Where do you practice leadership ?

We have all been to numerous leadership development courses. We have read the classics from Lao Tzu, Drucker or Covey. And we also read the latest gurus who distill the "five things super successful people never do", thinking that there will be some new nugget of wisdom or a key trick that will help us (or more often, those around us) become the perfect leader.

Once outside of the training room, the MBA lecture room or the retreat resort, and after all the great exchanges and practice we had, we get back to ... work ! Research shows that only 15% of participants in leadership courses really manage to implement the tools and methods they have learned and change the way they lead.

So what is missing ? Why is the world not full of inspirational leaders, with all those great books on leadership ? Individuals who are highly skilled have become so through endless practice. Sports and music teams spend most of their time practicing. We don't have opportunities to practice leadership. Practice during the training session or retreat is not practice. It is role play or "let's pretend".

We cannot really practice a customer engagement meeting. What could be the impact on the customer  if something unexpected happens ? We cannot really practice how to run a better team meeting. What will the participants think if things don't go well ? In the words of Peter Senge, we need to find "practice fields: opportunities deliberately created to practice and to reflect upon the results, rather than to take action. These are distinct from performance fields, where participants are typically expected to perform and learn at the same time."

In my experience, Action Learning is a great setting to create practice fields. With the explicit participation of all (including customers or suppliers), and the upfront clarification that the session is about learning, participants have the possibility to apply their leadership concepts, engage and learn individually and with the others. With all the investment in leadership programs, one wonders why this final step is all too often left out ...

When does your team start ?

What is the best time to start to work on your team's interactions, looking at how to optimize productivity and team cohesion ? That question came up when I worked with a recently formed team. The team had been in place only 2 months, and because not everybody was located in the same office, a few team members had not yet met their new team mates (although they did know each other). At the end of the 2-day workshop, one participant shared that it would have been better to have more team history (6 months or so) because this would make the workshop more effective.

He had changed his mind by the end of day 2.

All too often, leaders call me for help with their team when things start to go South. When tensions arise, or even conflicts appear. When people are getting entrenched in their respective silos. Or when the team is just treading water and not delivering on its targets and commitments. Of course working with a team in this situation can help and performance and cohesion can improve.

But to come back to the original question: the earlier you start to work on your team, the better it is. On day 2 of the session, the team members shared their respective responsibilities and expressed where they needed help from the others in the room. Or they proposed their help with a topic a peer was working on. They then established the norms they would start to work towards. And finally they identified one single project that they would jointly work on, and that would show their efficiency to themselves and the rest of the organization. They will reconvene and check on the status of all this in one month.

The feedback from the team leader at the end of the workshop was: "Really happy we did this. We saved a lot of time !". Don't wait for a crisis to start working on your team !