Assignment: Leader Assessments

By Allan H. Church

“If practitioners remain fixed in their mindset regarding the use of feedback tools for development only purposes (versus decision-making) they will become increasingly less relevant to senior leaders in organizations. In short, there needs to be a better balance struck between ensuring an emphasis on development while also adding demonstrable value (and ‘teeth’) to the strategic talent agenda.”

What Do We Know About Developing Leadership Potential? The Role of OD in Strategic Talent Management

Introduction

Research indicates that half of all senior external hires in corporations fail within the first 18 months and the costs are stag- gering (Bauer, 2011). Given the negative impact of poor talent acquisition and succession planning processes, CEOs and their Boards of Directors in organizations today are increasingly becoming con- cerned with corporate talent management practices as well as indicators of pipeline strength of C-suite leadership potential. “Do we have enough high-potentials for the future of the business?” is a real ques- tion on their minds particularly in today’s constantly changing and dynamic (VUCA) business environment. As a result, one follow-up question that is commonly asked of the Chief Human Resource Officer is “can we effectively identify and develop leadership potential in our employees, and if so, how?”

In turning to practitioners for answers, however, those with an organization devel- opment (OD) versus a talent management (TM) mindset are likely to differ signifi- cantly in their response (Church, 2013). A traditional OD answer to this question might be that everyone has potential and that all employees deserve and need development. A TM response, in contrast, would be that those with higher leadership potential should be identified and given significantly greater developmental empha- sis in order to build the succession pipeline and bench for the future of the business. This latter perspective would likely result in a new assessment or measurement process

designed to differentiate employees with high (leadership) potential.

In fact, this scenario of differentiat- ing talent is exactly what is occurring in the marketplace. Recent research with 84 “top development” blue chip companies, for example, has reported that 70% are currently using multiple methods to assess their senior executives and high-potentials (Church & Rotolo, 2013). Of those using assessments, 90% collect data on their senior leaders, and 75% include their high-potentials (compared to only 37% focusing on early career professionals). While the number one stated goal of these assessments is developmental, 60% of companies are using assessments for both development and internal decision-making (i.e., placement, staffing, and promotions). In addition, and perhaps most importantly for OD practitioners, the top three data- based tools that are currently being used for these assessment processes consist of multisource (aka 360-degree) feedback, personality inventories, and structured interviews, all at about 60% of the time (and often together).

Clearly, some of what are considered classic data-driven OD tools for change (Burke, 1982; Cummings & Worley, 2009; French & Bell, 1990; Waclawski & Church, 2002) are now being used quite broadly for purposes beyond just individual development. Bracken and Church (2013) have also noted this trend in the perfor- mance management arena as well with 360-degree and related upward feedback (e.g., at PepsiCo and other companies) now being positioned as a formal and legitimate

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measure of people results. In essence “the how individuals get things done” is becom- ing as important in many companies as the results achieved themselves. The “how,” however, has historically been the sole realm of OD feedback tools and interven- tions and has now entered the mainstream TM arena as well.

This shift in the use of individual feedback data for talent planning and performance management, along with the potential power of Big Data applications for the future of organizational change processes, means that OD practitioners need to significantly upgrade their data acumen and skills if they are going to meet the needs of their clients in the future. If practitioners remain fixed in their mind- set regarding the use of feedback tools for development only purposes (versus decision-making) they will become increas- ingly less relevant to senior leaders in organizations. In short, there needs to be a better balance struck between ensuring an emphasis on development while also add- ing demonstrable value (and “teeth”) to the strategic talent agenda. While clearly talent is not the only area in which OD practi- tioners can contribute, it does represent a critical business need today, and perhaps an opportunity to further enhance the impact of OD as a profession.

So what is the role of the OD prac- titioner in these types of strategic talent management efforts? The answer is quite murky. It requires understanding where OD interventions end and TM efforts begin, which is currently not a clean distinction in practice. In some organiza- tions, for example, OD groups have been folded under broader TM teams while in others they represent distinctly discrete sub-functions. This is largely because TM is neither a field itself, nor well defined even as an area of practice from one com- pany to the next. For example, Silzer and Dowel (2010) in their review of the practice of TM describe ten different definitions and include a list of 25 practice areas that are often included in what constitutes TM work. Interesting, a review of this list shows that a large number of these practice areas could also be said to belong to the field of OD as well. Take for example

reward and recognition, training and devel- opment, coaching, leadership development, diversity efforts, organizational culture initiatives, organizational values initia- tives, employee engagement, work and job design, etc. Do these belong to TM or OD now? So the bad news is that TM is just as widely defined today as OD has been historically.

