behavior, telling them what they think the executive wants to hear (in the case of subordinates) or what they think the person can tolerate (in the case of peers and superiors).

Subordinates spend countless hours laboring over how to tell their boss bad news; how to frame the feedback so he/she does not come unglued. Of course, feedback that relates directly to the superior's behavior and style is considered off-limits and something only a fool would offer up. The fear: the superior's response would be one of denial, hurt feelings and/or retaliation. In many cases, giving feedback to the boss is judged to be not worth the risk. Cut off from feedback, the superior is unable to accurately gauge his/her impact. Over time, executives grow less effective.

These factors are exacerbated by the fact that reward and incentive systems frequently work at cross purposes with what executives know needs to be done. For instance, while a company verbalizes the desirability of cooperation amongst the workforce, particularly across functional areas, it may continue to reward executives for individual achievement and how well their functional area does in comparison to others. In effect, the company talks cooperation and walks competition.

Also, it is rare that companies truly reward executives for experimenting with their management styles. High level executives are expected to already be at the top of their game and are not given bonuses for “fooling around” with their executive technique. Risk-taking with interpersonal styles is not incented.

Finally, attempts at modifying behavior are frustrated by an organizational structure and procedures that also seem to be working at cross purposes with how the company ostensibly wishes to operate. For example, the company may want decisions to be made quickly, especially when customers are involved, yet require several levels of approval prior to a decision being made. Or, the company places value in culture surveys, which emphasize subordinate ratings, yet remains driven by fiscal numbers and unrealistic performance expectations that force executives to ride subordinates.

In short, executives and managers may be hamstrung in their attempts to modify behavior due to factors relating to themselves, their position, and the organizational structure and culture in which they operate.

A Multidimensional Learning and Development Process for Executives
For the past eight years, the authors have implemented a process that helps managers and executives identify counter-productive behavior and broadens their managerial behavioral repertoire. This enables executives to be more responsive (versus reactive) to the demands of the workplace. Recently, we completed a study of over 100 executives and managers who completed this process at one of our client companies, the results of which are reported herein.

While the agendas of our corporate clients have varied (employing the process for development; to help executives and managers adjust to changing structures and cultures; or to "fix" an executive or manager) the process has remained relatively the same.

This process represents a departure from how executive and management development has been designed and structured heretofore. It also represents a blending of knowledge and models from the fields of clinical psychology and organizational behavior. The process is effective because it began with a recognition of the nature of the behavior in need of modification and an appreciation of exactly what is required to do so.

This program utilizes a multidimensional learning technology that addresses the realities of how executives actually learn and develop. This technology consists of an integration of several different activities into a single, focused method. This integration of learning tools has been most effective in helping executives develop and modify the management behavior.

More than 600 executives and managers have completed the program. The businesses include manufacturing, health care, computers and electronics, government and utilities firms. Our corporate clients have used this integrated technology, with only minor modifications, to address the different needs described earlier.

The Key Components of the Multidimensional Technology
One to One Private Coaching
This program utilizes a one-to-one coaching approach. The executive meets with a consultant (an organizational psychologist) in a private and confidential setting. The client corporation does not receive any reports or assessment of the executive - - the feedback and insights that the executive develops in the process are confidential. We encourage the executives to share their learning and to involve peers in the learning process, but each participant makes his or her own choices about what to share, with whom. This method puts the control (and responsibility) in the participating executive's hands.

Feedback Based
The learning is motivated and focused through the lens of feedback gathered by the executive at several points in the process. This feedback process produces an unusually powerful impact on the executive because of several unique approaches:

• Narrative Feedback - Confidential feedback is solicited by the participant using open-ended questions that convey perceptions of the executive's strengths and weaknesses. The responses are read out loud by the consultant, allowing the participant to almost literally hear the voices of coworkers. Unlike numerical averages on conceptual scales, narrative feedback has a very personal, immediate impact on the executive.
  
  
• Pre, Post & Follow-up Surveys - The executive canvasses his or her pool of respondents before the process, at the end of the six-month intensive phase, and again, a year later to monitor progress and identify back-sliding into old habits.
  
