Perform now and maximize your potential to perform in the future. Roger that!
Photo by Geran de Klerk on Unsplash
When was the last time you worked on improving a skill? If you’re like most professionals intent on success, this probably happened today. We’re always working on skill development, from being more concise in our communications to being better at delegating responsibilities. Think of this as “horizontal development”, expanding our capabilities through learning and the continual pursuit of practicing and mastering our repertoire of skills.
Organizations command performance today. A lot of organizations invest in talent development, to increase readiness for more complex and challenging roles in the future, too. Coaches use specific assessments to dig deep into this.
Performance and Potential are two different things, and it easy to fall into the mindtrap that strong performance and the delivery of good results, will translate into our development as a leader and future fulfilment and success.
My approach as a coach is to work on what we face today, and how we are equipped to perform today, for short term benefit and momentum. And in tandem, work on how we think about the future, indeed how we elevate our order of thinking for realizing our full potential in the future.
But, when was the last time you worked on developing how you think?
Chances are you’ve never worked on this. Most of us aren’t even aware that this is possible. We think how we think, right? Consider developing your way of thinking as “vertical development”. Vertical development is harder and takes longer than horizontal development. It’s value lies in increasing your capacity to operate and lead in high stress, often dealing with challenges, complexity, even chaos. See my earlier post on unleashing hidden capacity in your organization through vertical development.
Without a doubt both horizontal and vertical development are important for leaders, and we can pursue both in tandem. As a developmental coach, I co-create possibilities with my clients through inquiry. Let’s consider a current example.
Roger meets the LDP
For Roger, working through the Harthill Consulting Leadership Development Profile (LDP) helped him understand how he thinks and where he is in the potential range of how he interprets and acts in his world. “My LDP report and coaching discussion was fascinating. I hadn’t been able to express some of my feelings and thoughts as a leader, given I am relatively inexperienced managing teams. I had a lot of tension about my style and the different background and experiences I’ve had, and how I think compared to how others think. I believe I suppressed this, as I’m so busy and keen to get more leadership experience under my belt. The report gave me the realization that I do think differently from many leaders, and that this is a good thing. It’s fine for me to have my own leadership style and be comfortable in being different, and open to others and their styles.”
Understanding the Harthill Consulting Leadership Development Profile
The LDP is an assessment tool that uses a sentence stem and response method. For context, some sentence stem examples are:
A good boss…
I dream about…
A digitally connected world…
The LDP provides an illustration of how we tend to think, and through research conducted by Bill Torbert and David Rooke (of Harthill), outlines the 7 stages of adult development, ranging from Opportunist to Alchemist. Each stage, and the later stages are “post-conventional”, in other words it’s rare to find Alchemists in organizations. At later stages we have expanded our capacity for self experiencing, for considering and holding a broader range of perspectives, and processing more complexity.
Generally speaking, we need time, a range of experiences, and exposure to a richness of different environments, in order to progress through the different stages. It’s unusual for a younger person relatively early in their career, for example, to be able to operate as a Strategist. (For a deeper dive into the framework, visit the Harthill site here).
Being different can be hard
Roger has a curious career history, characterized by working very closely with senior leaders in Innovation, in strategic, start-up, and NPD roles. When I first started working with Roger, his ability to think differently was apparent. While 54% of leaders profile as Achievers in the LDP, Roger profiles as an Individualist. This was helpful to reflect on in our coaching, exploring how he makes meaning of tasks, strategy, his development, mindset and behaviors. Deep inquiry yielded several breakthoughs in understanding, and coming to terms with some conflicts and tensions he faced as a leader. He understood how he was often pulled into an Expert or Achiever mindset because that’s how most of his colleagues operate, and frankly that’s where a lot of focus should be. Sometimes when flexing his Individualist, by considering alternative approaches, or advocating unusual paths forward, people were confused and not ready or able to collaborate with Roger. And yet, his capacity to absorb complexity and encourage more creativity is of huge value to his organization. Through more awareness and our coaching, Roger created a plan for skills and practices that would support both the Achiever and the Individualist in him. His awareness of which mode he was operating in, and when, yielded breakthroughs in effectiveness and personal fulfilment.
Change happens slowly then all at once
Based on the new understanding that the LDP report gave him, Roger was able to see more clearly what it is to rely on a team to get things done, and his role in it.
As an example, in the early days of the organization Roger had his hands in everything; he was the expert. But everything isn’t a thing people can see to see who you are. “There are responsibilities that matter and some that are task-oriented and won’t add value. We work with a lot of data, and I have deep data expertise. I can do that easily. But should I be doing it? What I should be doing is helping ten people write their articles based on the data.”
Recognizing that his value can be expanded by multiple factors depending on where he chooses to focus his attention has helped Roger identify his path in the organization, and helped the organization scale.
Tools for thought
Using the LDP assessment coupled with expansive and deeper coaching helped Roger make sense of his differences and will serve him well in more senior roles in the future. In addition to investing in your skills development, investing in thinking development “elevates your operating system” critical for transformational capabilities such as positive use of language, enabling differences, holding multiple perspectives & possibilities, and exercising systems leadership.
What might be possible for you in elevating your thinking? If you are interested in re-tooling the thinking of leaders in your organization, using the Harthill LDP and developmental please reach out for more information.
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