Of Leadership Development, Business Schools and Consulting Firms

“Our professors bring in the latest academic research to the program delivery. Based on their deep understanding of the topic, they can facilitate first principles thinking which can lead to profound insights. We don't want our faculty members to become trainers!", remarked the executive education lead in a reputed business school.

“To what extent the professors are able to bring in actionable insights for the practitioners based on academic research is debatable. The professors who have a teaching style that is similar that of trainers often get the best feedback scores from the participants. Deep expertise coupled with an accessible kind of program delivery facilitates skill building and makes the program content easier to understand and implement!”, observed the leadership development lead of a large firm.

“We need the leadership development programs to be customized to our context. We prefer to partner with consulting firms as they do a much better job on customization as compared to business schools. It is not that the business schools don’t do a diagnostic study. It is just that the professors often end up teaching whatever they originally wanted to teach irrespective of the findings from the diagnostic study!”, remarked the Chief Learning Officer of an Indian Business Group.

“Why should we try to customize the leadership development programs? We should partner with the best of the business schools and let them teach what they think is the best. We should even look at open programs as they help our people to get a much better exposure because they provide the opportunity to interact with leaders from other companies. Leadership development programs at the top management level are more about helping our leaders to expand their mental horizons and not about skill building!”, said a senior business leader.

I often hear statement likes these in the context of leadership development. They bring my attention to a question that people who are responsible for leadership development in organizations frequently grapple with - "when it comes to leadership development programs for senior leaders, is it better to partner with reputed business schools or with reputed leadership development consulting firms?" There are many perspectives here – that too along multiple dimensions. Let's look at some of them here.

Customization

In general, consulting firms can offer highly customized executive education programs tailored to the specific needs and challenges of an organization. They can develop bespoke content and case studies that directly address the context-specific learning needs. Business schools tend to have less flexibility in customizing their programs to meet the specific needs of an organization.

Incorporating insights from research

Business schools can bring in the most empirically validated research findings. While the consultants do have some understanding of the latest research findings, they are unlikely to have the deep understanding that can come from a systematic literature review or a meta-analysis. One key challenge in incorporating the latest research into executive education programs is that of keeping up with the pace of change in the business world. Some research findings may become outdated relatively quickly, especially in fields that are rapidly evolving. Of course, ensuring that the research is communicated in a way that is accessible and practical for executives is indeed challenging.  Business schools must work to translate the research findings into practical insights that executives can apply in their day-to-day work.

Domain expertise

 Premier business schools typically have a strong foundation in academic research and theory, which can provide a solid base for executive education. They have faculty with deep expertise in various management disciplines. Consulting firms often bring in domain expertise derived from practice. The best results are obtained when the faculty/facilitator can 'stand at the intersection of theory and practice' though it is indeed a tightrope walk (please see 'Treating the Multiple Personality Disorder of HR professionals' for a related discussion).

Industry knowledge

Consulting firms often have extensive experience working with clients in various industries, which can enable them to provide industry-specific insights and best practices. They also have a better understanding of the paradoxes and dilemmas that senior leaders face in the context of their jobs and this enables the consulting firms to be more helpful in equipping the leaders to cope with these paradoxes and dilemmas (please see 'Problems that refuse to remain solved' for a related discussion). Professors also do some amount of consulting work. Of course, if the professor has written a case study on one of the most reputed companies in the industry that the firm operates in and leverages the same for the program for the participants from the firm, it can be perceived as highly valuable.

Application focus

Consulting firms generally have a stronger focus on practical application and problem-solving. This can lead to more actionable insights and strategies that the senior leaders can implement in their organizations. Business schools, particularly premier ones, often emphasize theoretical knowledge and research-backed learning. These schools also provide case studies to practice leadership skills. Leadership training firms, alternatively, are often more focused on practical, real-world application, with a heavy emphasis on experiential learning. Consulting firms may also provide better support in facilitating transfer of learning.

Bringing in outside experts/industry leaders

Consultants often can bring in top industry leaders through their contacts. The top academic institutes can also do this to some extent. Senior business leaders tend to value the opportunity to interact with top industry leaders very much. 

'Zeitgeist'(Intellectual atmosphere)

When the programs are delivered on the business school campus, it often puts the participants in a frame of mind that is more conducive for learning as compared to what happens when the program is organized in a hotel. Many of the participants consider the professors as ‘gurus’ and that might further enhance their openness to learning – especially in those cultures that put the teachers on a pedestal. This works even in the case of participants who are senior business leaders. Facilitators from consulting firms do get the respect they deserve from the participants for their expertise. However, the participants might still look at them more as ‘service providers’ as opposed to ‘gurus’.

