Experience-Driven Leader Development E-Book

Cynthia D. McCauley

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: J-B CCL (Center for Creative Leadership)
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 950

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This book is written for human resource, organization development, and training professionals who need real-world best practices that show who actual workplace learning approaches work and how they can be applied. Co-published with the acclaimed Center for Creative Leadership, this important book offers a compendium of best practices, tools, techniques, processes, and other resource resources to harness the developmental power of work experiences for leadership development. In addition the book includes illustrative case studies of leadership approached that have worked in such forward thinking organizations as Boeing, Microsoft, and Heineken.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise for Experience-Driven Leader Development

About This Book

Why Is This Topic Important?

What Can You Achieve with This Book?

How Is This Book Organized?

Title page

Copyright page

List of Exhibits, Figures, and Tables

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Research Catalyst

Sharing the Practice

Section 1: Developmental Experiences: More Intentional for More People

Section Introduction

Equipping Employees to Pursue Developmental Experiences

1: Intensity and Stretch: The Drivers of On-the-Job Development

The FrameBreaking Leadership Development Process

Additional Applications of the FrameBreaking Model

2: A Leadership Experience Framework

The Leadership Experience Framework

Experiences Across Organizational Levels

Conclusion

3: Identifying Development-in-Place Opportunities

4: Leadership Maps: Identifying Developmental Experiences in Any Organization

Interviewing Senior Executives

Conducting Leadership Workshops

Mapping the Linkage

Building the Toolkit

Lessons Learned

5: Building Organization-Specific Knowledge About Key Developmental Experiences

Creating the Model of Key Developmental Experiences

Information Contained in the Book

Converting the Book to Podcasts

How the Book and Podcasts Are Being Used

Lessons Learned

6: Expression of Interest: Making Sought-After Roles Visible

The Approach

Benefits and Challenges

7: Designing Part-Time Cross-Functional Experiences

Lessons Learned

8: Creating Project Marketplaces

Leveraging Existing Experiences for Learning

9: Leveraging the Developmental Power of Core Organizational Work

Context

The Practice

Accelerating Leader Development

Applying This Approach to Your Organization

10: Learning Transferable Skills Through Event Planning

11: Pinpointing: Matching Job Assignments to Employees

Pinpointing Steps

Making Pinpointing an Engaging and Valuable Experience for Senior Leaders

Follow Up

12: Learning from Personal Life Experiences

A Reflective Exercise

Connecting to On-the-Job Development

Creating New Developmental Experience

13: Strategic Corporate Assignments to Develop Emerging Market Leaders

The Approach

Impact

Lessons Learned

14: Full-Time Strategic Projects for High Potentials

The Process

A Highly Selective Process

Benefits and Return on Investment

Continued Experimentation

Keys to Success

15: A Personalized Rotation Program to Develop Future Leaders

Context

Program Design

Integrated with the Business

Initial Insights

16: Corporate Volunteerism as an Avenue for Leadership Development

Identifying and Selecting Partners

Conclusion

17: Developing Socially Responsible Global Leaders Through Service Projects

Program Design

Benefits

Advice for Others

18: Stretch Assignments to Develop First-Time Supervisors

Stretch Assignments

19: Executive Shadowing

Lessons Learned

20: Leadership Fitness Challenge: Daily Exercise of the Leadership Muscle

Lessons Learned

21: Using a Video-Case-Based Collaborative Approach in Leader Development

Conclusion

22: Cross-Company Consortiums: Tackling Business Challenges and Developing Leaders Together

Cross-Company Consortium Objectives and Benefits

What to Consider When Starting a Consortium

The Future of Self-Managed Cross-Company Consortiums

Section 2: Leaders: Better Equipped to Learn from Experience

Section Introduction

Organizing Frameworks

23: Mindful Engagement: Learning to Learn from Experience

Approach

Action

Reflection

Concluding Thoughts

24: PARR: A Learning Model for Managers

The PARR Model

Implementing PARR at Kelly Services

Potential Risks, Roadblocks, and Unintended Consequences

Why PARR?