The good news, however, is that this means that for some companies, if properly integrated with (and at the same time differentiated from) TM, OD practitioners have the potential to be even more relevant given the current emphasis on talent and leadership potential, development and succession. So, how do we bridge the gap here? How do OD practitioners make themselves integral to TM efforts? How do they avoid being seen by their TM col- leagues as primarily cultural change agents or interpersonal process experts? Perhaps if OD practitioners had a deeper understand- ing of the underlying conceptual nature of leadership potential, they would be in a better position to answer more strategically the CEO and CHRO’s question of “What is potential and can it be developed or not?” This, in turn, would enable them to play a more significant and strategic role in the TM and leadership succession agenda that is so critical to organizations today at the highest leadership levels. The purpose of this paper is to describe one of the key ways in which OD practitioners can play a major role in TM efforts by integrating the unique strengths of the OD mindset and TM mindset to form a holistic and comple- mentary approach to the development of individual leadership potential. The emphasis is on the nature of potential and specifically what we know about developing potential vis-à-vis a framework called the BluePrint.

What Do OD Practitioners Know About Potential?

If we look to the origins of OD and the espoused values of the field over the last 50 years, there is a clear and consistent emphasis on maximizing the growth of individuals and human potential. This is typically achieved through interventions

aimed at self-awareness, learning, and col- laboration. Putting aside the long-standing and largely irrelevant debate between pri- oritizing humanistic values over business performance (clearly both remain impor- tant to the field), very few practitioners or scholars would declare that OD is not about developing individuals and organizations. In fact, as many authors have noted, OD’s unique value proposition as a profession is based on the very premise of having normative, positivistic values regarding the process of organizational change and high standards of practice (e.g., Burke, 1994; Church, 2001; Gellerman, Frankel, & Ladenson, 1990; Waclawski & Church, 2002). For example, OD practitioners have been known to actually walk away from potentially lucrative engagements where other types of consultants might not consider the value structure of the work in which they were about to engage (Pinault, 2000).

So if OD practitioners are all about growth and potential at a general level, where are they when it comes to develop- ing or even identifying other specific forms such as leadership potential? The data suggests they are less facile in that area. More specifically, research recently done with 294 OD practitioners (Roloff, Fud- man, Shull, Church, & Burke, 2014), has reported that out of 63 different interven- tions and activities, providing training, process consultation, and executive and leadership development activities were the top #1, #2, and #3 most commonly used interventions today. Conversely, and to the main argument here, core talent management activities such as succession planning, individual assessment, and com- petency modeling were ranked 30th, 33rd and 38th respectively. In short, OD practi- tioners are not sufficiently engaged in TM efforts to have the impact that they could in these areas. Given the critical nature of differentiated development to TM, to be integral to the talent agenda would at a minimum require an understanding of leadership potential, including how to mea- sure it, and perhaps most importantly how and where to develop it. Put another way, if OD is about individual development what exactly are we developing?

53What Do We Know About Developing Leadership Potential?

Primer on Potential

It is fair to say that the question of “what is a high-potential” is one of the most hotly debated areas in the TM profession today. It is a popular topic at professional and industry conferences such as the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology’s Leading Edge Consortium (LEC) and many meetings hosted by the Conference Board. The subject has also become the target for attempts at market place differentiation by executive search (recruiting) firms and con- sultants alike in the assessment and staff- ing industry. As a consequence there are many models of potential in the field mak- ing the selection of an approach difficult for a company at best. Recently, however, there has been a movement toward a more unified and comprehensive framework that seeks to remedy the situation and help guide future efforts in the assessment and development area. The model is called the Leadership Potential BluePrint (Church & Silzer, 2014) and is based on a comprehen- sive review and synthesis of psychological and management theory, practice-based research, and multiple models, tools, and frameworks from consulting firms as well as a number of internal corporate TM pro- cesses (for a complete literature review and detailed theoretical comparison of existing available models of potential see Silzer & Church, 2009). The model is currently in

use at several large organizations includ- ing Citi-Bank, Eli Lilly, and PepsiCo as part of their formal talent management and development processes, and is the under- lying framework at several consulting firms as well.

While the BluePrint has been described in detail elsewhere, because the design of the model has significant and direct implications in how and where leadership potential can be developed, it is important to briefly summarize the major dimensions here. The most basic assump- tion overall is that potential is a multi- dimensional construct. Despite the claims made by some consulting firms today, there is no single all-encompassing mea- sure of high-potential. What is required for assessing and developing potential is a multi-trait, multi-method approach (Church & Rotolo, 2013; Silzer & Church, 2009). In fact, potential is best thought of as a mixture of both individual charac- teristics or traits, and specific capabilities, knowledge, and skills that each contribute in some way individually and collectively to long-term success in leadership positions in organizations. While the emphasis in most discussions of leadership potential is contextualized within corporate envi- ronments or for-profit organizations, the same basic premise does apply to any form of organization. So what are these core elements? There are three: foundational,

growth, and career (see Figure 1). These are layered in progression in the model from more stable traits to more developable skills and capabilities in leaders. Each is described briefly below.

