Growing Leaders In Labs

By Dr. Ranjit Nair

Doing begets learning. Study after study has shown that the most effective way to retain training is to put it to practical use right away. Yet the pace of competitiveness often leaves little time for training, and even less time for training that doesn’t produce results.

Employees are experiencing increased performance demands on both results and behaviors. Companies want instant yet long-lasting results, and because of this, learning new skills–particularly leadership skills–has become even more challenging.

The key to developing leaders is to not just equip employees with strategic orientation skills, but to teach them in ways that deliver results during the training process. It is possible to procure the skills, retain them in muscle memory, and demonstrate them in company culture–all while executing the proverbial “day job.” And the answer lies in experiential learning.

What Is Experiential Learning?

Experiential learning is a process whereby employees accomplish a specific company goal while learning new leadership and business skills—a sort of variation of “on-the-job” training. To implement this well, several factors must exist:

• A major project that is strategically aligned to the business.
• A CEO who is actively sponsoring in the process.
• High-level executives as part of the faculty to teach, coach, and mentor the participants.
• Selection of participants that is visible, transparent, and communicated company-wide.
• Participants are developed as both individual contributors and valued teammates.
• Measurement of the results and behaviors of the participants.

It is essentially the creation of “learning labs” where leaders are grown with the help of experienced leadership coaches and company mentors. Within the learning lab, a team of hand-selected, emerging leaders work on the highly-visible company-wide project. This “thinking partner” or consultant type of approach has proven to be highly successful.

Putting Emerging Leaders to the Test

Experiential learning is the time to put your emerging leaders to the test. Theoretically you should have a room full of the brightest minds in your company—promising future leaders, top-level execs, and leadership consultants to facilitate.

This is no time to choose a meaningless issue for the team to tackle. This project must not only be relevant to the company, but must also resonate with employees as critically important. Ideally it should have a strong link to business results and be cross-functional.

Projects should be selected on the following principles:

• A “blue sky” initiative that designs or develops a new product or service.
• A harmony initiative that forges tighter alignment between conflicting functions.
• A culture and value initiative that has international implications or develops new regions.

A Solid Coaching Staff Guides the Process

One of the keys to experiential learning success is having proficient facilitators. Coaching guides the process, reinforces learning, and provides a safe environment for participants to ask questions, listen to feedback, make mistakes, and clarify expectations.

Leadership labs are havens for feedback since the leadership coaches are working with all members of the project team. Feedback in this case is critical; it facilitates the success of the project and ensures that the process itself is continuously improved. Feedback also provides illumination of self-awareness, and input to enhance other projects and cohorts. Experienced thinking partners will facilitate dialogue, guide the project, and provide an outside and balanced perspective.

In the absence of thinking partners, participants in experiential learning programs have to either self-govern or be at the whim of a project manager or instructor. Like a balloon leaking air, the true fruits of the labor and learning are lost.

Final Goal: Effective Outcomes

Through the learning lab experience, participants should be able to:

• Self-reflect on their performance and master the art of self-management.
• Learn how to empathize with others, develop them, and get the best out of them.
• Build their own thought leadership, futuristic thinking, and creativity.
• Learn how to be the best versions of themselves as authentic leaders.
• Deliver high-impact presentations at various stages of the project to the CEO and executive team.
• Accomplish project goals, deadlines, and deliverables as outlined.

Leadership labs help companies build leadership pipelines and enhance their leadership bench strength. The most effective experiential learning projects create opportunities for participants to make clear and meaningful connections between lab-based leadership learning and on-the-job activities. Learning how to be an effective leader in this manner also helps to build collaboration skills and culture-centric mindsets.

Building authentic leaders is not an easy task; however, if experiential learning is well executed, it can deliver colossal benefits for achieving company goals and leadership development. In the modern business world, there is no better antidote to build and grow leaders.