A leadership development solution and habit change with PotentiaLife

This blog post is part of a series where I share my insights and predictions on selected innovative Human Capital related technology solutions (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/human-capital-technology-insights-series-personal-zsolt-szelecki?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_shares%3BtOuw1SYJTRKHQBzxA90u3w%3D%3D&licu=urn%3Ali%3Acontrol%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_recent_activity_details_shares-article_description ). The views and opinions expressed in the blog are of my own.

(1)  short factual introductions of the solution and the firm

Founded in April 2011 by Tal Ben-Shahar,  PhD in Organisational Behavior at Harvard University and Angus Ridgway, a Former Director at McKinsey & Company, ? Leadership Development lead for 1500-strong global Partner group. As founders profiles suggest, the firm combines solid scientific foundations with the pragmatism and result-orientation required by business organisations. PoentiaLife provides a leadership development platform, a user application Strengths, Health, Absorption, Relationships and Purpose (SHARP).

None of these factors would surprise leadership practitioners or researchers. Perhaps the most vital voice today is that of "purpose lead organisations" and "purpose-driven leaders". Relationship management is a critical component of influencing leadership styles or "servent leaders" instead of bossing. Absorption might need more explanation: in my view, that is rooted in the concept of mindfulness, an ability to focus on critical issues in a VUCA world. But I see also its link to the "reskilling" agenda. An emerging leader needs to display second to none re-learning and un-learning capabilities, a different way to absorb new attitudes, skills and practices. To me, Absorption is a differentiating, new factor. Health, physical and mental, is increasingly considered as an essential component of resilience, even more so in the post-pandemic world. Last, the need to build on personal Strengths rather than eliminate relative weaknesses is again a well-known, strong concept of positive psychology.

(2) my own, obviously subjective, perception of the uniqueness of the value proposition (USP)

I described, in brief, the factors of the PotentiaLife model, and my conclusion is that all those are well researched and future proof concepts on any modern leadership development approach. Besides the "Absorption" new aspects, I see the critical innovation in linking them all into a model that looks at multiple dimensions and how these factors potentially support each other. Similarly to cutting edge leadership teams, having the right components are essential but no longer good enough. Focusing on the way they are interconnected, mutually supportive brings the real breakthrough.

The feature that took me most of its relentless focus on individual behavioural change, sustainable habit creation. To me, it is a bit like a shift from mass medication to personal medicine concept. The approach smartly engages the individual to commit to a few change factors that she/he thinks most relevant and impactful. If it is not your organisation prescribing or even gently asking you to change. Then it uses peer-group power to help you stick with your commitments. And commitments are bite-sized, not large conceptual change undertakings. Like I would commit myself to include in my teams "creative jerks" to maintain a higher level of disruption by design. Or pay more attention to introverted colleagues in virtual meetings, making sure they are encouraged to share views. So it needs to be personal, specific and transparent to others.

But individual changes, even if executed well, need to be aligned to get optimal organisation-wide impact. Here comes the Scalability in play. The platform allows communities to reach a critical mass of change practitioners, potentially creating a social movement that may drive organisation-wide changes. Transparency is key to such effect – all participants need to agree on making their commitments, successes and challenges visible for others to learn and, more importantly, to get inspiration and stick with their efforts.

Finally, organisations investing in the program need to keep track of their investment. Real-time metrics built-in, which make progress visible, often compare participating organisation units with those out of the program as control groups. See a simple, aggregated progress report below.

 (3)  client value received based on their feedback

Few captured client comments reflect on the features I highlighted above.

Like this on on the Scalability: "These are turbulent times for retail. Change is pervasive; we face considerable competition from new entrants. Oldstyle leadership from the top is no longer enough. The only way we will win is by unleashing our people's collective and creative power at all levels. Achieving the scale and depth of change required will only be realised with Potentialife."

Or take this quote on the power of habit creation: "Small and well-practised changes became new habits. Accumulating multiple new habits over nine months transformed me as a leader."

But some others offer new perspectives on the way it created client value:

This quote is from an FTSE100 CEO, and it reflects on the value of PotentiaLife as an integrator: "A common language, based on the science of performance, has been created". Large organisations inevitably have several historic, parallel running leadership initiatives. A platform that can integrate them all without forcing a one-size-fits-all approach is of great value.

The other less expected value stream comes from linking the program to other systems and policies. The following quote highlights a solid link to succession planning. The point I love about this is that they see their top talent dynamically. Not who you are today, but rather what you are capable of becoming, brilliant stuff: "Potentialife has become a key component of how we develop our top talent – it's integral to our succession planning. Various participants have reported experiencing major performance uplifts due to this program and have seen real shifts in old patterns and behaviours. Over 40% of participants have been promoted since doing the program – that's way higher than we'd expect."

At last, here is a quote putting the spotlight on participant engagement, the way to keep them motivated. "The support – the weekly emails, phone calls, reminders or buddy sessions with colleagues… made all the difference."