25: GPS•R: A Tool for Assessing Learning Readiness

The GPS•R Profile

GPS•R Interview

Lessons Learned

Learning Strategies and Tactics

26: Asking Questions to Foster Learning from Experience

Phase 1: Before the Experience

Phase 2: During the Experience

Phase 3: After the Experience

The Tool Development Process

Application of the Tool

27: Using the Classroom to Create a Learning Orientation

The Idea

The Approach

Preparation

The Experience

Lessons Learned

Conclusion

28: Establishing a Learning Mindset

29: Tactics for Learning from Experience

Background

30: Narrating Emotions to Enhance Learning

The Who and What of Managing Emotions

Self-Narration

An Example of Self-Narration

Final Insights

31: Proactive Feedback Seeking: The Power of Seeing Yourself as Others See You

The Problem of Feedback Flow in Organizations

The Value of Feedback Seeking

Why Don't Leaders Seek More Feedback More Often?

Promoting the Seeking of Feedback Among Leaders

Tools to Promote the Seeking of Feedback

32: Feedback: Who, When, and How to Ask

Who to Ask

When to Ask

How to Ask

Some Final Observations

33: Micro-Feedback: A Tool for Real-Time Learning

Keys to Success

Reflection and Retention

34: Leadership Journeys: Intentional Reflection Experiences

Initial Impact

Three Key Factors

Applying These Principles to Your Organization

Questions We're Still Trying to Answer

35: After-Event Reviews: How to Structure Reflection Conversations

AERs: A Four-Step Process of Structured Reflection

Instructions for Conducting an AER

36: Scaffolding Reflection: What, So What, Now What?

“What? So What? Now What?” Model

Action Learning Case Story

Individual Coaching Case Story

Final Words

37: Life Journeys: Developing for the Future by Looking at the Past

Phase One: Introduction, Preparation, and Getting Started (45 to 60 Minutes)

Phase Two: Sharing (45 to 60 Minutes)

38: Strategies for Facilitating Learning from Experience

Strategy 1: Transactional Facilitation

Strategy 2: Socratic Facilitation

Strategy 3: Dialogic Facilitation

Key Differences Among Facilitation Strategies

39: Teachable Point of View: Learning to Lead by Teaching Others

Elements of the Leadership Teachable Point of View

Developing the Leadership Teachable Point of View

Delivering the Leadership Teachable Point of View

Challenges in Implementing the LTPOV Process

40: Implementation Intention: A Refinement to Leadership Development Goal Setting

Implementation Intentions

Leadership Development Implementation Intentions

Implementation Intentions Research

Conclusion

41: Twelve Questions for More Strategic Work and Learning

Learning Communities and Support

42: Building a Board of Learning Advisors

Activity 1: Designing a Developmental Network

Activity 2: Creating a Board of Advisors

Lessons Learned

43: Building a Learning Community Through Reflection and Experimentation

Designing RLIx: Building a Foundation for Reflection

Identifying the Participants and Groups

Implementing RLIx

Lessons Learned

Building Your Own RLIx

44: Using Communities of Practice to Cultivate Leaders of Integrity

Cultivating Leaders of Integrity Through Communities of Practice

45: CompanyCommand: A Peer-to-Peer Learning Forum

If They Build It, They Will Come

Create a Core Team

Forum Core Purpose = Practitioner Effectiveness

Practice the Three Cs of Forum Facilitation: Connection, Conversations, and Content

Focus on Continuously Developing the Three Architectures

Identity Is the Pathway to Vibrant Participation

Blend Virtual and Face to Face

Establish a Rhythm

46: Virtual Roundtables: Using Technology to Build Learning Communities

How the Process Works

Three Phases of the Virtual Roundtable Conversation

Successes

Lessons Learned

Section 3: Human Resource Systems: Designed for Experience-Driven Development

Section Introduction

47: Integrated Talent Management and Experience-Based Development

Where to Start

Talent Management at the Grameen Foundation

Lessons Learned

Final Thoughts

Acknowledgments

Selection and On-Boarding

48: Identifying and Assessing for Learning Ability

Assessing Leaders' Learning Ability

Lessons Learned

49: On-the-Job Development That Starts on Day One

Partnering to Craft a Development Plan

Post-Experience Learning Transfer

50: New Leader Assimilation

51: Virtual On-Boarding

Managers as Developers

52: Leaders Coaching Leaders: Cascading Leadership Development Through the Organization

