Quantum Leadership – Workshop 1 (Planning Process)
The Appleton Greene Corporate Training Program (CTP) for Quantum Leadership is provided by Ms. Feinholz MBA CLP Certified Learning Provider (CLP). Program Specifications: Monthly cost USD$2,500.00; Monthly Workshops 6 hours; Monthly Support 4 hours; Program Duration 12 months; Program orders subject to ongoing availability.
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Learning Provider Profile
For over 35 years, Ms. Feinholz MBA CLP has consulted to the leaders and management teams of evolving businesses, helping them improve their results and execute their business more profitably and productively. Her consulting services initially focused on helping these business leaders and owners learn how to set clear vision and strategies and expanded to improving how to operate their businesses by applying sound fundamental business principles throughout their organization.
Through her management consulting, executive coaching and facilitation, Ms. Feinholz transfers the tools and skills used in Fortune 100 companies to privately held and publicly traded businesses. In addition to her work with UCLA Medical Center, Avon Products, Walt Disney Imagineering, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority Mattel and WorldVision, she has consulted to over 250 small and mid-sized companies as they grow, change strategy and create new value. Her clients have included manufacturers, software developers, professional services Erms, start-up entrepreneurs and executives advancing their careers.
Ms. Feinholz‘s consulting activities include: working with management to clarify their vision and goals; identifying the new culture being targeted; prioritizing management decisions through planning activities; developing communication vehicles to create buy-in among management and employees, redesigning business processes, structures and organizational relationships and effectiveness, and designing and implementing leadership and performance management systems that help the organization get the greatest value from everyone’s efforts. Her work across the organization includes: leading internal teams in their participation in change efforts; facilitating implementation; and conducting training and coaching to transfer management methodologies, processes and skills to her clients.
Ms. Feinholz’s knowledge and experience in various technical, managerial and executive positions drew her to recognize that one of the key missing elements throughout her clients’ organizations was leadership adeptness.
As her client base grew, Ms. Feinholz became aware that many business leaders and owners, regardless of the industry or size or type of company, were not preparing themselves or their businesses for their eventual exit from their roles. She further determined that 3 Factors placed her clients’ organizations at risk.
First, businesses that had key technical and management functions optimized still neglected to put attention on installing the leadership bench strength required to stabilize an organization beyond the tenure of who was currently in leadership roles.
Second, whether an individual transitioned their role at the timing of their choosing or due to unexpected opportunities and events, every leader eventually progressed to more complex and strategic responsibilities. At times that meant they exited the company itself. Thus, the business needed to be prepared for succession events regardless of the circumstances.
Third, in tracking the information shared through employee exit interviews she was able to determine the effects the lack of strong leadership had on company culture, employee morale, and employee retention. She uncovered the fact that employees no longer see the C-Suite as the sole agents of leadership in the organization but expect it to be present and experienced more intimately throughout the organization.
Ms. Feinholz decided the best way to install those elements was to design and deliver a leadership development program that would effectively install the QL principles and practices at any level of title and arena of responsibility. That meant taking the best techniques of leadership theory, the insights of modern high-performance leaders, and incorporating adult learning followed by simplifying what was learned and systematizing it so that it can now be learned and installed in a broad spectrum of any organization’s business leaders.
The Quantum Leadership (QL) concept began in 2002 and has been repeatedly tested, implemented and refined for twenty years across industries and company roles.
MOST Analysis
Mission Statement
The first workshop, Planning Process is designed to launch participant’s growth in the arenas both of organizational leadership and of personal leadership capabilities and practices.
The workshop will teach the participants to research and identify the external and internal challenges their organization currently faces in recruitment, engagement, and retention of valued employees. We will set the groundwork for participating with HR Business Partners to impact the metrics and results of the organization to articulate the challenges of the organization
Many professionals do not fully understand their own leadership value, and they don’t have the roadmap for increasing their competence and leverage for stabilizing their employees’ experiences, increasing loyalty, and optimizing performance. confidently and make a bigger impact
Through the exercises in the workshop, they will begin to assess own their current capabilities as a leader, so they learn to present themselves as increasingly effective and impactful.
By the end of this workshop participants will be able to use 90-Day planning for the course as well as other initiatives in their areas of responsibility.