  
• Direct Feedback From 20 to 25 Coworkers - The executive asks for feedback from at least 20 coworkers. The executive recruits respondents starting with those people who work with him or her on a daily basis (teammates, secretaries, colleagues) and circling out to include subordinates, peers and superiors, both direct and indirect. Depending on the executive's role and the company's culture, executives also include suppliers, vendors, distributors and customers.
  
  The confidential and anonymous feedback questionnaire is returned directly to the consultant. We have found that the feedback offered in this method is consistently blunt and direct, much more so than is typical in face-to-face feedback that the executive may have received. Because the comments are specific and direct, not merely scores on a scale, and because they come from so many people, executives have often described this aspect of the method as “highly impactful and overwhelming” feedback.
  
  
• Identifying the Patterns in What People Say - Working with their consultant, the executive analyzes the feedback to clarify how the assessments of these different people agree. With so many sources of feedback the trends in an executive's style often stand out distinctly, with 10 or 15 people saying essentially the same things. It is easy to separate the noise from the signal. This approach forces the executive to look at himself rather than blaming the messenger. When one or two people tell the executive that he is overly cautious, the executive can rationalize this by saying it reflects their problems, rather than his own. But when twelve people, including some close peers or superiors, comment together on the executive's remarkable caution, most executives sit back and take it to heart.

How Reflexive Behaviors Hinders the Executive
Unlike teaching the skills needed to drive a car or use a spreadsheet, teaching the skills of managerial and interpersonal effectiveness involves participants who are not clean slates - - they have already accumulated a highly complex system of behavioral reflexes. They have also accumulated a self-image and mental model of management and relationships. Usually these factors go unnoticed. The executive interacts with coworkers using reflexes. The executive may be somewhat aware of particular aspects of their management behavior (“My superiors have often commented that I do not ask for help enough.”). On the other hand, the executive often does not care about the feedback that may be offered (“Of course the customer service reps complain about me, I make more work for them”!). The multidimensional model makes executives aware of the business impacts of their style.

• Invisible Made Visible, Motivating Change - The overwhelming narrative feedback, distilled into clear trends, carries an unavoidable legitimacy and impact. Behaviors that may have been noticed by the executive only in passing if at all suddenly stand in stark relief.
  
  One executive, for instance, viewed himself as forceful and decisive, particularly good at directing his team. While the feedback from coworkers confirmed that he gives clear direction, it also pointed to the down-side of his style: “He jumps down your throat.” “He doesn't listen to opposing viewpoints.” “He interrupts and finishes your sentences - usually with what he wants to hear.” “We don't tell him things anymore because we know he won't listen.” “We go around him with new ideas because he won't agree unless it's his.” “He's closed minded.” “We don't include him as much because he is a barrier.” “Doesn't listen to facts he doesn't want to hear.”
  
  Originally this executive expressed doubt that he was very interested in this learning process. “Honestly, I don't think it produces much of a difference. I already know how people view me and that's their problem.” In the light of the above feedback (and much, much more) he was shocked and reflective. This executive's resistance to change was addressed by the voices of all the people he asked for feedback from. One after the other, as the same message came through, he began to see his behavior and its impacts with a new awareness. The consultant did not have to fight the executive and try to persuade him to want to change - - it was his choice. In our experience, even the most hard-boiled executives discover a new motivation when, in a private, confidential environment, they are confronted with the overwhelming feedback they have asked for.
  
  
• Insight Into Interpersonal Style and Its History - In addition to the feedback, we have also integrated several insight-oriented practices from current management “development” methods. One is the use of an interpersonal style test such as the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, the Personal Profile System or the Wilson Social Styles Inventory. These instruments, common in management training, usefully characterize the differences between people's behavior in value-neutral terms. An executive may learn that he is more “sensing” than “intuitive,” or that she has more of an “influence” style than a “dominance” style, all of which are equally valuable in different circumstances. Those inventories give the executive a conceptual model to organize his/her thinking.
  
  In addition, we also explore with executives where their style comes from historically, both from a family of origin or work history perspective. Sometimes people go back to defining crises, such as losing one's parents, the illness of a sibling, or an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional parent. Other times, the executive turns to the example of a particular teacher or job or manager.
  