Underlying Concepts

From “Captains to Coaches” in the Tata Group

Institutionalizing Coaching at National Grid

Conclusion

53: An Exercise for Managers: Developing Talent Through Assignments

Steps in Using the Case

A Final Note

54: Performance and Development Through Conversation

Practical Solution 1: Talk About the Conversation Gap

Practical Solution 2: Provide a Simple Structure for a Conversation

Bringing It All Together

Performance Management

55: Performance Management and Leadership Development: Paradox or Potential?

The Natural Tension

The Impact of Tension on Processes

Managing Polarities

Development and Performance: Creating a Both/And Culture

56: Performance Management Catalysts for Experience-Driven Development

Performance Management Systems That Drive Development

Lessons Learned

Training, Development, and Beyond

57: Training and Experience-Driven Development

58: Bringing the Real World into the Classroom

Four Steps to Experiential Activity Design

Leadership Experiences in the Classroom

Conclusion

59: Cultivating Learning Agility: Lessons from the Microfinance Sector

The Need

The Approach

Tools

Lessons Learned

60: HoTspots (HubsOfTraining): A Blended Group Learning Solution to Extend Traditional Training

61: Building Experience into Simulations

Leadership Development

Key Design Principles

The Evolution of Our Thinking

62: Mentoring: Building Leaders in Powerful Developmental Relationships

The Problem with Just Hoping It Will Happen

How to Craft and Implement a Mentoring Program

Building a Structured Mentoring Program

What If Our Resources Are Insufficient to Build a Structured Mentoring Program?

Final Thoughts

Action Learning

63: Business-Driven Action Learning

Crafting the Business Challenge

Identifying Personal Challenges

Some Things That Could Go Wrong

BDAL Success Factors and Lessons Learned

64: Action Learning with Community-Based Nonprofits

Our Approach

Lessons Learned

Summary

65: Better Together: Building Learning Coalitions Across Organizations

Developing the Consortium

Design Considerations

Action Learning

What the Participants Learned

What the Developers Learned

66: Communities of Practice: Building and Sustaining Global Learning Communities

Origins

Structure and Operating Guidelines

Content and Format

Post–Global Forum Community Collaboration and Cooperation

Succession Management

67: Succession Planning: Developing General Managers Through Experience

Create Taxonomy of Critical Experiences

Develop a Talent Review Template

Lessons Learned

68: Building Breadth and Depth Through Experience

Building Breadth

Building Depth

69: Profiles for Success: Building a Framework for Internal Transitions

70: Hot Jobs-Hot People: Sharing Leadership Talent Across Organizations

How It Works

Emphasizing Some Tips

71: Multicultural Women in the Pipeline: Finding Hidden Treasure

Causes for the Pipeline Void

The Hidden Jewels: Multicultural Women

Creating a More Inclusive Pipeline

Section 4: The Organization: Enabler of Experience-Driven Development

Section Introduction

Frameworks for Assessing Organizations

72: Organizational Climate for Development

73: Creating the “and” Organization: Seeing Leadership Development as a Key Strategic Issue

Three Vital Components

Assess Your Organization

Designing Tools for Widespread Use

74: Leading from Where You Are

Strategic

Systemic

Simple

Sneeze-Able

Sustainable

Final Thoughts

75: My Needs, Their Needs: Designing High-Value Development Tools

Who Owns My Information?

Where and How Am I Learning?

How Much Is Too Much?