Prestige

Top business schools have a strong reputation and brand value. Hence the participants often attach great value to the program certificate issued by the premier business schools. A certificate from a leadership training firm may not carry the same weight, unless it is a certification based on a proprietary methodology of the consulting firm (e.g., certification on the proprietary Job Evaluation methodology). However, such certifications from consulting firms tend to be less relevant in the case of senior business leaders. 

Cost/investment

Customized executive education programs at the top business schools can be relatively more expensive. However, based on the teaching methodology used (e.g., case studies) they might be able to support larger batch sizes and thereby bring down the per participant cost. As compared to this, leadership development consulting firms tend to use a more interactive and practice-oriented methodologies that work better with relatively smaller batch sizes. Yes, it is often possible to engage the professors directly (without going through the business school). However, the institute brand/ certification won’t be available in such cases.

Best of both worlds?

 There are consulting firms that have close tie-ups with premier business schools. In those cases, the consulting firms do the business development and the diagnostic study, and they bring in the professors at the program design and delivery stage. Here the key success factor is the extent to which the data and insights from the diagnostic study are incorporated by the professors in the program design and delivery. This is often a problem area.

Business schools also have ‘Professors of Practice’ who often have significant industry experience before they moved to academics. Whether they end up bringing in the ‘best of both words’ or the ‘worst of both worlds’ or ‘something in between’ in the context of a particular leadership development program is quite unpredictable!

In lieu of a conclusion

Let’s go back to the question that we started this post with- "when it comes to leadership development programs for senior leaders, is it better to partner with reputed business schools or with reputed consulting firms who focus on leadership development?

As we can see from the discussion above, both the options have their own advantages and disadvantages and hence the answer becomes highly context specific. The best choice depends on the specific goals of the organization and the factors (e.g., from the list above) are relatively more important keeping those goals in mind. This is complicated by the fact that capability building programs (including leadership development programs) serve many purposes - including those that are not directly related to capability building (please see 'The many lives of capability building programs' for the details). Yes, the return on the learning investment is most important. The point is just that this 'return' need not be only in terms of increase in capability and change in on-the-job behavior/the business impact of the change in behavior. 

Also, all the premier business schools and all the leadership development consulting firms are not created equal. There are business schools that have a special focus on executive education. They tend to have teams that focus on diagnostic studies and instructional design in addition to the professors who focus on program design and delivery. There are also professors who invest time in doing a detailed diagnostic study. Similarly, there are specialized leadership development consulting firms that conduct primary research in the domain of leadership development. This brings in an additional set of considerations that are entity specific. In addition to the entity-specific aspects, there are also individual-specific aspects. Afterall, program delivery is a 'performance art'. There are also the aspects of the depth of the partnership between the organization and the learning partner and that of the 'chemistry' between the particular individuals involved. Having said this, we can still make a couple of general observations.

If customization is less important as compared to domain expertise, premier business schools often have an advantage over the consultants especially in the case of ‘standalone instructor-led programs'. In the case of highly customized and application-oriented programs, consultants often have an advantage especially in the case of ‘learning journey programs’ (that integrate multiple program components like instructor-led learning, executive coaching and action learning and require extensive program management and transfer of learning support).

Any comments/ideas?

Selling ice to Eskimos? - Leadership development in very successful organizations

How do we sell leadership development solutions to an organization that has been very successful without having invested in leadership development? Should we even try to do that? Wouldn’t tinkering with the leadership capability and/or style of such an organization risk ruining the 'alchemy of the magic' of the organization’s success? If an organization has been very successful, shouldn’t we be learning from it instead of trying to change it? 

These questions are very important both for external consultants and for internal learning partners. They can also be quite tricky to answer, though many answers are indeed possible. Let’s look at seven of them.

• “What got you here won’t get you there” kind of answers – They argue that the game is changing and hence you need a different set of leadership capabilities or at least a much higher level of the current set of leadership capabilities to achieve your vision or even to sustain the current position. 

• "Good to great" kind of answers  - This is more of a 'there is always room for improvement' kind of argument, while fully acknowledging the consistent record of success so far. While the customer is unlikely to disagree with this philosophically, it might not be compelling enough to prompt action on the part of the customer, especially when the customer is already 'great' (or quite close to it) in their own opinion.       

• “Success sweeps a lot of things under the carpet” kind of answers – Here the basic argument is that while the organization has been successful there are still a lot of things to fix in terms of the leadership capability and/or leadership style. For example, the leadership style might not be aligned to the espoused values or the target culture of the organization. Warning : If this is not  done very skillfully, it can degenerate into an unpleasant conversation with the customer very quickly (unless the customer has a very high levels of self-awareness and humility or has masochistic tendencies)!  