Foundational Dimensions: Foundational Dimensions represent the most basic and enduring traits or attributes of an individual. These are characteristics that are either genetically determined and/or shaped early in life. They include two core factors: personality (e.g., traits, preferences, orientations) and cognitive capabilities (e.g., raw intelligence, strategic thinking, working with complexity, “connecting the dots”). As a result of the fundamental nature of these dimensions, they are gener- ally quite stable throughout one’s life and career and thus relatively easily understood and measured by many standard tools and instruments. In this context, high- potentials are generally identified as those who are smarter, more strategic thinkers, with a certain constellation of personality factors which include strong interpersonal skills, and perhaps above average inter- personal sensitivity and sociability to use the Hogan Personality Inventory (2009) parlance. Although many OD practitioners are familiar with similar types of feedback tools in this area as they relate to enhanc- ing self-awareness in leadership develop- ment programs and coaching (e.g., Burke

Figure 1. The Leadership Potential BluePrint

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& Noumair, 2002), the use of personality and cognitive measures for assessment of potential and selection into leadership roles in organizations has generally been the domain of I-O psychologists. This will need to change if OD practitioners want to have an impact on the talent agenda. Practitio- ners will need to become more comfortable with the TM vs OD mindset differences of differentiated assessment versus broad- based development (Church, 2013). For example, while some personality tools are excellent for individual development and/or team building interventions they may not be valid for predicting leadership potential or future success.

Growth Dimensions: Growth Dimensions reflect an individual’s ability and orienta- tion toward development and growth. This includes two core factors of learning ability (e.g., what some call learning agility, openness, adaptability, feedback-seeking behavior), and individual motivation (e.g., ambition, drive, achievement focus). The concept of employee engagement and organizational commitment (from the individual’s perspective not the organiza- tion’s) would also be included here. This is why the Corporate Leadership Council has this element included in their high- potential model (CLC, 2005) despite the potential misattribution to the organiza- tional level of analysis. These aspects of potential are comprised of the intersection between inherent traits and learnable skills and capabilities. Using these dimensions, high-potentials are generally character- ized as high-learners who are open to feedback and individual development and driven to succeed and advance. The classic interview question of “tell me where you see yourself in five years” fits within the context of this dimension of potential. In general, from an OD perspective, the level of ambition of a leader is often the target of individual coaching (sometimes even suggesting someone think about stepping off the executive track), while learning abil- ity via self-awareness efforts is more often the direct target of OD related feedback interventions. Arygris’s double-loop learn- ing concept (1977), for example, predates what are considered to be contemporary

experience-based approaches to leadership development and potential (e.g., Lom- bardo & Eichinger, 2002; McCall, 1998), although that was largely an organizational learning application versus a talent man- agement one. Still, there are some interest- ing areas of overlap.

Career Dimensions: Career Dimensions are the third and perhaps most widely targeted of the BluePrint areas in TM applications and certainly the most common in OD interventions and programs today. The two factors here include what might be consid-

ered as traditional leadership competencies (e.g., building trust, inspiring others, devel- oping teams, demonstrating courage), and pure functional and technical skills (e.g., functional expertise, operational excel- lence, business and industry knowledge). Given the traditional emphasis in OD on employee development and growth it is no surprise that these dimensions are the ones in which practitioners have the most knowledge and experience. Whether it is through data-based feedback mechanisms such as 360-feedback, organizational sur- veys, focus groups, process consultation, or even other types of interventions such as large-scale change implementations and Appreciative Inquiry, the emphasis of much of OD historically has been on building and embracing capability around the career dimensions (in the nomencla- ture of the BluePrint). Although there are a few areas that OD professionals might

still need to learn from a TM perspective, such as when and how to focus on empiri- cally based validity of their measures for Foundational Dimensions, working with the Career Dimensions are a clear area of strength for OD in general and one that easily translates to TM applications.

Developing Potential

Now that we have a better understanding of current thinking regarding the dimensions of leadership potential, the central question becomes one of enhancing individual capa-

bility. More specifically, as a field we know how to develop leaders but can we truly develop leadership potential? While many large companies such as GE, IBM, 3M, and PepsiCo along with other types of organiza- tions such as the military have deep histori- cal roots in leadership development efforts (Capelli, 2008; McCauley & McCall, 2014; Silzer & Dowell, 2010), the emphasis has largely been on programs, interventions and experiences that accelerate skills and candidate readiness for assuming leader- ship roles, not those that develop deep and innate future leadership potential itself. These are different constructs. The latter is a much more difficult puzzle to solve.