From Questions to Strategies

Business Implications

Individual Implications

Lessons Learned

76: Built to Last: Sustainable On-the-Job Development Interventions for the Entire Organization

Organizational Characteristics

Intervention Characteristics

Leader Characteristics

Final Thoughts

Influencing Organizational Leaders

77: Building Support for Experience-Based Development

One Leader at a Time: The Chance Encounter

Succession Planning as an EBD Opportunity

78: The Power of Stories in Leadership Development

The Power of Stories and Quotes

How to Use Stories and Quotes

79: Assessing Learning's Impact on Careers

Internal Labor Markets

Case Example: Learning in an ILM Framework

Conclusion

80: Teaching Senior Leaders the Dynamics of Derailment

The Dynamics of Derailment

Getting the Attention of Senior Leaders

Solutions to Specific Obstacles

81: Strengthening Executive Mobility

The Benefits and Current Use of Mobility

Barriers to Mobility

Options for Increasing Mobility

Conclusion

82: Talent Ecosystems: Building Talent Through Strategic Partnerships

Conclusion

Contributing Authors

About the Center for Creative Leadership

Index

Praise for Experience-Driven Leader Development

“There is a wealth of experience presented in this volume that is both cutting edge and grounded in leader development research and theory. It is highly recommended reading for anyone interested in state-of-the-science leader development.”

David Day, Ph.D., Woodside Chair of Leadership and Management, The University of Western Australia Business School

“CCL pioneered research on experience-based leadership development, and now this book showcases a wealth of tried-and-true practices that transform research into reality. Leadership developers can access and adapt tested advice, models, organizational practices, and tools to their unique circumstances. Finally—some ready-to-use answers to how informal experience-based learning can be developed, designed, and supported in ways that boost performance for leaders and their organizations!”

Victoria J. Marsick, Ph.D., Department of Organization & Leadership, Columbia University, Teachers College

“Experience-Driven Leader Development is a comprehensive resource rich in examples, models and practical advice. This is a must read for anyone interested in developing leaders to achieve personal or organizational goals.”

Marcia J. Avedon, Ph.D., senior vice president, Human Resources and Communications Ingersoll Rand, Board of Governors., Center for Creative Leadership

About This Book

Why Is This Topic Important?

Learning from experience is the number one way that leaders develop. If you are reading this book, you probably already know this. It's evident in the research you follow. It's plain from your own observations and experiences in organizations. Despite the overwhelming evidence, however, experience-driven leader development receives considerably less attention and organizational resources compared to formal education, training, and coaching. Thus, there are untapped opportunities to optimize the value of experience for leader development.

What Can You Achieve with This Book?

For the greatest impact, you want to harness the power of experience for leadership development. The way to do this doesn't lie in a formula or a step-by-step process. Rather, you can find different ways to answer that challenge using the array of tools, techniques, interventions, initiatives, and models collected in this volume. These are not simply ideas that ought to work. They come from practitioners like you, people who are enhancing experience-driven development in organizations and communities, in many different ways and with a wide variety of audiences. Whatever your approach, you can find in this book the tools and practices that will help you develop the best possible talent in organizations while having a positive and powerful effect on people's lives.

How Is This Book Organized?

The book is organized into four sections, each targeting a critical element of experience-driven development.

In the first section, Developmental Experiences: More Intentional for More People, you will find ways to help more people access leadership experiences to target their particular development needs.

Section 2, Leaders: Better Equipped to Learn from Experience, addresses the fact that an experience does not guarantee learning. In these pages you will see how you can enhance leaders' ability to learn from their experiences so that they extract the maximum developmental value.

Section 3, Human Resource Systems: Designed for Experience-Driven Development, looks at the formal systems and processes for managing talent that many organizations have put into place. The contributions in this section describe how to build experience-driven development into those processes.

Section 4, The Organization: Enabler of Experience-Driven Development, takes on the shared values, the behaviors, and beliefs of employees, and processes and routines found in organizations. Rather than allowing those attributes to get in the way, you can use the knowledge in this section to influence an organization in ways that enable rather than inhibit experience-driven learning.

