Develop Top Potentials

Amsterdam, Holland 2008. Global brand Philips Electronics had flown in over 400 of their Top Potentials for a two-day workshop. I had the honor not only of designing the event but co-authored the supporting materials. Its purpose was to help bridge the gap between these individuals’ abilities as successful managers and their capacities as future leaders.

As a strategically focused organization you know the value of developing your top talent as part of your succession planning and business growth efforts.

You are likely one of the 84% of high-performing organizations that the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) reported was investing in leadership developing programs.

Perhaps you are also finding, in line with i4cp’s 2011 Leadership Competencies Survey, that “while the commitment to leadership development is clear, only 23% of all business leaders…characterized their firms as “strong at developing future leaders” to a high or very high extent.”

If your existing efforts at developing future leaders isn’t working for you, have you considered the multiplicity of benefits you could experience by supporting your top potentials to write a business book?

Whether it’s a short, electronic “manifesto” or a full-length book, here are some of the leadership characteristics that I help to insource from corporate authors who work through my 7-step process. The ability to:

• Look beyond a single outcome and generate a broader vision.
• Analyze the current capacities needed to execute on that vision.
• Identify a target audience and evaluate the relevance of ongoing communications.
• Synthesize two or more concepts to create unique solutions.
• Establish beneficial relationships with key influencers.
• Use higher-level thinking skills to scope, structure, and produce value-creating content.
• Execute strategically, not merely tactically.

Liz was an amazing collaborator: professional, creative, fast and lots of fun. I would have the utmost confidence to hire her to do almost anything!
Kirsten Menes, Sr. Director Global Talent Management, Philips International.

In my experience, there is nothing like moving through a challenging book development process to improve the quality of a person’s strategic thinking, decision-making, and innovative problem-solving skills.

In addition to enhancing your top potentials’ capacity for thought leadership, your organization will have proof of that credibility in the form of a published book. Plus, you have valuable content that can be used to boost your brand, attract more and higher paying clients, and share wisdom internally.

Interested to learn more about how we might scope out a project like this for your future leaders? It’s worth an inquiry, surely? Email me today and let’s have that conversation.

Check out this recent guest blog post on thought leadership.