Is your organization complaining about the length of your leadership programs? Here’s why…and it’s not what you think.

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If you’re like most leadership, learning, and talent executives, you probably get pushback from your stakeholders on the amount of time your leadership programs take. This is understandable. In the face of overwhelming workloads, meeting mania, and The Great Resignation, people are more time-strapped than ever.?

However, caving in on time can actually be a BIG TRAP. Here’s why:

1. Time is (often) NOT the real problem

As a general rule, people don’t complain about time if they’re getting enough value from their time investment. Therefore, complaints about time on leadership programs are usually symptomatic of a lack of perceived or actual value of those programs. And, if you have a value problem – perceived or otherwise – reducing time is not the proper solution. It can actually make your problems worse. Why? Because…

2. Caving can hurt your credibility

Reducing the amount of time on your programs can hurt your credibility because of the implicit message doing so sends: our programs aren’t valuable enough to justify the time invested in them.?

Instead, what we need to do is to increase both the perceived and actual value of your leadership programs by ensuring they produce three things:

1. Sticky behavior change that’s noticeable, so your stakeholders directly experience the difference your programs make.
2. Significant business impact that’s measurable so you can demonstrate the program’s substantial business value.
3. Stakeholder reports so you can showcase 1 & 2 regularly to remove any doubt about the value your programs are bringing to people and the business.

Conceptually, this is a no-brainer. But, ensuring your programs do so is another matter. In next week’s article, I’ll share a methodology that will enable you to do just that.?

Todd Holzman, founder, and CEO of Holzman Leadership has spent decades working in leadership development and organizational consulting. He has taught world leaders at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, developed doctoral students at Columbia University, trained tens of thousands of leaders globally, and certified hundreds of consultants and trainers in his Real Work Process (RWP).???

Todd's work includes Leadership Coach to IBM's senior executives, Head of Organization Development at Honeywell, Managing Director of Cambridge Leadership Group, and a fellow with McKinsey & Company's Change Center. No matter whom he is working with or the problem he is solving, Todd's driving passion is to develop the difference-makers to be a force for good in the world.??