We have tagged each contribution based on whether it shares a tool (a specific activity or technique), an organizational practice (a formal process or initiative), a model (a conceptual framework that guides thinking and action), or advice (an overview of a topic with insights based on expertise or research).

Cover design: JPuda

Cover images: (model) © browndogstudios/istock; (wrench) © scottdunlap/istock; (checklist) © scottdunlap/istock; (info) © runeer/istock

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List of Exhibits, Figures, and Tables

Exhibit 1.1. Defining Intensity—THRIVE

Exhibit 1.2. Defining Stretch—REACH

Figure 1.1. The FrameBreaking Model

Exhibit 1.3. Evaluating Your Development Experience

Exhibit 2.1. Categories of Leadership Experience

Exhibit 3.1. The Leadership Challenges

Table 3.1. Examples of Three Development-in-Place Strategies

Exhibit 4.1. Senior Executive Interview Guide

Exhibit 4.2. Example of a Leadership Map

Exhibit 4.3. Examples of Definitions

Exhibit 4.4. Leadership Workshop Outline

Exhibit 4.5. Example of Coding Leadership Experiences

Figure 4.1. Key Experiences and the Lessons They Develop

Exhibit 4.6. What Is Your Learning Potential?

Exhibit 4.7. What Is Your Job Stretch?

Figure 5.1. Key Developmental Experiences

Figure 6.1. Sample Associate Profile

Figure 7.1. Process Step Summary Page

Exhibit 7.1. Investigative Summary

Exhibit 7.2. Action Plan Script

Figure 9.1. High Leverage Work Elements

Exhibit 9.1. Sample Integration Team Assignment Application

Exhibit 9.2. Sample After-Action Review Pre-Work

Exhibit 10.1. Focus of Planning Team Meetings

Figure 11.1. Job Learning Stages and Recommended Development Approach

Exhibit 11.1. Employee Assessment

Figure 11.2. Example of Sticky Notes for Pinpointing Exercise

Exhibit 12.1. Matching Experiences to Skills Development

Exhibit 13.1. Example of an Immersion Opportunity Profile

Exhibit 13.2. Benefits of Participation in SHIP

Exhibit 14.1. Examples of SAP Fellowships

Table 14.1. Fellows' Post-Fellowship Careers

Figure 15.1. Capability Matrix

Figure 16.1. Selecting a Target That Meets the Firm's Learning Goals

Exhibit 18.1. Possible Stretch Assignments

Exhibit 18.2. Stretch Assignment Project Forms

Exhibit 18.3. Evaluation from Manager

Exhibit 19.1. Checklist for Launching an Executive Shadowing Program

Exhibit 19.2. Sample Questions for Participants to Ask Executives

Exhibit 20.1. Sample Fitness Challenge Activities

Figure 21.1. Online Leader Challenge

Figure 23.1. A Model of Mindful Engagement

Figure 24.1. PARR Learning Model

Exhibit 25.1. The GPS•R Profile

Figure 26.1. The 3x3 Tool

Figure 28.1. Anatomy of a Learning Experience

Figure 28.2. Avoiding a Learning Experience

Exhibit 29.1. What Are Your Preferred Learning Tactics?

