Leadership Development Programs

The Brief

A group of VPs were working remotely for >15-months, had lost touch with one another personally, and had fallen out of alignment strategically. The organization was growing rapidly, and conflicts were emerging in cross-functional teams at every intersection. The executives feared the organization was lagging behind its goals, and wanted to equip the VPs to level-up and drive the broader organization more effectively.

HAVEN Approach:

HAVEN started by assessing the needs of the learning community. Through candid discussion with the VP-participants, as well as their constituents (execs and direct reports), we aligned on a series of experiences that would help them make progress on their learning priorities. The program offered a combination of in-person interactions to build rapport with one another, and virtual sessions to accommodate hybrid working cultures. The experiences were offered in bite-sized modules over time that could be fit into the busy schedules of a scaling company, with experiments and peer coaching sprinkled in-between plenary modules. Throughout the program, VPs learned to shift their mindsets and behaviors, and discussed how they can cascade this learning throughout the organization. HAVEN also met with the executives for an accelerated review of the content and tools, so that executives could recognize and reinforce the new mindsets and behaviors trained in the program.

Results:

Participants reported overwhelmingly that the program was a good use of their limited time. They built stronger relationships with their coworkers, learned important skills to interact productively during challenges, and committed to practicing these new mindsets and behaviors. In a follow-up survey with the constituents of the participants, 70% of direct reports reported “significant” improvement in the leadership effectiveness of the participants, while the executives unanimously pointed to more impactful results for the business after the program. They made a commitment to put a new cohort through this program every 6-months, so that more and more of the organization adopted a uniform language-system and set of tools for leading effectively in their culture.

The Brief

A multi-billion dollar software company with a culture of promoting from within realized that their managers lacked experience and had never received formal training. Through a routine employee survey, the HR business partner learned that more than 50% of employees hadn’t received feedback in more than a year, and that 30% of the employees said they were surprised by negative feedback. Furthermore, employees did not feel they were coached or mentored often enough (if at all) and said they didn’t know if advancement opportunities were available to them at the company.

Approach and Results

HAVEN was chosen as a partner because we were able to move quickly to propose a targeted program that could equip the engineering managers and because the facilitation team had extensive experience teaching leaders and managers in technical environments. Our team launched a 4 module mentoring and development program to more than 100 managers within 4 weeks of the initial discussion. The program included workshops, learning labs, and small-group coaching (case groups) in four areas: productive conversations, feedback, coaching, and development.

CONTEXT

Tony never missed a deadline. He was revered for his willingness to walk through and was relied on to get the job done. But the cost of that delivery was high - others in the organization often felt disrespected, demotivated, and burnt out when working with him. Tony's career advancement stalled as his relationships across the organization suffered.

HAVEN APPROACH

Tony and his coach started by examining what makes him so effective on delivery. Why was he able to succeed where others couldn’t? And which of those attributes could be recalibrated to achieve better relationship results without compromising on the critical task results? The coach collected 360 feedback to understand his current impact, others' perceptions and requested actions. From there, Tony used his coach as a thought partner to identify specific behaviors that might achieve better relationship results. Tony and his coach explored what needed to shift in Tony’s mindset to enable these shifts in behavior, and then designed experiments for him to run and iterate on. Over time, Tony become more comfortable with this new pattern, to the point where it started to feel like his natural default.

RESULTS

In Tony’s follow-up 360, respondents consistently reported improvement in their ability to work with Tony, indeed some even reporting that it’s become enjoyable. They started to request him on their collaborations because it didn’t also come with major drawbacks for them. Tony was promoted 6-months later, and continues to check in with his constituents on a bi-annual basis to ensure he’s balancing both task and relationship results regularly.

CONTEXT

Jane recently joined a company as CEO knowing it needed to evolve and the importance of committing to a strategy. Her inherited executive team, however, interpreted her steadfastness as inflexible and invalidating. This difference was being noticed by the Board and employees alike. Jane sought out coaching to help her engage and align with others in her strategic vision.

HAVEN APPROACH

Coaching started by encouraging Jane to empathize with the experience of her executive team. Through inquiry and observation, Jane began to appreciate how her intentions to save the company from the chaos of an ever-changing strategy were not matching her impact on the team that was now feeling diminished and annoyed. She and her coach explored ways to keep the organization focused while also involving and enrolling her colleagues where appropriate. Jane learned to clarify when the organization was in “brainstorming mode” and when decisions were finalized and the company was in “execution mode.” This clarity helped her executive team understand when it was helpful to provide input and debate, and when it was necessary to commit to implementation.

RESULTS

In follow-up discussions, the executive team reported feeling more included in the strategic debate, and also appreciated the clarity of knowing when the debate was over and it was time to commit. Because the executive team gained alignment, the broader employee-base gained clarity and confidence in the organization’s approach, which allowed the Board to back away from the day-to-day and operate at a higher-level. All the while, Jane gained versatility in her leadership style that will help her face the challenges of the future.