At the start of every sports season players participate in intensive training to practice skills and perfect plays.  Football players practice blocking, catching, intercepting, and throwing.   Baseball teams practice batting, fielding and running the bases.  But it isn’t until the teams actually “scrimmage” that the coaches can see the talent of each player.  In these real-time scenarios, players are tested on how they perform under pressure to deliver plays and make quick decisions, while the team, as a whole, is assessed on how well they function collectively and accomplish the goal of winning.

Likewise, in the corporate world, leaders participate in training events.  Whether attending a workshop, completing an online course, participating in an assessment, or receiving coaching, leaders are preparing themselves for the real world.  Those organizations that offer experiential learning are, in a sense, testing and evaluating their leaders in real-time – a workplace scrimmage.

Below are examples of three companies that have designed different types of experiential learning events for their leaders.

Sun Microsystems – Simulation
At Sun Microsystems, a program called Leadership Connections includes a custom-designed award-winning business simulation.  This sophisticated program presents real-life business cases to senior-level executives, who work in teams to run a fictional company that looks very much like Sun itself. The CEO and Executive Leadership Team were highly involved in the design and piloting of the simulation.

Several measurements are in place to evaluate the effectiveness of Leadership Connections.  For example, they found that 99 percent of directors rated their understanding of Sun’s strategy as high after the simulation, vs. just 30% before the program began.

For the complete story, members can click here to access the case study.

HP – Job Rotation
The executive council-sponsored director-level rotation program at HP enables participants to take on a new job in a different business, function or geography, which helps to ready high potentials for their next roles.  

During the program, participants are assigned an external executive coach, who takes them through a two-hour behavioral interview, which is then followed by the creation of a development and coaching plan. The hiring manager also assigns a mentor to help get the individual up to speed as quickly as possible. 

The value of the rotation program at HP includes:

• Business Exposure – The breadth of exposure to different businesses helps participants glean fundamental and universal business principles that build their own philosophies about business leadership.
• Networking – The exposure to other leaders and being able to have candid conversations with peers is really valuable.

For the complete story, members can click here to access the case study.

Cisco Systems – Action Learning
Through its Center for Collaborative Leadership and a high degree of executive engagement, Cisco has built one of the most progressive and hands-on approaches for leadership development, referred to as the Executive Action Learning Forum (E-ALF).

The 15-week E-ALF program is designed specifically to foster leadership in an innovation-oriented culture and to transform Cisco’s business culture from entrepreneurial to collaborative.  Using an approach that includes academic study, role play, and the development of a product or business idea that the company will invest in or that will have a bottom-line impact, E-ALF allows individuals to experience a true leadership experience while at the same time executing company strategy.

To date, the E-ALF has resulted in the launch of several businesses. One is the widely publicized SmartGrid, in which the company will make communications devices for the electricity delivery system. Cisco estimates the project is worth $20 billion over the next five years.

A case study that describes the E-ALF program in detail will be published in August.

Summary
Experiential learning is a critical element in a company’s leadership development strategy and program design.  More than training, experiential learning

• enables leaders to apply learning and receive feedback in real-time, and
• provides companies with an opportunity to observe, first-hand, the capabilities and potential of their leaders.

Do your leaders have an opportunity for the structured application of learning?  What kinds of experiential learning activities does your company use?  Send me an email with your comments at kim.lamoureux@bersin.com.