A bright spot on the leadership development horizon

Field notes from the final installment of my time delivering a custom executive education program for Genentech. 

What if we invest in developing our people and they leave?  What if we don’t and they stay?? 

This old joke has started to take on a level of reality that I am surprised by, with companies largely abandoning the systematic development experiences that often accompanied their career planning process.   

I mean when even GE sells off their famed Crotonville facility, you know big changes in the learning space are afoot – not all of them positive.   But there are still some bright spots, as I’m fond of saying, in corporate education efforts. One such bright spot is the executive education program I lead for Genentech, which culminated last week. This is part of their gLEAD (Leadership for Executive Advancement and Development) which aims to accelerate the advancement of talent across the company in novel ways.   

Last week was the last of four modules, and it’s been interesting to see the uptake in senior leader participation. Cohort One had a smattering of senior leaders. Cohort Two had a few more. And Cohort Three showed nearly 35 very senior people coming to New York to hear the project presentation. It’s a good sign that the lessons are really taking root at the highest levels of the organization.  

Day One 

We started off with a stunning session with my colleague, Robert Fullilove, who joined us remotely from India, where he was working with one of our Global Centers there in a special program on "Innovative Healthcare Approaches for Underserved Communities.” Robert has a joint appointment with our School of Public Health and our School of Social Work and was part of the student organizing committee in the early days of the civil rights movement. It was moving to hear him speak about his experiences and to come away feeling both challenged and inspired.   

He made the excellent point that in this kind of work, you see advances and you see setbacks. We talked about the backlash around DE&I that firms are struggling with, especially in determining what programs they want to move forward with and what programs they want to rethink. He underscored that COVID-19 was a collective trauma and cautioned against the leaders who are trying to just snap back to 2019, without doing the work of healing and reconciliation.  

That afternoon, we had Bob Bontempo join us to discuss leading change. (We were lucky to have a “two Bob day!) His work focuses on different kinds of leadership and how leadership interacts with different social styles. By understanding these, you have greater insight into what information people most need when you’re trying to enlist them to your cause.   

• People that we call drivers really need to know what the outcomes are that we're trying to drive. They need facts. They need data. They absolutely need to know ROI, past, present, and future.   

• People that are analytical need to know what future data we might be able to get out of this thing, and how we are going to understand it. 

• People that we call amiables are people-people who knit together different stakeholders. They need to know how changes will affect the people in our community. 

• People that we call expressives, (of whom I am one), really like to see the vision. They like to know what the big picture is, and they like the excitement of getting-going.  

And it turns out that in any change effort, you really need all four types. So to create a sense of constructive dissatisfaction, you need people who can see the data and understand what the gap is between what the organization's doing and what it could be doing. For people that are analytical, they need to know how all the pieces fit together. For people that are expressives, they need to know the vision, and how we plan to execute it. And indeed, the people that really bring it all together are the amiables, who bring together different groups to create a greater sense of understanding.  

So concluded our first day, which was followed by, in my case, an event I did with Interbrand, but more on that later.  

Day Two 

I kicked off our second day Genentech with my work on Seeing Around Corners, with a discussion of why companies so often miss what I'll call “gray swans". These are not “black swans” which are genuinely unprecedented events but are turning points for which we've had a lot of data and signals, but the timing is not clear. We gained more insight into why companies have so much difficulty coping with those. The team was pretty enthusiastic about embracing some of my frameworks how exactly you can see around corners, by picking up on early warnings, weak signals, and leading indicators. 

My colleague from the School of Social Work, Linara Davidson Greenidge joined us together with her colleague from Snap, or more properly, a company called Dandelion. They’re known for their Councils, which is a process where people get to know one another and connect over their shared humanity. The process of making Councils was started by Snap’s founder, and they’ve begun to share that process with other not for profits. We closed out the day by connecting and and relaxing in small groups before the big day, when the senior leaders would be coming in to hear the final presentations. 

We wrapped up Wednesday with my colleague in the School of Music, Chris Washburn, who teaches a wonderful session called “Leadership Jazz.” As a musician, he pulls together groups of people who've never played before, and they make beautiful music together. He’s found that it’s a great metaphor for how people can come together around a common theme with a few simple rules and deep respect for each other's capabilities and create something great. 

Day Three 

Thursday marked our group presentations, which many of the senior leaders have said was just the best day in their year. We talked about topics like digital health. We also discussed how to get people into an executive development pipeline, and help them feel a real sense of belonging. Part of this conversation was discussing how we might use AI and other digital tools to achieve these goals of development and belonging. 

Bob Bontempo (alas, this was just a “one-Bob” day) returned for a session on feedback and the concept of “leading side by side” for both the leaders and the participants. After our participants delivered their final presentations, we had our graduation where Adina Sterling, one of my Columbia Business School colleagues, gave opening remarks. The graduates received their Certificate in Business Excellence, and have now moved to the next stage. We shared more on the benefits of our Columbia Program in Business Learning, such as a Columbia email address, and a discount on certain kinds of programming, which our Genentech participants are now entitled to. We closed our time together with discussions of how to take this work forward, including a roundtable discussion about mapping the future and reflecting on what they've been through.  

I’m really impressed by the work this group has achieved together. Still to come are plans for what our collaborations together will look like next year. I think this could have a huge impact on Genentech as a whole, and as a result, on healthcare and healthcare delivery. I'm very excited to be watching these inflection points unfold!