(4)  The challenges we are likely to face when implementing.

Beyond the concept and technology, delivery experience is a critical piece, as the last client comment rightfully spotted. So, let us take a look at a typical delivery scheme and discuss the make or breakpoints.

The program is set to run in 30 weeks with 30 weekly modules. Those are divided into three implementation phases: The first ten weeks is on experimentation, the second on focused behaviour change, third is sustainability, making changes stick. All weekly modules are supported consistently with four tools: live peer-group sessions of small cohorts, personalised diagnostics, pushed participants, change enhancing content in bite-size chunks ( videos, exercises, assignments) and a personal progress tracking tool called "playbooks". All this is illustrated in the chart below:

Let us see what are the mission-critical points in delivery, based on hands-on delivery experience:

First, such a leadership program never sits in a vacuum – in fact, in most cases comes amidst a certain degree of "leadership development fatigue", where a participant is somewhat sceptical – at least initially – and put the question "why now, why me?". Perhaps Covid gives us a suitable case for change: very few leaders would question the need for new leadership behaviours as part of the company's strategy for winning post-pandemic. The virtual element is evident, but the visible need for more psychological safety and need for belonging puts new challenges to leaders, present and future. Therefore more than ever before, Senior commitment and role modelling are essential.

The second group of likely challenges are related to program management. A unified program architecture that integrates different types of leadership requirements (e.g. self, others, team, business) makes all the difference. That manifests itself in harmonising frameworks, language and metrics. This is not by chance that many senior clients see this integration as key added value – see the client quote section. Here is a difficult trade-off often involved – to keep the program efficient and scaleable, one is tempted to stick to standard modules and content. Still, then the alignment with other programs or systems is limited. Finding the golden mid-way is something much needed but could not be automated. This requires not only a good sense of compromise, but at this point, executive team support could be inevitable for balanced outcomes.

The last implementation challenge I would single out is a need for pro-active management of the program participants' engagement (by both Potentialife and client). Even though the model builds on personal buy-in and linking development objectives with individual styles and preferences, this is no guarantee for an unbroken stream of energy. In fact, the more relevant and life-changing the goals are, the more likely that one meets unforeseen difficulties on the way. Just think of mountaineering: if you are not challenged during a trek, this is a likely sign that you did not stretch yourself to select your target. So, do anticipate a slight ebb in your change energies and develop strategies for recharging batteries. One natural source is your official cohort, but one might think broader, using your network to fuel growth drive.

(5) My point of view about where this solution might develop in the future. ( my bets only, speculative)

This section shares my subjective, somewhat speculative views; this approach might develop shortly. All my insights are based on some observations I have made above.

First, we might leave money on the table in data usage terms. I think Predictive features. It could be added for good. I can think of two sets of data: one hand, your own historic leadership related data – training, tests, assignments, coaching observations to be pre-fed to the system, so it starts profiling participants. The other source is the system that stored historical data from other participants with similar roles, ambitions or leadership styles. These both could help speed up the progress of coming up with relevant, personalised learning objectives. I do no see this as a "we know what you need, brother…" approach, but rather as a smart AI challenger of your self-development ideas. In AI-empowered dialogue, it would be more transparent for the participant to see what development focus option they might have and possibly play with the "what if?" type of scenario planning. Just imagine that you could optimise your leadership development goals as a function of your ambitions, career plans and organisational needs emerging.

The second feature is already happening, but I see ways to go, father. This is the role of social support a participant gets via communities. Today, this occurs primarily via leading cohorts. But their cohorts are often pre-defined and are not linked to your learning objectives. With multiple learning objectives, the chances are that different development direction could be supported best by different groups. Merging know network science methods and the SHARP approach, I can see specific community suggestions based on diversity of profiles and similarity of learning intentions. If you see the chart below, already today, there is a balance between individual development boosters (white boxes) and those of social support ( grey shaded ones). I would argue the latter tool become more sophisticated, data-driven and personalised as we go on.

The last prediction is leveraging all great insight on an organisational level. With strengths and development preferences clear and transparent, changes captured real-time. Why not use all those insights to create jobs and organisational structures that host the best person displaying them. In the shorter-term, this could translate into New flexible-working arrangements and alterations are helping individuals make changes, e.g. the ability to find a quiet space in which to focus or fit in exercise to a working. But in the longer run, Human Capital or Organization Design professional could design leadership jobs or create leadership team structures that build on the data based leadership qualities. This sounds like an organisation built around the leaders, just the same way as we try to develop organisations and processes around customers and their experience.  

(6) What I have learned from all this? My biggest takeaway.

I am amazed to see the power of full ownership. Once you do not see leadership development as something to do with, or even for the leaders, provide them frameworks, tools and data and let them take better ownership of their development. And the potential to use these new energies that allow leaders to use their potential in a highly personalised way, building habits they see essential in an emerging post-pandemic world.