Marshall Goldsmith
Co-Founder
Marshall Goldsmith Partners

My mission is to help successful leaders achieve a positive change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams.

Leaders need to get in the habit of asking their co-workers for ideas on how they can improve, carefully listening to these suggestions, developing plans, and following up on a regular basis.

Feedforward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.

Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams.

He has been ranked in The Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten executive educators and in Forbes as one of five most respected executive coaches, and in the Economist as one of the most credible consultants in the new era of business.

He developed the Goldsmith Coaching Process, a simple coaching method that can be implemented in a consistent way by trained professionals, enabling clients to achieve consistent results across any size population of leaders.

For more information about Marshal Goldsmith Partners, visit their website at www.marshallgoldsmith.com. Marshall's publications and additional resources are available at www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com

The purpose of the Learning Alert is to share best practices that help learners follow-through and improve their personal and business results.

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Recent Learning Alerts

Leaders Who Don’t Follow-up
Don’t Improve

Marshall Goldsmith
Special Guest Editor

We reviewed the leadership development programs of eight, very different, major corporations. All eight organizations had the same goal: To help leaders increase their effectiveness by better aligning actual leadership practices with these desired behaviors.

In all eight organizations leaders were asked to:

• Receive 360° feedback.
• Review their feedback with a consultant.
• Identify 1-3 areas for improvement.
• Discuss areas for improvement with their co-workers.
• Ask for suggestions on how they could become more effective.
• Follow-up with co-workers to get ongoing feedback and suggestions.
• Use a custom mini-survey to measure if they had become more effective (as determined by their co-workers).

Six Key Learnings

1. In all cases, the most important variable in predicting increased leadership effectiveness was the leader’s interaction with co-workers. Leaders who discussed their selected "areas for improvement" with their co-workers - and then followed-up with these co-workers on a regular basis - showed dramatic improvement. Leaders who did not have ongoing dialogues with their co-workers showed much less improvement. This was true whether the leader had an external coach, internal coach or no coach.

2. Frequency of interaction with co-workers is more important than duration of training programs or coaching meetings. Historically, leadership development has focused on the importance of an event. The experience of these eight companies indicates that real leadership development involves a process that occurs over time, not an "inspiration", "transformation" or "religious conversion" that occurs in a meeting.

3. The importance of follow-up was as critical to changing behavior internationally as it was domestically. This was true for both training and coaching initiatives.

4. Feedback or coaching by telephone works about as well as feedback or coaching in person. A common belief is that feedback or coaching is a very "personal" activity and that it is much more effective if done in person. Research conducted by these eight organizations does not support this belief.

5. Both internal or external coaches can make a positive difference. Internal coaches were seen as having the advantage of "knowing the business" and "understanding the key players". External coaches were seen as having the advantage of an "outside perspective" and "objectivity." The appropriate alternative appears to depend upon the unique needs and resources of the organization.

6. Training, when coupled with ongoing follow-up can make a huge positive difference. With today’s new technology, sophisticated follow-up systems are available to help ensure that follow-up occurs. As a general rule, the more the company follows-up with the leader, the more the leader follows-up with co-workers (and the more effective the leader becomes). One reason that coaching is so effective is that it helps inspire leaders to follow-up with their people.

Ideas for Action

Follow-up with leaders does not have to be costly. New computerized systems can send "reminder notes" and give ongoing suggestions. One of the great weaknesses in most training and development is the insufficient attention paid to follow-up. Many companies spend millions of dollars for the "program of the year" and almost nothing on follow-up and reinforcement.

The key learning from these eight companies is that leadership is about the relationship of the leader with his/her co-workers. If the organization can teach the leader to reach out to the co-workers, to listen and learn and to focus on continuous development, both the leader and the organization will benefit. This process does not have to take a lot of time or money. It does, however, require a lot of commitment and follow-up.

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