Objectives
01. Leadership Transformation: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Learning Curve Master: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Action-Learning Methodology: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. Compelling Conditions: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Organizational Objectives: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Setting Conditions: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Collaborative Evaluation: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Gap Analysis: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Quantum Leadership: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Assessments: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Creating Roadmaps: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Action Planning: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
Strategies
01. Leadership Transformation: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Learning Curve Master: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Action-Learning Methodology: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. Compelling Conditions: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Organizational Objectives: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Setting Conditions: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Collaborative Evaluation: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Gap Analysis: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Quantum Leadership: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Assessments: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Creating Roadmaps: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Action Planning: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
Tasks
01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Leadership Transformation.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Learning Curve Master.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Action-Learning Methodology.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Compelling Conditions.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Organizational Objectives.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Setting Conditions.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Collaborative Evaluation.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Gap Analysis.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Quantum Leadership.
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Assessments.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Creating Roadmaps.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Action Planning.
Introduction
This course is titled Quantum Leadership. Quantum refers to the smallest amount of energy or effort needed to produce the desired interaction or result. Each leadership process will be examined, learned, put into practice, and refined to reduce the time, effort and energy required for Quantum Leaders to play their role in the organization.
History
Whether referred to as The Great Reset or Resignation, the work-life balance shifts and workplace challenges being posed are here to stay. Each current leadership process and practice will be reviewed and evaluated for its tangible impact on the business’s benchmarks and the course’s KPIs and integrated into your ongoing leadership activities. The very first step in the corporate training program installing Quantum Leadership in an organization is creating a plan.
Current Position
In order to advance as leaders, each person needs to know both their starting point in terms of knowledge and skills, as well as the destination there are aiming for. Critical to leadership success is the fact that current research is showing that employees are becoming increasingly selective about where they wish to be employed and for what duration. Business leaders are facing an environment of forced organizational transformations to meet the challenges of employee retention and performance growth.
Each fundamental leadership practice requires re-thinking and redesign for the organization to stabilize its workforce and manage the soaring costs of employee recruitment and retention. The first workshop in The Quantum Leadership 2-year Program will examine what it takes for leaders to be successful in this turbulent business climate.
Future Outlook
Before diving into specific leadership practices, you will learn to research issues, analyze the current external and internal factors, assess their implications for the company, create plans to address them, and implement, adapt, and adjust the practices and processes required for success in leadership activities to affect the desired effective outcomes.
We will cover how to create a fixed plan implemented in 30 and 90-day cycles. Each 90-day plan will include your assessment of the current state of your skill, practice, or process, followed by creating a desired future state, a roadmap for putting the new processes into practice, and actionable steps to be undertaken between the workshops.
Accountability partners will be assigned. Check-ins and adjustments to the practices and processes will be designed and implemented during the focused span of each topic module. Upon completion of the project assignments, your results will be evaluated against the benchmarks and objectives set during the planning steps.
You will use the insights you gain through the span of the module to set the Quantum version of the Planning which will be incorporated into each next module. By the end of this workshop, you will be able to use research and planning for the course as well as other initiatives in your areas of responsibility.
Executive Summary
Chapter 1: Leadership Transformation
Each month we will deep dive into a key component of leadership transformation. Our objective is to transcend incremental process and skills improvement and truly transform your practices and skill set, and your organization, rendering it dramatically changed from its previous state. This radical shift is required for future success. As you progress through the course, we will use the following process to transform aspects of your organization and yourself.
Step 1: Assess existing driving forces. It is essential to explore the organization’s context as our first step. That means gaining clarity about the forces that have created the situation and what impact those forces have on business operations moving forward. We include the future, to understand how our business strategy, structure, tools, and culture must be different for success.
Step 2: Assess and analyze the current situation inside the organization. Next, we will reflect and document your organization’s current state. What is the starting point for our transformation? What is working, what is not working. Where are the current breakdowns and the breakdowns that can be anticipated?
Step 3: Identify new practices and structures. Transformation requires new behaviors, tools, practices, ways of working, and more. Together we will discuss best practices, innovations, and fundamental shifts so that you and your organization can prepare for a future unlike the past.
Step 4: Develop a change plan. Virtual transformation requires many layers of change to the organization. Planning must address behavioral change for employees and leaders as well as the adoption of new ways of working. Understanding the impact of these changes on constituents, communicating what needs to be different, and building effective learning programs is critical.
Step 5: Take action. None of it happens quickly, and nothing happens without change first occurring at an individual level. You will create a plan for transformation for yourself, your team, and your business. We will create accountability for you as you go through the course and ensure you are bringing in others in your organization for a collaborative, cross-functional effort.
Step 6: Evaluate results. The experience of performing the project step will be tracked and evaluated individually and discussed among the team to share and gain insights from each other’s experience in performing each step. On a macro level every participant will be learning the same information. Individual execution will vary as it is inherently matching the personality styles of each person in the long-run.