So how might we do that? Classic OD theory and literature indicates that data creates energy for change (Burke, 1994; Lewin, 1951; French & Bell, 1990). Given the increasing use of multi-trait, multi- method assessments in organizations today

Recognizing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to alter individuals’ personality or cognitive abilities after reviewing results from a feedback tool, it is very possible for individuals to build a deeper understanding of their core preferences and the relevant implications of these, and as a result develop new behaviors and work around skills. This can be done through coaching, mentoring, observation and spot feedback, and process consultation. To the extent that these new work around skills will help individuals achieve their performance goals and make an impact on the organization is likely to translate into enhanced potential.

55What Do We Know About Developing Leadership Potential?

(Church & Rotolo, 2013) there is a need to do something meaningful with all that information. Collecting that data and doing very little with it or using it to justify the wrong types of interventions will either have no impact or perhaps even negative consequences on the talent in the orga- nization (e.g., reduced engagement and increased turnover).

So how do practitioners go about responding to the challenge? The BluePrint provides some interesting answers. Some of these suggestions may not sit so well with OD practitioners, particularly those

who are proponents of the concept that any human quality can be cultivated through effort (e.g., Dweck, 2006). The overall outlook for OD practitioners, however, is quite positive if they are willing to focus their efforts in specific content domains where development efforts can potentially have the most impact. Let’s discuss each one in this context starting at the base of the model. Table 1 provides an overview of the content for discussion.

Foundational Dimensions: In general, we have a fairly limited ability to develop

Foundational Dimensions of leadership potential. In fact, focused OD interven- tions in this area (e.g., targeting “changes” in personality or cognitive specifically) are extremely difficult and probably not worth the effort if the goal is enhancing future potential. As noted early, growth and development are core values in the field and almost always included in the key objectives of an OD intervention be it large or small. Unfortunately, as much as we would like to believe that indi- viduals can grow and develop in every aspect, based on decades of research in

Table 1. Development Potential Using the Leadership Potential BluePrint

Dimension & Factors

Focus of Development

Possible OD Interventions Expected Outcomes

Career

• Leadership Competencies

• Functional & Technical Skills

Augment • Leadership development programs, action learning, task forces, special projects, new assignments design to enhance specific skills, integrated learning efforts

• Coaching, mentoring, job-shadowing, large group interventions, formal education, online learning

• Individual feedback and assessment tools (behavioral, values) linked to Career Dimensions

• Enhanced leadership skills and new behaviors on key strategically aligned competencies

• Deeper functional knowledge and skills or broader rounding out and exposure to a range of functional disciplines

• Increased self-awareness of Career Dimensions (strengths and challenges)

Growth

• Learning Ability

• Motivation & Drive

Engagement • Appreciative experiential learning, planning for critical experiences gained and needed from current and future roles, ensuring reflective learning and inquiry from assignments

• Collaborative career management, short and long-term individual career planning, visible support and targeted development to achieve employee goals

• Individual feedback and assessment tools (linked to Growth Dimensions – e.g., learning agility)

• Increased focus on and ability to integrate, learn from and apply learnings to new experiences and situations

• Renewed motivation, energy, and personal engagement to the work and/or organization

• Increased self-awareness of Growth Dimensions (strengths and challenges)

Foundational

• Cognitive Capabilities

• Personality Characteristics

Adaptation • Individual feedback and assessment tools (personality, cognitive) based on multiple sources that are valid measures and linked to different elements of leadership potential

• Targeted coaching and mentoring to develop new behaviors and work around skills

• Capability building around team composition and design

• Increased self-awareness and under- standing of implications of Foundational Dimensions (basic characteristics, abilities, and potential derailers)

• Creation of work around strategies and behaviors to augment strengths and mitigate potential issues

• Enhanced understanding of team composition and ability to design a group for maximizing capability mix

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industrial-organizational, personality, and cognitive psychology, it is clear that these elements of an individual simply do not change that much after a formative age, typically in one’s teens or earlier. In fact, one could argue that the only thing more difficult than changing an organization’s underlying culture is changing a leader’s inherent personality orientation or stra- tegic thinking abilities. Seismic changes in a company (bankruptcy, major acquisi- tion, massive turnover, divestiture, mas- sive ethics violation and investigation, or takeover) or an individual’s life (e.g., death, divorce, job loss, health issues) can lead to massive change quickly but that is not the norm. So, in this context, it is probably not worth pursuing a training course focused on directly improving a leadership team’s inherent level of strategic thinking capabil- ity (as an example).

