The Number 1 Mistake CEO’s Make With Leadership Training

American companies are victims of the great training robbery. They spend $160 billion dollars on employee training and education every year and they waste $138 billion dollars of it on ineffective training that hijacks critical work time, isn’t retained or effectively applied. The current “leadership development field” is bogged down with expensive, outdated solutions for the realities of today’s workplaces. 

LEADERSHIP TRAINING IS A WASTE OF TIME & MONEY

Traditional leadership training options require a significant time investment, and when you’re a CEO, that time just doesn’t exist. When a CEO does dedicate budget to leadership training, 70-85% of it is wasted because only 30% of those being trained even try to apply the concepts in the workplace and only half of the people who do apply the concepts will stick with a new concept if it doesn’t show immediate results. 

In his book Telling Training’s Story, Dr. Robert Brinkerhoff confirms that learners don’t remember training. Just a few weeks (or in some cases a few days) after the information firehose of multi-day live training – trainees forgot 90 percent of the information. Seriously. A 10 percent retention rate. Training ends up being a bit of a superficial short-term solution that doesn’t move the needle for your organization.

This is immensely frustrating for everyone involved. The leader who invested in the training is frustrated because they aren’t seeing an ROI. The leaders who got invested in are frustrated because they aren’t able to apply the information to boost their team’s performance. And the people who make up the teams are frustrated because they aren’t being led well. All of these hurt the performance, environment, and profitability of the organization.

HOWEVER, MANAGERS DO NEED LEADERSHIP TRAINING

Managers in your organization want to be good leaders but aren’t trained. They’re experts at the technical side of their trade (scientists, engineers, accountants), are great at what they do, and so they rose through the ranks. Without the right leadership training, companies can’t retain top talent and engage their people to bring all their commitment, creativity, passion, and ownership.

Leadership training is the best way to grow managers into leaders despite most offerings being rife with challenges. 

The need is as great as ever for your managers to learn the leadership practices, habits, and mindset, have the learning stick, eliminate “silos” and create cross-functional alignment because they are all talking and practicing the same leadership approach. Their teams must trust them more and be more confident in their ability to lead to boost retention and drive becoming an employer of choice – which all improve productivity.

The question isn’t what they need, it’s how do they most effectively get it.

THE SOLUTION? THE 5 CS METHOD

The 5C Method is a surprisingly simple leadership training and coaching system that makes people and results the whole point of leadership training. It develops all managers into leaders and improves the morale, profitability, and health of the company in the process. Instead of the typical, off-site, one-shot-deal, the approach is sustainable and manageable – empowering leaders to engage their teams, retain the best talent, and increase productivity. The method works to create a true leadership culture and gives leaders the tools they need to innovate, take risks, and set stretch goals in a way they’ve never been able to before. Here’s how:

THE FIRST C IS COMMITMENT

Often, investments in developing leaders is an outsourced function to a vendor and without a lot of thought about how this investment directly ties to what the business/organization wants to achieve. But in order for leadership development to work, it requires a commitment. Your commitment of energy, time, focus, and engagement with your team is essential.  

In the 5C Method, the senior leadership team determines the specific business goals and intended outcomes in upgrading the leadership capacity. Every element of the program is in direct support of these objectives. A champion needs is identified and the sponsoring leaders participate alongside the learning cohort. This is a huge component of Commitment.

THE SECOND C IS CURRICULUM

Curriculum might seem like an obvious element of any development effort, but it’s not how most leadership development works. Traditional leadership training is usually a single event that blasts the learner with an information fire hose, and then you’re left on your own, trying to figure out how to implement what you’ve learned. It also requires the learner to be away from their work for an extended time which is often isn’t realistic. The training itself often feels disconnected from the business and has the feeling of being “nice to have”.

In the 5C Method, our team develops a six to twelve-month curriculum that is custom-designed to support your organization’s stated business goals and intended outcomes. The learning is self-paced. The busy leader has the flexibility to do that at her/his own time. It requires about 30 minutes a week.

THE 3RD C IS COACHING

Coaching support is essential for a learning experience to result in sustained change. The problem is, coaching is almost never coupled with training. Most coaching is an elite offering that is reserved for a small group of hand-selected individuals who are deemed worthy of coaching. 

In the 5C Method, we’ve scaled the coaching via our technology platform so every leader has access to a leadership coach. This avoids the divide created in the office by having the “chosen one” (or chosen ones) you decided to get coaching and the leaders who weren’t worthy of getting coaching.

THE 4TH C IS COMMUNITY

Learning happens best when experienced together. Most leadership training and coaching is done individually or with a small group. The lone learner then comes back to the office (overwhelmed by the work that piled up) and because there was no community around the learning, old habits quickly return. 

In the 5C Method, we work with you to create cohorts of leaders, typically 6 – 12 people per cohort where the group learns together, receives coaching together, and interacts with one another on a regular/intentional basis.

THE 5TH C IS CONSISTENCY

The consistent habit of applying the learning is what creates massive movement over time. It keeps leadership at the front of your mind and maintains your edge. The curriculum supports consistency as it is made up of weekly micro-learning and action plans that can be completed in a few minutes. 

The 5 Cs process makes people- and results-focused leadership training doable for a very modest time investment. It’s efficient, immediately applicable to the organization, and scalable to all their leaders, not just a select few. This process not only creates leaders and staff that enjoy working together more, but senior leadership is free from micromanagement, and confident and calm knowing the right things are getting done at the right time. They’re free from fires and have the time and capacity to drive the mission and vision of the organization. 

If you want us to explore this leadership development structure for your organization, click here to contact us.