  One executive described how he still missed the incredible harmony of teamwork on the nuclear submarine on which he had served, a harmony not easily replicated on the floor of a manufacturing plant. This insight into his personal history helped this executive make the distinction between his automatic behavioral response and responsive behaviors. He could see that his reflex was to view the conflicts on the shop floor as the expression of crude and primitive coworkers, thus avoiding them and their aggressive tactics. This automatic response was not responsive to the demands of the situation. What was appropriate in the sub was unproductive in the plant. His group was looking for him to take more assertive action in resolving the conflicts that he had allowed to go on simmering and unaddressed.
  
  A vice president and head of customer service described how competitive she was with her own siblings. Typically, they found themselves competing for their parentsí attention and approval. When she heard the feedback from her contemporary work peers that she was overly competitive and engaged in endless one-ups-manship, she had a context within which to place the remarks. This historical perspective is critical. It helps executives take ownership of the feedback. It enables them to distinguish between those behaviors which may have aided them in the past in getting needs met, from those behaviors which are now the cause of their problems. These responses are now being applied in a different setting.

Long Term Practice of Action Plans at Work
Insight alone is not sufficient to change an executive's behavior. If you have ever taken lessons in a sport or skill such as using software, you know that practice using the skill in real situations over a long time period is necessary if the learning is going to endure and make much of a difference.

One of the authors recently relived this practical reality in learning how to row on a local river. Having used rowing machines in the gym, he assumed he would quickly be expert on the water. It was a rude awakening when he discovered that rowing with seven other people in a narrow shell on cold water using twelve foot oars was a qualitatively different experience than rowing on the gym's machines. Throughout a long summer he was reminded again and again by coaches and crewmates that his habit of sinking his oar at the wrong angle was not helpful to the group's goals. Unaware that he had even had this propensity, he found the mere awareness of this aspect of his rowing style was insufficient to change it. It took practice and feedback to change the reflex.

• Twelve Consultations over One-and-a-Half Years - In order to give the executive this opportunity for real practice, we have stretched the learning process out into a long-term series of consultations. The executive meets with the consultant every other week for nine sessions, following a structured agenda of activities that move from feedback through insight to goal setting and practice of the new behaviors at work. The consultations then taper off, slowing to every two months, then six months. At a minimum, the process provides twelve consultations and three feedback surveys over a time period of one-and-a-half years.
• Behavioral Action Goals - The executive focuses on three to five specific aspects of his or her interpersonal behavior and crafts goals that describe the behavior she or he wants to use instead. The consultant guides the executive in defining modest, achievable action plans aimed at concrete situations. We have found that even small changes, if consistently maintained, can produce enormous changes in an executive's interpersonal effectiveness.
• Practice Action Plans In Session and at Work - The executive scans the coming work weeks and plans how he or she is going to act differently in specific situations, with particular people. Since much of the effectiveness depends on subtle differences in voice tone or expression, we encourage executives to practice their approaches right there in the session. We may even role play the other person and videotape the exchange for immediate replay. Practicing voice tone and choice of words before confronting the vice president can make the difference between success and awkward misunderstanding.

One-to-One Process That Involves The Group
As we have observed above, the ability of an executive to change his or her style often involves coworkers around him or her. You cannot just pick up the pace of the rowing if the stroke sweep and the other rowers don't pick up the pace at the same time. If you do, you throw off the rhythm of the whole boat and get poked in the back by the next person's oar. Paradoxically, we have found that a one-to-one consultation method should also include the executive's coworkers.

• Involvement in Giving Feedback - The executive involves twenty or so coworkers right off the bat by asking for their feedback on the confidential questionnaires. This automatically enlists them in the executive's attempts to change.
  
  
• Negotiations with Key Anchor Colleagues - Sometimes the executive finds that his or her range of motion is anchored to the floor by the actions of another key coworker. It may be that the CEO's penchant for calling Vice Presidents at home at midnight to ask for minute details on projects makes it very hard for these same VPs to relinquish control of the details when they delegate to their staffs.
  
  A co-owner who tried to be less bullying of his employees backed off of his habit of inspecting the work of his two other co-owner's employees. Unfortunately, the two other co-owners did not accommodate his change, failing to take over closer supervision of their own teams. As a consequence, incomplete work started flying out the door, much to the vocal dismay of the customers. This co-owner had to negotiate his change with that of his two partners.
  
