Here’s the challenge: you’ve got to design an aeroplane.
We’re going to judge your design against just one criterion – this thing has to look fantastic on the runway. When people catch sight of it, they should gasp. Your job is to capture the essence of speed, power and agility and distil it down into a single, awesome machine.
You’re probably thinking, “wait a minute…” and you’re right. This aeroplane doesn’t have to be able to take off or fly. We’re just interested in the look of the thing. Any other questions? No? Ok – go for it!
* * * * *
What are you going to make your plane out of? The short answer is… anything! It won’t have to fly, so you can use lead, concrete, balsa wood or candy floss – as long as it looks good, it’s an option.
What about the size of the wings? Doesn’t matter – aeronautical engineering isn’t an issue here, so make your choice based on the aesthetics. If big wings are your thing, stick em on! If stubby wings float your boat, knock yourself out – because they won’t have to support your plane!
Give it a sexy paint job, some fins, a few guns if they make you happy, and you’re done – beer time!
* * * * *
The third thing you’ll need to run a successful management development project is content that will fly when people get out of the seminar room and back to the office. (If you missed the first two things you’ll need, click here and here).
In our last article we talked about focusing your leadership and management project on creating results. If your focus is on results, the tools you give people to create those results come under severe scrutiny. Whatever tool kit people take from the seminar room, or online learning session, or any other event you run, will have to be useful to busy senior people, and it will also have to be usable – they’ll have to be able to put it into action quickly, and get an end product when they do so.
If that wasn’t hard enough, this tool kit will also have to help managers create better results than they would have created by following their normal practice – ie by doing what they’d always done before they went on your course.
Why is your material suddenly under so much pressure? Because if you’ve structured your project around creating results, you’re going to see everyone again at the next seminar day. They’ll be coming back to report results, and if your stuff didn’t work, they’ll tell you.
That’s the short term. The long term is even more important: if people haven’t created any results from using your material, your project will be a failing in its explicit purpose, and why should they (or you) carry on with it?
As you can imagine, crafting material that works under this kind of pressure is tough and it takes time. Over the last 25 years, we’ve heard over 2000 hours of managers’ presentations about results – what they did, what worked, what didn’t, and what the end product was. And even with all this flying time behind us, we’re still constantly developing and refining things.
* * * * *
If your management development project didn’t work, it could be because the material wasn’t robust enough.
It’s my opinion that much of the training and coaching content available today isn’t designed to be used to create results. It looks good in the seminar room or online learning module or whatever other runway it sits on, but it’s not meant to be flown in the workplace.
It’s often based on valuable research, irrefutable ideas about how we communicate, or the work of a famous thought leader. It’s just not set up to be used, and I wonder how many people think delegates will really apply it.
That’s why the “results” of many training and coaching initiatives are halfway houses – people have learned something, or attended a course, or can answer a questionnaire, but they’re still waiting for the moment when they actually use this new information to get a result. Their level of knowledge has increased, but not their level of skill.
For much of the material that’s out there, I think that moment will never come. These lead aeroplanes will never get off the ground.
This post originally appeared at www.mitchellphoenix.com in 2013