Many of you have heard me rail against so-called training methods that prove ineffective. Long story short, lots of training is a waste of time and money. At least that’s the way I see it.
The January 2014 issue of the McKinsey Quarterly contains an article that echos that sentiment. The article—“Why Leadership Development Programs Fail”— outlines four common mistakes that contribute to the leadership development failure.
One of the four mistakes referenced in the article has to do with ineffectively addressing an individual’s mind-set. In other words, most leadership development programs don’t deal with the root cause of behavior—namely the individual’s mind-set.
While the authors have a slightly different view of ‘mind-set’ than I do….the gist of our views is common enough not to quibble with.
In writing The Power of Professionalism I made a commitment to deal with the root causes of behavior—namely to identify the mind-sets held by trusted professionals. Get the focus on the right mind-sets and a lot of things (behaviorally, for the student) naturally takes care of itself. Get the focus on the right mind-sets and now you’re (managerially speaking) leveraging your training investment.
Apparently one of the world’s premier consultancies now sees it that way too!