Helping leaders develop in the context of Foundational Dimensions requires a more subtle approach. Because the focus at this level is on cognitive and personality characteristics (not leadership or func- tional skills for example that come later in the BluePrint) the emphasis should be on interventions that result in one or more of three outcomes: (a) increased self- awareness and understanding of implica- tions of basic and inherent characteristics, abilities, and potential derailers that accompany them, (b) developing specific work-around skills that allow individuals to adapt, enhance strengths and/or mitigate potential issues, and (c) building an under- standing of team composition and synergy. Fortunately, all of these areas are captured by interventions in the OD practitioner’s toolkit already to varying degrees.

Starting with enhancing self- awareness, and returning to some of the basic principles of OD, feedback is a powerful tool and catalyst for change. Formal structured feedback approaches in the form of multi-rater methodolo- gies have been in use in OD applications for decades dating back to the 1970s and 1980s. These tools became commonplace in the 1990s-2000s with the increasing popularity of 360-degree feedback and case applications (e.g., Bracken, Timmreck, & Church, 2001). Today they are standard

development tools in most major organiza- tions. The fact that many top development companies as noted in Church and Rotolo’s (2013) study are relying on a combination of multisource feedback and personality for assessment and development efforts with their high-potential leaders suggests there is an opportunity for OD practitioners to do something even more meaningful with that data beyond just sharing results back as in the classic OD mindset. Truly emphasiz- ing self-awareness by working with clients to surface individual characteristics (both personality based and reflecting intellec- tual capacity), and to understand resulting behaviors and impact on others, individu- ally and collectively, becomes key. Self- awareness is the most important outcome at the Foundational Dimension level of the BluePrint precisely because the emphasis is on implications and impact, and not on changing the internal fundamentals of the individual. Outward behaviors that result from these traits can be changed, however, and given that increased managerial self- awareness has been empirically linked to performance and potential across a variety of settings (Church, 1997), this is an area in which OD professionals can help meet both the humanistic and business effective- ness values for the organization by helping individuals learn to better adapt and flex their styles.

Enhancing self-awareness by itself though is of little value if there is no uti- lization of this information. Recognizing that it is difficult, if not impossible, to alter individuals’ personality or cognitive abili- ties after reviewing results from a feedback tool, it is very possible for individuals to build a deeper understanding of their core preferences and the relevant implica- tions of these, and as a result develop new behaviors and work around skills. This can be done through coaching, mentoring, observation and spot feedback, and process consultation. These new work around skills will help individuals achieve their performance goals and make an impact on the organization. As a result they are likely to translate into perceptions of enhanced potential. Thus, while we are not directly developing against Foundational Dimen- sions, we are helping individuals enhance

their ability to make the best use of their existing capabilities and mitigate the impact of such issues as personality derail- ers (Dotlich & Cairo, 2003). Moreover, one could argue that OD practitioners are likely to be superior at helping develop work around skills in their clients compared to other types of TM and human resource professionals specifically because they have a mental model grounded in process con- sultation, systems thinking, and behavioral impact.

The third area for developmental focus within the context of Foundational Dimen- sions of the BluePrint is the concept of team composition and a deliberate design for capability mix. Although a relatively simple concept, and one that has some similarities to group dynamics, this type of thinking has largely been left to the aspect of the team building arena where tools such as MBTI and FIRO-B have been quite popular in the history of OD (Burke & Noumair, 2002). Actually designing and staffing a partial or complete business unit or team with a specific set of complemen- tary skills and capabilities has not been a primary focus in most TM processes. Recently, however, frameworks are starting to emerge that suggest this could have far reaching impact on team performance. In addition, and perhaps more importantly to this discussion, if an individual leader is building a team or being placed in one that has been specifically engineered to fully capitalize on his or her foundational strengths, the likelihood of realizing his or her potential is that much greater. For example, consider a marketer with an extremely creative and imaginative orienta- tion but with a total lack of executional focus. Leading a team of other highly cre- ative marketers that individual may start off being seen as having significant potential, but might lose that potential over time due to lack of results. Some have called this transition going from “Hipo to ALPO.” By designing the team in a way to have others with strong implementation mindset in well-defined collaborative roles, the team will have significantly greater odds of being successful. To implement this effectively, however, would require OD practitioners to enhance their knowledge of the validity

57What Do We Know About Developing Leadership Potential?

of various personality and related tools for different uses (e.g., development versus decision-making) as some commonly used tools for team building are not valid for team composition. Still, this is an area where OD practitioners could truly make an impact on the talent agenda and one that is not yet owned by TM practitioners.

In sum, while the examples above are not actually about developing leadership potential per se (the Foundational Level of potential is largely fixed as has been stated), they are descriptions of using OD tech- niques to design ways for individuals to further develop their adaptive skills. These skills will in turn enable them to further grow and succeed as a high-potential in that organizational context. In short, and turning to the sample intervention noted earlier, the training program described would not be targeted at developing “stra- tegic thinking” but rather helping partici- pants build their own personal “strategic infrastructure” involving the work around knowledge, skills, and supporting team members needed to ensure success.