  Whether the key anchor person is a superior, teammate or subordinate, the executive is coached to define specific and modest changes they need from the other person in order to accommodate their changes. In explaining these requests to the co-workers, the executive draws the coworkers more deeply into their change program.
  
  
• Peer Coaches - A question eventually faced in any learning method is what do you do when it's over to sustain the changes made? We have designed Peer Coach Contracts that executives use to recruit two or three trusted co-workers to be peer coaches long beyond the end of the program. Participants have found it useful to recruit people who they respect and trust to give them feedback on their specific change goals on the spot, or in frequent informal conversations. This is a form of guided mentoring where the executive recruits the coach and focuses the co-worker on specific issues: “These are the four things I gathered from the feedback that I am trying to do differently. I want you to tell me if I come across as assertive enough next week in the budget reviews. Also, let's have lunch once a month and you can pass along your sense of how I am being seen in this new position.”
  
  
• Goals Shared On Follow-up Questionnaires - The executives are encouraged to attach their goals to the followup feedback questionnaires that they give out to their twenty co-workers six months and one-and-a-half years into the process. While the process is totally private and confidential, we have had some executives who were trapped by the self-fulfilling expectations of co-workers around them. The co-workers had worked with the executive for so long that they were convinced the executive would never change - - which made it unlikely the executive would be able to change, or have the changes recognized.
  
  In attaching a copy of their change goals to the follow-up survey, the executives are asking for feedback both to change themselves and to change their coworkers. Half of changing is getting people to notice and changing their expectations. Sharing the executive's goals is a form of public relations that advertises the changes the executiveis undertaking. This counteracts the inertia of the co-workers' old expectations that blind them from seeing real changes made by the executive. Sharing the goals is a covert way of the executive asking his or her coworkers' permission to change their impression of the executive.

Findings from an Evaluation of This Process
We conducted an evaluation of 56 executives and managers who had participated with us in this development program between 1987 and 1992 at the Matmanu Corporation. (See Footnote 1). This program was developed by the first author and the study was led by the second author, a purveyor of the program.

The Matmanu Corporation is a developer and manufacturer of specialty materials used in the electronics, high tech, automotive and related industries. At the time of the study, the company had 2,000 employees, 10 divisions and $200 million in annual sales. Corporate headquarters, including a large R&D department, and several manufacturing divisions are located in an eastern state of the U.S. Other manufacturing divisions are located in western states, Mexico and Europe.

The Matmanu Corporation uses this program as a learning opportunity for all executives and promising managers. Top executives participated first to lend support for the learning process. The 56 program participants who responded to the evaluation (out of 95 surveyed) represent a sample from the top management of Matmanu, including the President and Vice Presidents, Department Directors, Division Managers and others. Survey respondents are mostly men between the ages of 30 and 59 who work in engineering or R&D, manufacturing, sales and marketing, finance, administration and human resources.

The survey was sponsored by the human resources department. The questions on the survey asked respondents about 3 general issues:

• Does this process produce valuable behavior change?
• What kinds of changes are typically produced by this process?
• What activities in this process contribute the most to learning and change?

Learning Process Produces Valuable Changes
Program participants rated the process as having been “very valuable” (3.95 on a scale of 1 to 5). They believed they made "consistent change" in their actions at work as a result of their participation (rating their own change as 4.07 on a scale of 1 to 5).

Managers at Matmanu frequently observe that some people seem to derive greater benefit than others, showing more significant or enduring change. We asked participants to estimate the percentage of all participants who demonstrated change, ranging from “Significant” to “None.” Overall, they estimated that 67.5% of all participants demonstrated from at least “Occasional” to “Significant” changes.

Executives and managers were also asked to compare the value of their learning from the program to that from other forums of learning. Respondents compared the value of this program to that of the mentoring and coaching that they received from managers within Matmanu. They also compared it to their learning in related seminars. Executives and managers rated the value of this multi-dimensional learning process as “very valuable,” and more valuable, on average, than the learning from internal coaching or from external workshops and seminars.