• “A few great men and women” kind of answers – They argue that the success of the organization has been because of a particular set of leaders and that the others in the organization can benefit from leadership development inputs.  If the person who buys the leadership development solution considers himself/herself to be part of the ‘a few great men and women group', it works even better!

• "We are just making you scalable" kind of answers - In this case, the argument becomes more like 'we are just helping you to decode your own success so that it becomes scalable'. This argument works best when the organization is growing rapidly. The advantage of this answer is that it avoids the concern related to tampering with what made the organization successful. 

• “Let good thoughts come to us from all sides” kind of answers – They argue that while the organization might not need the skill building aspect of leadership development, just listening to the latest ideas/thinking can be useful or at least entertaining. It can also give the satisfaction that “we have implemented all these ‘latest’ ideas a million years ago”!

• “Leadership development serves many purposes” kind of answers – Here the essential argument is that leadership development interventions serve many other useful purposes in addition to building leadership capabilities. Please see ‘The many lives of capability building programs’ for a comprehensive list of the ‘alternative uses.

Of course, many more such answers are possible. The all-important question is:  How will a particular organization respond to a particular answer/a particular line of argument? To a great extent, the response will depend on 'what the organization attributes its success to' and 'if the answer is in alignment with that attribution'.

So, where do all these leave us?

It is indeed possible that an organization has got many pieces of the leadership development puzzle right, even if they haven't formalized them as 'leadership development solutions'. For example, they might be using 'action learning projects', 'crucible roles' and 'on the job coaching' even when they are not using these terms. Therefore, a bit of 'Appreciative Inquiry' won't hurt. Afterall, humility is as relevant to the learning partners (internal/external) as it is to their clients!  We must also remember that leadership development is not mainly about 'leadership training programs' though they are the most visible part. I would even say that, in some instances, leadership training efforts are more like 'corporate rain dances'!

Logically speaking, the most important aspect here is the 'perceived net value' that the leadership development solution can add - in the short term and in the long term. This perception of value need not necessarily be purely rational (See 'Of reasons, rationalizations and collective delusions' for details). However, the point remains that 'what is valuable is defined by the customer'. Similarly, unless the customer acknowledges the 'need' or the 'opportunity' the discussion on the solutions (including leadership development solutions) can't really start. Of course, while highlighting the 'net value' that the leadership development solution can add, it is equally important to anticipate/address any stated or unstated concerns the customers might have about the leadership development solution or its implementation. 

Organizations, especially the successful organizations, have a tendency to think that they are unique and that they have figured out a unique way to be successful. Yes, it is possible that an organization has been successful because of, irrespective of or even in spite of the leadership capability it has. Also, attribution errors are quite common (for example, attributing success to internal factors and attributing failures to external factors). Yes, ‘time will tell’ – but it might be too late for the people who are trying to sell leadership development solutions to a particular organization! 

Chris Argyris in his seminal article ‘Teaching smart people how to learn’, argues that people who have been consistently successful tend to become very good at ‘single-loop learning’ and that they don’t develop the capability for ‘double-loop learning’ which becomes essential when the fundamental assumptions they have been using for problem solving/responding to the environment are no longer valid. I guess, it applies to organizations too! Therefore, 'facilitating double-loop learning' kind of approaches do have their place in this context also! In the case of internal consultants, 'acting as some sort of a 'court jester in the corporate context' can also be helpful in this endeavor (See 'Organization Development Managers as Court Jesters' for details)!

Can you think of any other answers to the question that we started this post with?

Any other comments/ideas?  

Of Atlas, Munchausen and the pursuit of relevance at the workplace

“I create problems, and then I solve them. That is my style!”, declared the department head smugly.

I heard this statement a long time ago. At that time, I didn’t take it too seriously as I thought that it was the peculiarity of one rather ‘strange’ individual. After having spent a couple of decades in business organizations, I have come to realize that this was not an isolated incident. It prompted me to think more deeply about the underlying factors and led me to the all-important topic of 'relevance in business organizations' and the various ways in which we try to achieve and maintain/enhance relevance. 

Relevance is the central theme in organizational life. Relevance comes from ‘value addition’. What is valuable and how much it should be valued is always defined by the customer. The term 'customer' includes internal customers also. The most pragmatic definition of a ‘value added activity’ that I have come across is that ‘it is an activity that the customer is willing to pay for adequately’.  Of course, the payment (especially in the case of internal customers) need not be a direct payment.  

 When we talk about value addition, it includes the ‘perceived’ value addition in addition to the ‘real’ value addition. Again, when we look at the perceived value addition, there are multiple aspects like ‘what one thinks his/her value addition is’, ‘what others think one’s value addition is’, ‘what one thinks others think to be his/her value addition’ etc. This indeed can degenerate into a ‘mind game’ and that is where characters like Atlas and Munchausen come in. 