Growth Dimensions: At the mid-tier of the BluePrint there are the Growth Dimen- sions which consist of someone’s learn- ing ability and motivation or drive. These are what might be considered moderately developable characteristics as they are comprised of both trait and skill based ele- ments. On the trait side, there are aspects of personality that reflect both a propen- sity for learning or learning orientation as well as inherent motivation or ambi- tion. To the extent these are trait-based they are unlikely to change. However, research has shown for example that the construct of learning agility is somewhat fluid and a capability that can be developed through various interventions (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2000). We also know that an individual’s level of motivation and drive can change throughout their life stage, life cycle, and career (e.g., a hungry new hire, rising up and comer, seasoned and established leader) depending on various circumstances (e.g., company messaging around career prospects, promotion rates, perceptions of senior leadership, family or medical situations, etc.). As a result, the

OD practitioner does have opportunities to directly influence leadership potential at the Growth Dimension level at least to some degree. In general, this can be achieved through an emphasis on learn- ing through experiences and fostering engagement overall. The unique develop- ment outcomes expected here would be increased focus on learning and the ability to integrate, reflect on and apply learnings from experiences to new situations, and renewed energy and commitment to the work and/or organization and achieving results. Increased self-awareness would be a goal also.

Research and practice have shown that one of the most effective ways to develop the ability to learn and apply knowledge is to become immersed in learning activities and new experiences (McCauley & McCall, 2014). This can be done through more tra- ditional OD methods of job design and job enrichment in which enhancing learning is a byproduct, or through more contempo- rary approaches to planfully design a series of different developmental experiences to build leadership breadth. Although specific multisource feedback on learning related constructs and behaviors can be helpful in this area depending on what is being measured, there are many other effective methods for OD practitioners to use as well. Focusing individuals through active dialogue, observation, coaching, and reflec- tion on what they are learning from a role both during and after, and how it shapes their thinking about the people, situation, and context (and further learning as a result) is likely to have a significant impact on their future learning orientation. One way to think about this is as a combination of the power of Appreciative Inquiry as an OD methodology with the talent manage- ment practice of “assignmentology” to create something that might be called appreciative experiential learning. By focus- ing the individual on the positive learning aspects of the developmental experience and reinforcing openness and reflection, it is possible to develop leadership potential on this Growth Dimension. This increased capability will, in turn, continue to help the individual grow in the future at an increas- ing trajectory (a virtuous cycle) which

of course is supportive of a broader OD agenda overall.

The second aspect of the Growth Dimensions of a high-potential that OD practitioners can influence directly through development efforts is an employee’s indi- vidual level of engagement or motivation. Although similar in part to the classic need for achievement construct, the motivation factor is more about the current level of focused drive and commitment to deliver and grow, than it is raw ambition to be the CEO of the firm. While an individual’s internal level of ambition may always be present, certain conditions or factors in the organization or an individual’s external personal situation (e.g., life/career events) may be moderating their current set of choices. This might result in an individu- al’s expressed need to slow down, refuse a promotion or transfer, or even leave the executive career track or the organization all together. While clearly an organization’s culture, structure, mission and vision, and certainly reward systems (Burke, 1994) will all play a role in shaping employee motivation and performance, these are more strategic OD systems variables that take time to influence and shape. They are not individual level interventions specifi- cally designed for enhancing leadership potential. Still, they do represent a unique perspective that the OD practitioner brings that should be applied to the TM agenda at a broader level.

Returning to the individual, some of the key ways to enhance motivation and engagement in an employee is to engage in activities and interventions that directly focus on their development. This applies both in the context of expanded skill build- ing, variety, and new challenges in their current role (e.g., via job redesign, special assignments, or task forces) or planning for future opportunities and progression. One particularly impactful intervention in this area is to build manager capability to engage in collaborative career manage- ment practices. This represents a process of managers actively involving their team members in both the short and long term planned discussions regarding their goals, career aspirations, and perceived barriers to advancement. Rather than just asking

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about future preferences as many man- agers do anyway, the focus should be on conducting regular formal dialogues that result in a concrete plan (which is revisited several times a year) with distinct outcomes over the course of a fixed time horizon. Whatever the timeframe (e.g., PepsiCo uses 10-year career plans for some talent pools and annual plans for others), focus- ing on the long-term development and achievement of future leaders’ career goals can result in very positive outcomes. This will include renewed levels of engagement and more direct and candid discussions regarding the true degree of future poten- tial for the individual in that specific orga- nization. By instilling a planning process such as this, it forces the future potential discussion, and helps those that do not fit the potential profile self-select out of the talent pool.

