The Need to Mirror Reality
-Increasingly organizations are viewing executive development programs as a key lever at their disposal to drive corporate strategy, transformation, innovation and cross silo collaboration. With executive development programs gaining prominence within organizations, the thinking, applied resources and creativity to design and deliver such programs is also going through a paramount change.
This week, the executive development discussion will continue to be examined and debated at the 2015 EFMD Executive Development Conference in Barcelona, Spain. The conference is aimed at bringing together the thinkers, innovators and creators in Executive Development – the companies, business schools, executive development centres and consultancies.
As I look forward to heading to the conference, I did have a chance to scroll through the online conference brochure. What is quite apparent is that transformation be it of people, organizations or businesses has certainly garnished the spotlight at the conference. At least judging from the winners of the Excellence in Practice Awards, all of them are being honoured for one type or another transformation they have embarked on.
At the centre of the executive development journey is the executive participant, who is also in the midst of a transformation journey. Particularly how the participant acquires the knowledge and skills that will benefit equally his/her professional growth as well as drive strategic objectives, of the organization he/she represents.
As someone that has been in the executive development space for a number of years, what is becoming very noticeable is how experiential learning methods have been moving from the periphery to being an integral core of the development journey for participants. The increasingly ambiguous and complex business dynamics that executives have to deal with daily requires development that is difficult to deliver in the classroom. Experiential learning that take participants out of their comfort zones - be it through simulations, action learning or immersive learning experiences - can mirror this complex reality. The learning that takes place can allow participants’ to transform his or her perspective, ready for future challenges.
In terms of personal learning, at the conference I am very keen to hear the stories and case studies that set the benchmark for successful programs in 2015. This is especially so for how CEDEP and L’Oreal partnered to create a program for leaders, which instils the knowledge and conviction to transform their business to attain superior results. I’m also fascinated to hear how HSBC is looking beyond traditional leadership development approaches to prepare future leaders by pushing them to the edge of their comfort zone. The path Cisco has selected for their engineers to lead a transformation from a hardware company to a software solutions leader is also really interesting. All these companies seem to be striving to redefine where and how learning takes place in order to achieve greater impact for the executive participants once they return to their organizations.
To a certain extent, all the attending organizations at the EFMD event are coming to the table with a blank sheet of paper and a freshly sharpened pencil to start making notes on what the future of executive development will look like. I’ve packed my pencil already.
Special Mention
Please take a moment to review Emerging World’s article – Building Leaders Through International Development- in the October, 2015 issue of EFMD’s Global Focus Magazine. Emerging World