Table 29.1. Illustration of Tactics Overused

Exhibit 29.2. Strategies for Expanding Your Learning Tactics

Table 30.1. Emotional Landscape

Figure 30.1. Self-Narration Process

Exhibit 30.1. Self-Narration Template

Exhibit 31.1. Feedback Seeking Checklist

Exhibit 32.1. Evaluating Feedback

Table 33.1. Benefits and Challenges of Micro-Feedback

Exhibit 33.1. Sample Questions

Table 34.1. Participant Feelings Before and After the Leadership Journey Program

Exhibit 35.1. Form A: Reflecting on the Experience

Exhibit 35.2. Form B: Documenting the Critical Reflection Process

Exhibit 37.1. Participant Instructions for the Life Journey Activity

Table 38.1. Synthesis of Levels of Facilitation

Exhibit 39.1. Leadership Journey Line Exercise

Figure 39.1. Dynamic Organization Model

Exhibit 39.2. Values Exercise

Exhibit 40.1. Examples of General Goals, Behaviors, and If-Then Intentions

Table 41.1. Strategies 12 Questions

Table 42.1. Developmental Network Roles

Figure 42.1. Developmental Network Worksheet

Exhibit 42.1. Your Board of Advisors

Table 43.1. Sample Reflection Activities

Figure 43.1. RLIx Program Activities

Figure 43.2. RLIx Program Structure

Exhibit 44.1. Nancy's Ethical Challenges: Prompting Change Through a CoP

Exhibit 45.1. Who Are Company Commanders?

Figure 45.1.CompanyCommand Professional Forum

Figure 45.2. Targeting the Learning Curve

Exhibit 46.1. Sample Facilitator Script

Figure 46.1. Roundtable Diagram

Figure 47.1. Model for Talent Development

Table 47.1. People Development Strategy-Building Capability

Table 48.1. A Sample of Learning Ability Assessments

Exhibit 49.1. Development Plan Framework

Exhibit 49.2. Example of Experiences Generated to Support a Competency

Figure 50.1. New Leader Assimilation Process

Exhibit 50.1. Sample Letter to Participants

Exhibit 50.2. Tips for Facilitators

Exhibit 50.3. Optional Questions

Exhibit 51.1. New Hire Checklist

Exhibit 51.2. On-Boarding Manager Checklist

Figure 52.1. The C2C Workshop Framework

Exhibit 52.1. How Ready Are You to Coach?

Exhibit 52.2. How Leader-Coaches Can Reflect in Action

Table 53.1. Skills and Perspectives Developed from Various Job Challenges

Exhibit 53.1. Which Assignment for Christine?

Exhibit 54.1. What's Your Conversation Gap?

Figure 54.1. Linking Career Conversations to the GROW Model

Table 54.1. Conversation Model as Part of a Cascaded Manager Briefing

Table 54.2. Career Conversation Planner

Exhibit 54.2. Hints and Tips for Engaging Conversations

Figure 55.1. Performance Management and Employee Development

Table 55.1. Should 360 Feedback Be Used for Performance or Development?

Table 55.2. Should Succession Management Focus on Performance or Development?

Exhibit 55.1. Performance and Development: Creating a Both/And Culture

Exhibit 56.1. Developmental Activities Form That Points People Toward On-the-Job Development

Exhibit 56.2. Developmental Activities

Exhibit 56.3. A Development Plan Self-Assessment

Exhibit 56.4. Performance Management Audit

Figure 57.1. A Continuum of Training and On-the-Job Development

Figure 57.2. Training That Promotes More Learning Outside the Classroom Than Happens Inside It

Exhibit 58.1. Design Checklist

Figure 59.1. The Field Learning System

Figure 59.2. Design Grid

Exhibit 59.1. Life Journey Mapping

Figure 60.1. Sample Social Networking Learning Site

Exhibit 60.1. Tips for Pre-Work

Exhibit 61.1. Simulation Design Checklist

Table 61.1. Typical Program Designs

Exhibit 62.1. Crucial Questions to Ask

Exhibit 62.2. Sample Mentoring Plan

Figure 63.1. What Is Business Driven Action Learning?