Aside from the formal process of plan- ning itself, what is also somewhat different from this perspective is helping others (both the individual and sometimes orga- nizational leaders by implication as well) recognize that outwardly demonstrating a personal drive and commitment is not just seen as an important cultural outcome but also an indicator of future potential. In other words, because this aspect of motiva- tion and employee engagement is some- what malleable, and its absence is career limiting, as OD professionals we should be very focused on ensuring that future talent is energized and involved as much as pos- sible. This will ultimately result in fewer false positives (“we really thought they were a high-potential but they turned out not to be”) and false negatives as well. In sum, from an OD perspective the development emphasis in the Growth Dimensions is on engagement at multiple levels.

Career Dimensions: The last area for developing leadership potential are the Career Dimensions which sit at the top of the BluePrint. Because they are comprised of leadership and functional knowledge, skills and competencies they represent both the most commonly assessed areas and the easiest to develop and augment via traditional OD programs and interventions. The Career Dimensions are capabilities

that an individual accumulates over time that help to differentiate average perfor- mance from future potential. While some practitioners might argue that certain aspects of leadership in particular are also trait based and, therefore, cannot be developed, for example the debate between transformational versus transactional leaders (Burns, 1978), in the context of the BluePrint those trait elements would be reclassified to the Foundational or Growth Dimensions instead. Thus, if you remove the Foundational (i.e., interpersonal capability, strategic thinking, dealing with complexity) and Growth Dimensions (i.e., learning orientation, inspired, and passion- ate), you are left with those leadership skills that are much easier targets for focused growth and development interventions. In short, you can directly influence and develop these components of potential. The expected development outcomes here con- sist of (a) enhanced leadership skills and new behaviors on key strategically aligned competencies that define high-potentials in a given organization (i.e., contextually), and (b) deeper functional knowledge and skills or broader rounding out and exposure to a range of functional disciplines (depending on the target role or the answer to “poten- tial for what?” question). Again, increased self-awareness here is a given.

Generally speaking Career Dimensions can be enhanced quite effectively through a full range of OD methods and techniques including self-directed learning, formal and informal feedback mechanisms, integrated training and corporate university cur- riculums, residential leadership courses, action learning programs, mentoring and coaching, job shadowing, formal academic education, and apprenticeship, etc. These methods are so pervasive and established in the field of OD that a discussion of the pros and cons of each of these methods is beyond the scope of this paper. Moreover, as noted in the earlier study (Roloff et. al., 2014), training and leadership develop- ment are already ranked the number #1 and #3 most commonly used OD inter- ventions in the field today. In addition, all of the interventions discussed under the Growth Dimension apply here as well. The important point to discuss is the focus of

those leadership and functional capabil- ity building efforts particularly under the rubric of formal competencies and com- petency models. Most critical is the link to leadership development efforts and what exactly is being developed, and why.

Let’s start with three key assertions based on years of experience in the field. Number one: there is a finite number of leadership competencies in the world. Number two: 85% of all leadership com- petency models in organizations cover the same content at some underlying concep- tual level. Number three: customization of a leadership model to an organization is vital to its effectiveness. What these essentially mean is that while the leader- ship dimensions or content is generally the same across companies, the cultural nuances, strategic priorities, and language of the model (i.e., words, behaviors, labels) are unique. Therefore, the focus of develop- ment and coaching programs to augment leadership potential must be unique and highly targeted as well. In short, off-the- shelf cookie cutter leadership programs will not build bench (or augment poten- tial), nor will basic core functional skill training. Rather, it is imperative that OD practitioners work collaboratively with the organization’s leadership and TM teams to design customized and focused develop- ment interventions aimed at enhancing those specific competencies that are linked to being a high-potential for a given cul- ture, function, or role. This might mean targeting what is needed for a specific C-suite role, functional leader (e.g., Chief Financial Officer, Chief Marketing Office) or even the CEO of the company. In short, the answer to another key TM question “potential for what” needs to be answered, and that answer used to shape the specific leadership development priorities. The same logic applies to building functional capability in the Career Dimension.

Because high-potentials for a specific company or role as defined in the Blue- Print are somewhat context and culturally relevant (particularly the higher up the model you go), the focus on developing potential must also reflect this aspect. In practice this might mean having a targeted and highly engaging one-on-one action

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learning development program focused on influencing external stakeholders for only a handful of leaders to further develop their potential (i.e., differentiated development). Or instead, it might mean designing and rolling out a program on influence skills for 4,000 managers intended to raise the general level of influence capability overall (i.e., development for all). Develop- ing general leadership skills is unlikely to enhance an individual’s potential unless they happen to develop skills or behaviors in a key strategic area for that organiza- tion. The bottom line is that just because you provide a leadership development program does not necessarily mean you are developing leadership potential for the future of your organization. You might just be helping round out good people leaders. While this sounds like an easy distinction to make, there are many practitioners who for a variety of reasons cannot get beyond a core type of leadership development approach. Fundamentally, the focus here is on augmenting or increasing individual leadership potential based on a specific set of required competencies for the future of the business.