Learning Process Makes Leaders More Aware of Their Impact On Others, Promoting Teamwork
While participants developed their own goals and pursued an individual agenda of adjustments in their leadership style, participants described a similar range of changes typically produced by this program in themselves and in other participants they worked with. The kinds of changes typically produced by this learning process included the following:

• Greater awareness of impacts on others, improved interpersonal skills
• More team oriented, cooperative
• Less defensive, more open to criticism
• Improved listening to other's ideas, better communication
• More coaching and respect for subordinates, less commanding
• More assertive, less intimidating
• More results oriented

It is striking that a chief benefit of a learning program for individuals is improved teamwork. This is not surprising given the role of coworker feedback in this learning method. Participants describe the benefits to the organization of their individual changes as including improved teamwork, cooperation and coordination, with better decision making from a more open exchange of information. They describe their subordinates as being more involved, developed and satisfied as a result of changes made in their leadership. Overall, participants report an increased recognition of the importance of working relationships for effective leadership.

Hearing Direct Narrative Feedback Contributes the Most to Learning
Participants were asked to rate the relative contribution to their changes made by the different activities in this learning process. Listening to the direct narrative feedback of twenty of their coworkers for the first time was rated by the managers as contributing the most to their learning. Participants are noticeably affected by the first feedback sessions. They will often joke with each other back at work about who is coming in for a feedback meeting for the first time. Later survey feedback, such as the second survey conducted at the end of the ten sessions, was also very important and carried the second greatest impact.

Goal setting and insights from the interpersonal style profile test (the DISC Personal Profile System in this case) were tied for third ranking in their relative contributions to change. The life and career history was rated fifth in impact and the videotaping and replaying of role-plays was rated lowest in contributing to change.

It is important to note that the above rankings were averages. Individual participants vary widely in the activities they personally find most useful. While the life/career history, for instance, was rated fifth overall, almost a third of the participants rated it highly as a major contributor to their change. Some managers develop insights that help them to place later feedback in a useful context. Similarly, the interpersonal style profile, along with the life history, tends to provide a more abstract and conceptual background for the later, specific points made in the feedback. Participants with more abstract styles get more out of these activities. Overall, the diversity of activities that different managers find useful supports the use of a multi-activity learning process that combines feedback, insight, goal setting and repeated practice.

Participants also reported that they found meeting every two weeks to be optimal: they have enough time to practice their goals without forgetting the key learnings.

Many found the six month program with a second followup survey a year later to be useful and, if anything, suggested that followup sessions be held sooner and more often, spanning up to two years.

Discussion: What was missing from the executiveís experience presented earlier in the case example?
The creation of cognitive dissonance: - While at some level the executive must have realized he had some problems with delegation (since his boss asked him to go to this class), he never really bought into the fact that he had a major problem in this area. For the most part he laid the issue off as his subordinate's problem and rationalized away the rest by thinking he was not nearly as bad at delegating as his boss.

Consequence - there was no acceptance of the feedback data, hence no readiness to learn.

The creation of internal motivation: - The executive never bought into the fact that delegating more would improve his performance and make him a better executive in general. He also never discovered a connection between how controlling he is at work and feedback he has been hearing from his spouse and children for the past 15 years. Instead, he focused on his results and how well he had done up until the present. His attitude: why mess with a good thing?

Consequence - without a deep connection to and identification with “what is in it for me?” there was a lack of motivation to make change. In addition, there was the mistaken idea that what has contributed to his success in the past will ensure success in the future. This was a mistake because it is a mis-assessment of the environment that originally supported his delegation behavior, but will no longer tolerate it.

An environment where the executive could step back and open up without being punished or adversely effected: While the executive enjoyed the company of his seminar classmates, he assessed that few of them were of his experience and stature. Therefore, they could not understand the scope of his job and the nature of his responsibilities. Overall, he believed he had a higher level of training and professionalism than the other workshop attendees.

Therefore, he decided early on that he would not open up and discuss some of the real frustrations he was experiencing working for a boss who he perceived as more controlling than himself. In fact, he often felt in a double-bind, because while there was a desire for him to delegate more, his boss still expected him to have even the smallest details at his fingertips. However, he evaluated the environment as not conducive to raising these very real issues.