Figure 63.2. BDAL: The Seven Key Components

Exhibit 63.1. Sharing Personal Challenges with Set Members

Figure 63.3. Preparation and Implementation of the “Outside-In” Conversations

Figure 63.4. The Seven Dimensions of Learning

Figure 64.1. Design of Ladder to Leadership Program

Exhibit 64.1. Module Content

Table 64.1. Successful Project Examples

Exhibit 64.2. Criteria for Selecting Appropriate Projects

Exhibit 65.1. Typical ICP Curriculum Outline

Exhibit 66.1. Retrospectives Exercises

Exhibit 67.1. Identifying Key Positions

Exhibit 67.2. Talent Review Template

Exhibit 67.3. Talent Review Discussion Questions

Figure 68.1. Building Breadth and Depth

Figure 68.2. Depth Through Apprenticeships

Exhibit 69.1. Sample Leadership Profile

Figure 69.1. Steps to Determining Experiences

Exhibit 69.2. Example of a Success Profile

Table 70.1. Example of a Hot Jobs-Hot People List

Exhibit 72.1. Evaluating Climate for Development

Exhibit 73.1. Strategic Leadership Development: A Best Practices Checklist

Table 74.1. Building Viral OJD Programs

Exhibit 74.1. Example of a Typical HR Tool

Exhibit 74.2. Example of a More Viral HR Tool

Exhibit 76.1. Built to Last: HR Initiative Critical Success Factors

Table 79.1. The Impact of Learning on Careers

Exhibit 80.1. Characteristics of Derailers

Foreword

A Quarter Century and Counting: Getting Serious About Using Experience to Develop Talent

Morgan W. McCall, Jr.

University of Southern California

LONGER AGO THAN I care to admit, my colleagues and I set out to understand how experience shaped leadership talent. Back in those days we talked about managers and executives, reserving the term leader for something else, though it is common today to use the terms interchangeably. Also back in those days, executive development referred almost exclusively to programs, usually training programs, in house or out of house, designed and delivered by human resource professionals or academics. To be sure, there were experience-based practices such as career paths (for example, IBM's famous two years line, two years staff), rotational assignments, and assistant to positions, but conversations about systematically using online experience for development seldom got past “throw them in the fire and see who comes out the other side.” Ironically, our effort to understand development through experience began in a place that, appropriate to the time, strove to be a premier leadership training center.

The product of our initial research into experience, The Lessons of Experience (McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison, 1988), almost never made it into print. We had interviewed and surveyed successful executives about their experiences and what they had learned from them, and we hoped that by analyzing their stories we would change how development was viewed. But the original contract was with a major publishing house that seemed intent on a book with titillating stories about celebrity executives. Although we had plenty of tales to tell, they weren't about people you would have heard of. They were the stories of talented but regular people educated in the metaphorical “school of hard knocks” and by “learning in the trenches.” Fortunately, a small publishing house picked up the book, which is still in print, and over time interest grew in using experience more systematically.

Fast-forward through the years as additional research accumulated on experience, what it can teach, and how it might be used more effectively to develop talent (see, for example, McCauley, Ruderman, Ohlott, & Morrow, 1994; McCall, 1998; McCall, 2010; McCall & Hollenbeck, 2002; Spreitzer, McCall, & Mahoney, 1997). But even though interest in the concepts increased, putting the ideas into practice stumbled forward in fits and starts. For the reasons so beautifully articulated in the introductory chapter of this book, the knowing-doing gap (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000) persists. True, the companies Fortune considers “most admired for their leaders” do more than others to use experience for development (Colvin, 2009), but experience-driven leadership development, despite some heroic efforts to implement it (see, for example, McCauley & McCall, in press), has not yet created a paradigm shift.

It is with delight that I discovered that there has been an insurgency building all along. Sung—but mostly unsung—heroes, operating in all kinds of organizations, quietly have developed tools and practices that make it possible to do experience-based talent development. Instead of trying to change the world, they have been trying to nudge, twist, cajole, prod, and otherwise influence practice. Not only that, these bricoleurs are willing to share the results of their efforts with anyone facing similar issues. But it took tenacity and insight to pull all of these pieces together and make them accessible, so hats off to McCauley, DeRue, Yost, and Taylor for providing this compendium of raw material.

Making experience-driven development work is not as easy as it sounds, and that's why the tools, practices, and advice found in this book are so important. At first glance using experience seems straightforward: identify someone with leadership potential, put her in a stretch assignment, repeat several times, and voila—a leader. Even if it were this simple, to actually do it one would still need some way to identify potential, a way to identify the stretch assignments and choose the appropriate one, and some way to assess and track development across repeated trials.