Step 7: Refining the practices will enable the team and each participant to master each practice and learn to use precisely the least amount of time and effort and attention required to use each practice and achieve the desired result – the Quantum version of each practice.
These steps will be used continuously during the Quantum Leadership Program. Some workshops will focus on one or more steps as relevant at that time and stage of the program.
We customize and tailor our programs when required to meet corporate clients’ needs and goals. That customization may take place throughout the program as participants and their HR Business Partners match the learning and application needs to the particulars of their organization.
Chapter 2: Learning Curve Master
Each of us encounters opportunities to learn throughout our day. Whether we avail ourselves of that opportunity is often a lightening quick barely conscious decision. To succeed in the Quantum Leadership Program, participants will need to choose to ‘stay awake and aware’ and continuously press through unfamiliar and uncomfortable new information and practices.
Understanding the Learning Curve will empower participants to press through those moments of discomfort and take on the new thinking and behaviors with increasing ease.
As explained in the video, the 7 Steps of the Learning Curve are:
1 – Having a vision
2 – Encountering new possibilities
3 – Seeing the choices and deciding on one
4 – Turning attention and awareness
5 – Getting support
6 – Breaking through
7 – Celebrating success
Chapter 3: Action-Learning Methodology
The Quantum Leadership Program is based on an Action-Learning Methodology. The idea behind the Action Learning Model is that a learner can gather knowledge by working with other peers in a group setting to find a solution to a problem or scenario. In doing so, learners will be able to not only develop their own skill sets and knowledge base, but also those of the group or of the organization.
Benefits of Action Learning include improved problem solving and leadership capacity. greater adaptability and resilience. individual and organizational learning from implementing new strategies or culture change, and increased effectiveness and profitability of your business.
One of the challenges of Action Learning is defining a problem that is the anchor for all the learning activity. Selecting a problem statement is one of the most important aspects in action learning and it needs to be done very carefully.
The problem which the QLP address is “How can leadership create organizational stability in an era of external demographic and socio-economic forces creating a tug-of-war on employee recruitment, engagement and retention?”
Although stakeholders in the organization may have a list of actions and metrics already in consideration, the QLP’s value is that it goes beyond blind adoption of other people’s work. In the first stage, participants research and develop their own thinking. In the second stage they meet with stakeholders such as their HR Business Partner to discuss the issues in depth and learn where the organization on those matters is at the current time. Together they come to an understanding that the QLP participants will use and refine during the span of the program.
Each Workshop contains Modules that evolve in a sequence that starts with Concepts or Key Factors for Success, then proceeds to Processes & Practices, incorporating Tools for throughout, and then some form of Implementation/Application. This enables immediate monthly implementation and experience and effect evaluation and refinement.
Team participants will engage in both individual and joint learning and individual application to their immediate circumstances. This prevents the “80% down the drain” syndrome that occurs when participants go away for their learning.
Chapter 4: Compelling Conditions
The Quantum Leadership Program has a very powerful Value Proposition: Companies that follow-through with this program will receive a 20-25% competitive advantage attracting the top employment candidates in their marketplace and lengthen the tenure of their valued employees by years. Further, this will show up in a number of dimensions, including productivity, innovation, cost effectiveness, employee retention, strategic leverage, rapid response, faster decision-making, agility and, most importantly, profitability.
Before launching any program of this importance, there must be a good answer to the central question “Why?” Everyone is challenged in their business with too many tasks and not enough time. People want to know the reason “Why?” they should make the The Quantum Leadership Program a major priority, devoting the time, focus, and commitment necessary to succeed.
Powerful forces in global business are driving the need for far greater leadership by all varieties of organization management, as well as between all types of business functions and technical domains. With the exception of the early years of computer-based technological innovations, in no other period in the history have organizations encountered so much change so fast. Leadership plays a critical role in navigating this change to stabilize companies.
Senior business executives are recognizing the value of leadership development to address the personnel and business stability impacts of these trends. Today, organizations see the value of investing time and resources in the leadership practices that will increase retention, morale and productivity.
For QLP participants to gain the most from the program, it is critical that they individually and collectively understand the forces that are straining organizational stability.
Chapter 5: Organizational Objectives
Successful delivery of the Quantum Leadership Program will depend upon how well Clients realistically define what success looks like. Clients must know what they want, otherwise “any bright shiny new trend” will pull participants off-course.