Conclusion

In general, the answer to the central ques- tion of this paper “what do we know about developing leadership potential?” is quite a great deal. Although there are many mod- els in the field today the BluePrint provides a comprehensive and inclusive framework based on a synthesis of the academic and applied literature and research. The answer to the companion question “can leader- ship potential be developed?” however, is it depends. How you define leadership (or high) potential determines what you can measure and subsequently develop. If a company believes that potential is solely about mental horsepower then there is not much hope of fixing that despite what some positively minded practitioners might optimistically suggest. In this case, exiting of current individuals and selection and acquisition of new (smarter) talent would be required (Capelli, 2008).

If we use a more multi-dimensional construct such as the BluePrint, however,

as our framework for leadership potential then the answer to our question about developing potential is a definitive yes. Organizations can implement programs, processes, and interventions that will develop certain aspects of leadership poten- tial at different levels of impact throughout an employee’s career. The most efficient and immediate target of such efforts would be on augmenting those unique Career Dimensions (i.e., leadership and functional capabilities) that define and differenti- ate future potential for a given organiza- tion. This would be followed by efforts to enhance Growth Dimensions including learning capabilities and engagement through the use of developmental experi- ences and collaborative career planning. Efforts here will be more challenging but can reap longer term benefit through a virtuous learning cycle (or loop). Finally, using empirically valid feedback tools and processes designed to enhance self-aware- ness and build adaptive skills to assist with the realities of Foundational Dimensions are very important as well. Though argu- ably you cannot improve someone’s mental horsepower or their level of conscientious- ness, you can help individuals learn ways to build on strengths and develop work around opportunities which will help them succeed in the future.

Of course all development requires resources. Not every organization will have access to the same level of support to design and implement all of the inter- ventions needed to develop leadership potential from every aspect discussed here. Often tradeoffs must be made, which will again raise the philosophical debate of developing the many versus the few discus- sion between the TM and OD mindsets. Still, the good news for senior leaders and human resource professionals is that there are excellent (and probably underleveraged) opportunities for their OD colleagues to apply existing skills and interventions to solve critical strategic talent issues in com- panies today. By doing so we will continue to bridge the gap between OD and TM, which is critical as both perspectives are needed to support a total systems approach to organization performance and change (Burke, 1994).

It is always useful to remember, however, that assessing individuals creates significant energy for change both positive and negative. Given that assessments are on the rise in major corporations, so too is the need to do something meaningful with that data to support both the growth of the individual and the organization. Practitio- ners should ensure that the data is used wisely going forward. OD professionals can play an important role here but only to the extent that they have the requisite knowl- edge and skills to appropriately guide cor- porations on the selection and use of tools for various talent and succession processes (Church & Rotolo, 2013).

In the end, implementing the best approach for measuring and developing leadership potential in an organization is one of the most important contributions that practitioners can make to the business. Although the tension between advocating development for the many versus the few will continue between the OD and TM mind- sets, in the context of enhancing leadership potential there are many situations and applications where these two perspectives can peacefully coexist. OD practitioners have the skills and intervention toolkit to make a significant and meaningful impact on the leadership and talent agenda in organizations today. They can do this by focusing on the development of the right capabilities and supporting insights that will enhance the future potential of lead- ers for their organization. They also are in a unique position to bring a systems perspective to the talent agenda which is often not the core orientation of many of those in TM roles. This can help ensure that the context of potential (i.e., potential for what) is fully understood during the development process.

It has been said that the ROI of a TM function will be defined by the quality of the talent that is identified, developed, and advanced into higher level leadership roles throughout its tenure. Perhaps the ROI of an OD function (in the context of this dis- cussion) should be defined by the degree of leadership potential that is directly enhanced through its targeted individual growth and development efforts.

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Allan H. Church, PhD, is the Vice President of Organization Development Global Groups and Functions, and Executive Assess- ment at PepsiCo. Previously he was a consultant with Warner Burke Associates for many years and worked in marketing and personnel research at IBM as well. On the side, he has served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, a Visiting Scholar at Benedictine University, and past Chair of the Mayflower Group. He has written over 150 articles and book chapters in both scholarly and applied publications. Church received his PhD in Organizational psychology from Columbia Univer- sity. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial- Organizational Psychology, the American Psy- chological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. He can be reached at [email protected].

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