Munchausen Syndrome is named after Baron Munchausen, who became famous for telling exaggerated tales about his exploits in the past. Munchausen syndrome refers to a mental disorder in which someone tries to get attention and sympathy by falsifying, inducing, or exaggerating an illness. This is very different from ‘hypochondria’ because a person with hypochondria really believes that he/she has a serious illness, which is not true in the case of the Munchausen Syndrome. 

Closer to our topic is the so called ‘Munchausen by proxy’, in which a caregiver exaggerates, fabricates, or induces illness in another person in order to get praise for then helping the victim. In the workplace context, this takes the form of employees creating or inventing organizational problems and then solving them, all in the hope that it would make them more important in the eyes of the leaders and coworkers. This pattern of behavior, called Munchausen at Work (MAW) does waste time and resources though it might be quite hard to detect. 

In business organizations, MAW is also employed as ‘survival tactics’ or even as ‘IR tactics'. Ultimately, this is a deliberate attempt to maintain/enhance their relevance in the organization. I have seen people trying to keep their job/highlight the importance of the job by creating problems/letting preventable problems occur and then solving them. In its milder form, MAW manifests as a tendency to 'overcomplicate' things, in an attempt to demonstrate one's expertise or to create a need that would require one's expertise. Obviously, they have no appetite for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. 

Of course, no one will admit that they are doing this. Skilled operators at MAW (the sort who survive in organizations) will cover their tracks well. Therefore, studying/diagnosing this and/or addressing this becomes difficult. This puts people who proactively prevent problems from occurring at a 'double disadvantage' as their efforts (and the value they have added) are not visible. The solution to MAW could be in terms of building trust, skills and psychological safety so that such behavior is not required in the first place.

Let’s look at the Atlas Complex now. The name Atlas Complex comes from the Greek myth of Atlas, who is supposed ‘to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders’. Similarly, a person with Atlas Complex tend to think that he is carrying the weight of 'his world' on his shoulders, and it will collapse unless he continues to do so. This can happen in the case of personal life ('personal world'), work life ('work world') or both. 

At the workplace, the Atlas Complex comes from the pursuit of relevance at work. A person who has the Atlas Complex tends to think that he/she is very critical to the team/organization and that if he/she is not around everything will fall apart. This leads to the person working very hard and unwilling to let others take the responsibility. This goes much beyond ‘busy-ness’ (acting busy to gain importance).  Sometimes, this does work, and the person is able to generate/maintain a sense of importance. However, sometimes it just makes him/her an object of scorn or even ridicule, even when he/she has been putting in a super-human effort at the expense of his/her health and personal life. In such cases, Atlas Complex can also lead to 'silent depression'.

Unlike MAW, Atlas Complex is quite visible to the coworkers and leaders and hence easier to diagnose. However, it might not be so easy to remedy, especially in those cases where the pattern of behavior has become deep-rooted. Addictions are hard to cure! Again, unlike that in the case of MAW, people with Atlas complex might indeed be adding significant value to the organization and to coworkers. Afterall, if someone takes extra responsibility and consistently delivers on the same, it can indeed make life easier for people around him/her.

Here, the solution could be in terms of helping the person (in a non-threatening manner) to recognize his/her pattern of behavior and its consequences and to enable him/her to gradually switch over to a more appropriate pattern of behavior. Coaching can be very helpful in this context. Of course, the most important thing in such a situation is to enable the person to feel that he/she can add sufficient value (and hence maintain relevance in the organization) without having to resort to Atlas-like behavior.  

It is interesting to note that the Atlas Complex and Munchausen at Work (MAW) have similarities with what Scott Peck refers to as the two fundamental types of 'disorders of responsibility' – ‘neuroticism’ and ‘character disorder’. People with neuroticism tend to assume too much responsibility (like people with Atlas complex) and people with character disorder tends to assume too less responsibility/look after only their self-interest (like people with MAW) in any given situation. 

Atlas Complex and MAW are dysfunctional ways to seek relevance in organizations. There are indeed functional ways to pursue relevance, like enhancing one's capability, understanding of the organization, alignment to team/organization goals and hence enhancing one's contribution (value addition). However, these dysfunctional ways are quite common. It is possible that certain organizational contexts and leadership styles increase the probability of these dysfunctional ways occurring/becoming entrenched in the organization. 

Atlas Complex and MAW are by no means the only psychological disorders found at the workplace. Workplace pathologies are quite widespread both at the individual level and at the group/organization level. It can even be argued that many groups are held together by Convenient Collective Delusions. Maybe, part of these problems come from the fact that workplaces are still not the ‘natural habitats’ for most humans!

Any comments/thoughts?