But it isn't that simple. How do you match people to experiences? What do you do to get the right person into the right experience at the right time—especially if the “right” assignment involves crossing an organizational boundary? Because people don't always learn what an experience offers, what can you do to increase the odds of actually learning the lessons in the experience? What can you do if the needed experience isn't available, either because it doesn't exist or because it is being blocked by a solid performer? What happens if you make a mistake and put someone in an assignment that is over his head? Perhaps even more daunting, how can effective use of experience be embedded in an organization's core so that it is a natural act rather than a peripheral one?

These are just a few of the practical questions that doing experience-based development raises, and for which answers will come only by trying things out and seeing how well they work for learning through experience. As Mary Catherine Bateson observed, “Insight, I believe, refers to that depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another” (Bateson, 1994, p. 14). And that's what this book is, at its heart: eighty or so experiments that will give you things to try out, to chew on, and that I hope will inspire others to follow suit in developing appropriate tools and sharing their accumulating wisdom.

References

Bateson, M. (1994). Peripheral visions. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Colvin, G. (2009, December 7). How to build great leaders. Fortune, 160(10), 70–72.

McCall, M.W., Jr. (1998). High flyers: Developing the next generation of leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

McCall, M.W., Jr., (2010). The experience conundrum. In N. Nohria & R. Khurana (Eds.), Handbook of leadership theory and practice (pp. 679–707). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

McCall, M.W., Jr., & Hollenbeck, G.P. (2002). Developing global executives: The lessons of international experience. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

McCall, M.W., Jr., Lombardo, M.M., & Morrison, A.M. (1988). The lessons of experience: How successful executives develop on the job. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

McCauley, C.D., & McCall, M.W., Jr. (Eds.) (in press). Using experience to develop leadership talent. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

McCauley, C.D., Ruderman, M.N., Ohlott, P.J., & Morrow, J. (1994). Assessing the developmental components of managerial jobs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79(4), 544–560.

Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. (2000). The knowing-doing gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Spreitzer, G., McCall, M.W., Jr., & Mahoney, J. (1997). Early identification of international executive potential. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(1), 6–29.

Acknowledgments

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to name all the people who have played a role in developing and advancing experience-driven approaches to leader development. However, we want to acknowledge Morgan McCall, Mike Lombardo, and Bob Eichinger, each of whom has played a major role as thought leaders and champions of on-the-job leader development. The field owes much to their pioneering work.

This book would not have been possible without the many authors who joined us in this endeavor. We are enthusiastic about the models, tools, and practices they have crafted and grateful for the advice and lessons learned that they shared, as well as their willingness to respond to rounds of feedback and editing. We also appreciate the organizations that were open to having their tools and practices published as resources for others.

Finally, we want to thank Shaun Martin, Steve Rush, Peter Scisco, Taylor Scisco, and Martin Wilcox from the publication staff at the Center for Creative Leadership. Special thanks to Elaine Biech for sharing her expertise early in our process, and to Jill Pinto for helping to organize the disparate pieces of the book into an orderly manuscript (and doing it with a smile).

Introduction

INDIVIDUALS BROADEN AND deepen their leadership capabilities as they do leadership work. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that learning from experience is the number one way that leader development happens.

As a leader development practitioner you know this. You know it from the research-based professional knowledge you consume and from your own observations and experiences in organizations. Yet the field continues to focus considerable time, money, and resources on the other two major sources of growth and development for leaders: (1) education and training, and (2) relationships for learning. U.S. companies spend an estimated $13.6 billion annually on formal leader development (O'Leonard & Loew, 2012). The vast majority of this investment goes toward education and training. On average, another 20 percent or so of an organization's leader development solutions are relationship-based (for example, formal coaching or peer networks). In contrast, the average percent of experience-driven leader development solutions range from 9 percent for first-level supervisors to 14 percent for senior managers (O'Leonard & Loew). The number one driver of leader development gets the least attention in leader development systems.