Companies tweak models to train young leaders
MUMBAI: With a drop in the average age of leaders, organizations are facing a peculiar situation with regard to imparting learning and development (L&D). Younger managers occupying important positions in companies have not imbibed learning in the conventional way, i.e. on-the-job, while gradually rising up the corporate ladder.
In order to fill this gap, organizations are resorting to surrogate learning methods as also tweaking the standard reference ratio of 70:20:10 in L&D. Traditionally, on-the-job learning (70% in the ratio) was given disproportionately high emphasis followed by learning from other sources (20%) and then classroom learning (10%). Tectonic shifts taking place in the learning landscape — largely influenced by technology, globalization and change in capability and expectation of people — are forcing companies to revisit these numbers.
The $16.5-billion Mahindra Group says it tends to move to the lower side of the prescribed 10% of the 70:20:10 model, and it believes this may get reduced further in the coming years. Coaching and mentoring, on the other hand, are usually on the higher side of the prescriptive 20% in the model, says Prince Augustin, executive VP (group human capital & leadership development), Mahindra Group, which is increasingly focusing on providing “learning anytime and anywhere” to its employees with Mahindra Leadership University, which is a virtual university with simultaneous online and offline offerings.
In the last twenty years, growth of Indian companies has created a demand for larger numbers of good managers and leaders. This, according to Vivek Chachra, country manager (India), Harvard Business Publishing, has driven democratization of learning so to say, from learning being restricted to a privileged few to a need for scale.
“We have managers and leaders who are in leadership roles at a much younger age than their predecessors. They have not had the time and opportunity to gather valuable experiences which one would have otherwise gained over time. Therefore, companies which need scale and want to provide surrogate experiences to enrich these young leaders are turning more and more towards the 70:20:10 and similar holistic development models,” said Chachra.
Rapid growth for many organizations would fuel the demand for first-time leaders. “Other factors contributing to this include the rapid advancement of all levels of leaders, meaning that leaders are typically spending less time mastering their jobs. This may result in skill gaps which often are best addressed through formal skill development programmes. Without the necessary foundation, leaders can rise quickly to levels where they become ineffective or even incompetent, resulting in burnout or failure,” said Andrew W Smith, MD, DDI India, a talent management firm.
So Indian companies, said Smith, are starting to adopt a more comprehensive and holistic approach to leadership development, shifting from an episodic or event-driven approach to a ‘learning journey’ approach.
Mahindra Group believes in bringing young CEOs up to speed and enabling them to excel in their role. It is also shifting and learning from competitors based in India as well as in other developing nations as opposed to the conventional practice of learning from developed nations.
Learning is also being applied in the real world to internalize it. At Godrej Group, senior leaders invest time to share their own journeys of development, the dilemmas and challenges faced and the learnings from such experiences to the new generation of workforce which is more action-oriented.
“They are not too excited about passive classroom sessions but rather prefer consuming learning in smaller chunks. With a workforce that is very young and that we believe will continue to increase in number, it is very essential for us to create L&D modules that cater to these kinds of expectations,” said Shailesh Deshpande, head, L&D, Godrej Industries and Associated Companies, which runs a Godrej Fellows programme to develop and mentor the young high-potential Godrejites on their leadership capabilities.
With the advent of technology, coaching and mentoring is also moving from classrooms to smart phones. “We are currently in the process of moving learning to smartphones through mobile apps,” said Mahindra Group’s Augustin. “In this era of smartphones, creating a virtual classroom and supporting it with a virtual conversation is not only easy and hassle-free but is also time- and cost-effective.”
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