Conduct a careful analysis early on

- My husband Todd's a carpenter. Now, that's not his day job, he's a business owner, but he's really good at woodworking. Over the years, he's built beautiful furniture, swings, and even decks. The only thing that isn't great about this skill is that he's slow. He's artistic and precise. This of course contributes greatly to the beauty of what he builds, but I'm not really known for my patience, and have from time to time become annoyed with the slow pace of progress. When he builds, he lives by the old adage, measure twice, cut once. In other words, take the time to analyze exactly what is needed before you waste time and materials. This is an important part of designing anything of value, especially your leadership development program. If measuring twice means that you do a better job and you're more efficient in the long run, then it's worth the time it takes. You want your organization's leadership programs to fit like a well-tailored suit. Developing a pipeline of fully-equipped leaders requires much more than simply teaching new skills. It should also advance your strategy through increased sales, decreased cost, new customer acquisition, or whatever else you envision as a success metric for your organization. The only way to ensure that you have a program that fits your organization's unique vision and needs is to take time to measure twice and cut once. This can be done effectively through a speedy and thorough needs analysis. During the research phase, you'll want to validate what's needed. You may have preliminary data for this such as collective 360 degree survey findings or the results of an organizational culture survey, but you'll use this phase to ensure you're going down the right path. Here's what a thorough needs analysis includes. First, send a survey to all of the targeted participants in the program, regardless of how large this group is. For example, if you're building a program targeting all of your organization's leaders, you'll send the survey out to the entire group. If you're targeting your company's high potentials only, you'll send a survey to them, as well as senior leadership, because they know what's needed to get to the top seats. Second, a needs analysis also includes a deep dive into your organization's information so you understand its vision, values, culture, and strategy. Finally, you'll want to conduct interviews with senior executives and key internal influencers, both to ensure that they have a voice in what happens, and to understand their diverse perspectives on what's needed. Now in our case study, we focus on a staffing company that built a leadership academy for over 600 franchise owners. They literally measured twice by having two external vendors do the needs analysis, which revealed what competencies were needed to succeed and what their typical barriers were to getting there. Then the two vendors worked together with the internal team to create a draft or a straw man design to be used during the design phase of the leadership program. This eventually helped the company achieve measurable results. The concept of measuring twice and cutting once can try your patience, because I know you're anxious to start building. Trust me on this. Careful analysis in this early stage will help you move quickly when you begin building your program. It'll also keep you from having to back up and start over. It's worth the effort. And like a great carpenter, you'll be proud of the precision in your work once it's complete.