One of the key success factors of the QLP is for participants from throughout the organization to synchronize their perspective and leadership objectives with those of their HR Business Partners.
If outcomes and expectations are specific at the outset, the chances of success are dramatically increased. This will require engaging HR Business Partners in the organization who will be the beneficiaries of the results and will be sending participants. We, as Learning Provider, will mutually formulate preliminary Success Criteria, Key Factors for Success, and Performance Metrics early on. These will be refined and solidified in Phase Two: Design & Development.
This will involve formulation of Success Criteria, Key Factors for Success, and Performance Metrics. These need not be set in concrete at this point but must be clarified to the best of the Client’s ability to enable the Learning Provider to Deliver a program with results in alignment with what the Client expects. Knowing what you “want” for outcomes essentially defines what “winning” means in the organization between Client and Learning Provider. Unclear or unstated expectations at this stage are like “time bombs” which will explode later, usually in the middle of a Program, often with unsatisfactory results. Any unrealistic expectations should be addressed at this point.
Excellence in virtually everything is dependent upon quality metrics. Without identifiable measures, management is like sifting fog, and there will be no unanimity of vision, value, methodologies, and results.
These do not have to be set in concrete at this point but must be clarified to the best of the Client’s ability to enable the Learning Provider to deliver in alignment with what the Client expects. Knowing what you “want” for outcomes essentially defines what “winning” means in the organization between Client and Learning Provider. Unclear or unstated expectations at this stage are like “time bombs” which will explode later, usually in the middle of a Program, often with unsatisfactory results. Any unrealistic expectations should be addressed at this point.
Alongside Metrics must be Diagnostics which can be used to ensure the organization is functioning well and any emerging difficulties can be addressed before they create a crisis. The Program addresses these core Metrics Diagnostics of Health, which can be adapted to any organization’s unique culture and industry. Any annual review should include both these elements.
In many companies, before rolling out the Quantum Leadership Program, it is advisable to do a pre-program diagnostic base-line evaluation of how the organization is functioning. Then the feedback of the analysis can be used to engage different levels of the organization in analyzing problems, opportunities, and priorities for capability building. This provides two advantages: 1) it engages employees early on, and 2) creates a base-line standard against which a Program Review can be benchmarked.
As a participant in the QLP you may have little to no familiarity with the organization’s discussions, considerations and objectives. In order to develop realistic personal goals and project participation three steps will take place.
Step 1 – Participant Familiarization with the Issues & Terms – Metrics including, KPIs, KPAs, Leading and Lagging Indicators
Step 2 – HR Business Partner Education of the Participants – Detailed in the upcoming 90-days Module “Benchmarking & Setting KPIs”
Step 3 – Collaborative Goal setting covering Organizational results and QLP Participant skills building results
Chapter 6: Setting Conditions
There are two arenas of change and transformation that leaders can influence: Personal and Organizational. While a key outcome of excellent leaders is the shaping of the organizations culture and performance, the root activity is leadership that elevates the personal/professional maturing and resulting of the employees of the company.
Participants in the QLP are a rare breed. Think of it as being a combination risk taker and visionary. This makes them a valuable asset to any organization.
Transformational change is rare because the vast majority of people (99% of all adults and 92% of executives) possess an internal operating system that is wired for self-protection.
When someone is wired for self-protection, invitations to change or let go of what we know do not feel like an opportunity to advance or elevate. Instead, it feels dangerous. And, when something feels dangerous, we are going to double down on our self-protection and hold tighter to what we know. Since organizations are collective of people, organizations are equally resistance to change.
There are two roles leaders play for creating transformational change, both of which involve creating the right environment or conditions for change to occur:
Role 1 – Create an environment where people don’t feel like they need to be self-protective (i.e., create an environment of psychological safety).
Role 2 – Upgrading employees’ internal operating system so that they are not wired for self-protective, but wired for organization-advancing (The process of doing this is called vertical development)
Ryan Gottfredsdon describes three adult development stages:
Mind 1.0 – We are “good soldiers” programmed to fulfill the needs of safety, comfort, and belonging.
Mind 2.0 – We are “progress makers” programmed to fulfill the needs of standing out, advancing, and getting ahead (we are willing to be unsafe, uncomfortable, and not belong in order to stand out, advance, and get ahead).
Mind 3.0 – We are “value creators” programmed to fulfill the needs of contributing, elevating, and lifting others (we are willing to be unsafe and not stand out in order to contribute, elevate, and lift others).
As he points out, it’s important to understand the percentage breakdown of adults and executives and where they usually focus.