Consequence - No real learning could take place since the executive could not open up and discuss what was really on his mind and openly explore the real and imagined resistances to change.

The opportunity to practice what has been learned and obtain additional feedback and guidance while still enrolled in the development program: Even while the executive did pick up some good ideas, he was not afforded an opportunity to turn these ideas into new and experimental behavior.

Consequence - This reduces the likelihood the behavior changes will stick and be integrated in the executive's management behavior repertoire.

The opportunity to gain additional feedback whether behavior changes are having the desired impact: Once the training program ended there was no followup or additional feedback.

Consequence - The executive was unable to determine whether he was performing in a more desirable manner. Whether he had modified his behavior enough or maybe even over-corrected it. He would have been left wondering what, if anything, he was doing better (if he had even believed that he needed to do anything better in the first place). Without additional feedback he would have been unable to fine tune or further modify his behavior.

Why This Process Seems to Work
It works because, by design, it addresses those factors which are the essential elements of people development and applies these to the challenge of executive and management development. These factors are:

1. For executives to be able to change their behavior, they must be aware of how they currently perform. They must have an accurate view of their own behavior and its impact.
2. For executives to be motivated to change their behavior, they must be exposed to information and/or feedback that says their behavior is not having the desired impact. It must create cognitive dissonance. The dissonance must be of sufficient intensity that it disrupts their current way of viewing themselves and the external world, leaving them open to considering other ways of thinking, feeling and acting.
3. For executives to be willing to change their behavior, they must believe something important is at stake and that if they keep doing what it is they have done in the past, important goals will not be realized.
4. They must be provided a setting in which they can step back and look at themselves and the feedback in an open, direct manner. They must feel safe in making themselves vulnerable and not worry about experiencing negative consequences should they lower their guard to take the risks necessary for learning.
5. They need assistance in gaining an objective view to the feedback and in developing a plan of action that is constructive and responsive to the feedback.
6. They must be provided an opportunity to put the action plan into practice and receive feedback concerning this new "experimental" behavior.
7. This practice must be spread over a significant period of time so that the executive or manager may gain confidence with the new behavior and begin to integrate it into her or his managerial repertoire.
8. There must be an opportunity to obtain continued feedback so that the results of their efforts may be maintained and refined.
9. The executiveís colleagues must be recruited as supportive of the changes. The organizationís rewards and policies must also at least permit, if not directly support, the desired changes.

   Summary
   If modifying executive behavior is anything, it is difficult. What makes it so difficult is that it is multi-determined and multi-maintained. An executive's personal and work history and the current culture, structure and incentive systems all have varying beta weights in a multi-factor equation that determines how executives act at any one point in time.

   While this program does not take all these factors into account, it represents a serious attempt to address the complexity of the issue - the interplay and interdependence of the intrapsychic world of the executive; the “system” he/she forms with the company; and the power of the culture in shaping executive behavior.

   One problem is that this news is not viewed by many as good news. Executives are often looking for quick solutions to big and complex problems. They do not like to hear that problems do not have a quick solution and that executives may be capable of developing and modifying behavior but that changing who they are is not likely. While patience is a virtue, it is in short supply in corporate America.

   In addition, our approach to executive development does not lend itself to large classroom seminar type learning and, since it is requires a multi-session approach with each executive, it also does not lend itself to a two or three-day workshop format (often taking place at a resort) that U.S. corporations are so fond of. Instead, the company and the participant must be willing to work through the problem on their home soil.

   Never has the need for executive development been greater. Corporate cultures are in a state of almost constant change. CEOs warn that the change process will never stop. Once current goals are met, the process of defining new goals will begin. By definition, executives must continue to develop or they will fall behind We believe this model will help them keep pace.

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   FOOTNOTES
   1. Data from this study is available upon request from Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D. 4275 Executive Square, Suite 800, La Jolla, CA 92037

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   Contact:
   Bertram C. Edelstein, Ph.D.
   4275 Executive Square, Suite 800
   La Jolla, CA 92037
   phone: (858) 546-2821
   fax: (858) 546-1695
   email: tegconsult@aol.com

   
   
   

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