Developing your people and giving them the tools to deliver greater things is one of the most important roles you have as a manager. But it is not easy. So companies give you support by investing in development programmes.
But how much impact do these programmes make? We have all been through a countless number of development initiatives and seen our teams do the same. What has been the true business benefit?
The problem is that real development needs real effort, but most businesses lose steam after the early buzz of launching a new scheme.
Effective development programmes need all 4 key factors done well:
- Measurable description of what great looks like for the individual/job
- Accurate assessment of them against that profile
- A planned, structured set of development steps, with a clear goal
- Regular review of progress against the plan and support in delivering it
Few businesses get all these steps right. The most effective step is often the assessment. Businesses have invested masses of effort in developing 360 tools and assessment centres. And sometimes the development plans can set people on the right direction.
However, it is the last step that most businesses miss. They fail to follow through on the investment. They leave it up to the individual and manager to achieve what they have rarely done before. The business hopes that against all odds the individual will find time amongst all their other challenges to think about development: to seek feedback, review it with their boss and make adjustments! Blimey! And without any support from anyone else other than a central edict to “make sure they have a Personal Development Plan”.
The Performance Accelerator
How they work
- Establish a contract - agreed goals
- Review performance at least once a fortnight
- 45 minutes on the phone - Manager, colleague and Performance Accelerator
In our view, effective improvements in performance come from skilled direct and frequent intervention. This intervention is driven by an experienced super coach we call a Performance Accelerator.
The Performance Accelerator will force the pace, holding manager and employee to account. The Performance Accelerator will support, giving ideas and coaching the pair to arrive at new ways to drive improvement. The Performance Accelerator will drive the improvement and eventually step away to leave these good habits in place. And it shouldn’t be expensive, support like this can be delivered over the phone, 45 minutes every fortnight, anywhere in the world. We know it works.
What Chemistry care about is transforming business and personal performance through great people programmes. For personal development, great programmes require accurate and timely intervention, nothing less will do.
