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iLEAD Development Centre Summary Report A Sample August 2016

iLEAD Development Centre | Summary Report

©2016 Pearn Kandola LLP

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INTRODUCTION This report has been written for you as part of your personal development in preparation for the Future Leader Development Programme. This ground breaking leadership programme will offer you a unique opportunity to review your leadership style, to build your leadership skills and to take a step further in building your overall leadership capability.

Probably the most common question I get asked by our people is “how do I progress?” The question often manifests itself in different forms. These range through simply “I want to do well” to “I'd like to get paid more” to someone expressing a desire to achieve a specific role

At the heart of the conversation is always a desire to understand how a career can be progressed: "what do I need to do, to get where I want to?" To obtain this clarity requires an awareness of the expectations the business has at each point of career progression. The Career Development Path will help guide you on your way.

The report will give you a unique and personal insight into your strengths and areas for development, using the Leadership competencies as a benchmark for what is expected of you as a leader.

Enhancing your understanding of yourself - through this report and the Future Leader Development Programme - will be essential in your journey towards outstanding leadership.



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REPORT OVERVIEW You have completed the iLead Development Centre in preparation for the Future Leader Development Programme. This report contains a summary of your performance against the Business Leadership behaviours, based on your responses to the different exercises on the iLEAD platform. It also provides you with guidance and tools to shape your own development.

The core sections are:

> The Business Performance Expectations – An overview of the behavioural framework which defines excellent leadership.

> Your Leadership Style – Insight into your personality preferences and working style based on two personality questionnaires.

> Your Leadership Judgement – Feedback on your decision-making capability across a range of typical leadership challenges.

> Your Personal Motivators – An overview of your key sources of personal motivation and what drives you to perform at your best.

> 360-Degree Feedback – A summary of performance feedback gathered from colleagues and management.

The final sections of the report give an overview of potential development activity (e.g. goal planning) and suggestions for your own continued development.

The report is designed for you to share with your Line Manager and should form the foundation for further conversations about your personal development in the future. You may also want to share aspects of the report with your coach and colleagues during the High Potential Development Programme. Each section has been designed to enhance your understanding of your strengths and development areas. This information will be invaluable for your continued success and progression within the business.

Practical guidelines When interpreting the data in this report, the following may help:

> Take some time to reflect on the comments and advice and consider how to factor these into your personal development.

> Remember to use this information in combination with what you know about yourself already. This is only part of the 'jigsaw'.

> Consider your strengths and how you can capitalise on these.

> Bear in mind that strengths can also be overplayed which can place a risk on your overall leadership style and approach. How can you manage this?

> Identify for yourself where your development priorities lie and be realistic about which areas are ‘risks’ to be managed and which can be turned into potential strengths



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LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOURS

Introduction The development of the Leadership behaviours, tailored to the current and future requirements of the business, is an important step for your leadership journey. The behaviours provide clarity, for you as a leader, about what high performance leadership means for you and provide a consistent and integrated approach to high performance leadership across the business.

This Leadership Development Programme will use the behaviours as the basis for growing and developing your leadership strength and will form the foundation for your development activity.

The Leadership Behaviours

For more detail of each Leadership Expectation, please see the Appendix.



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YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE

Introduction Our personalities impact our work greatly: not just in terms of what we do, but also in terms of how we do it. Results from personality questionnaires can therefore be instrumental in helping us understand our working preferences and leadership style alongside their associated strengths and risks.

Based on your personality preferences, the profile below illustrates some of your key leadership strengths and potential risks across the Leadership Behaviours.

It is important to note that personality profiles provide us with an indication of how you prefer to work, rather than your ability to do something. Therefore, this section of the report is designed to provide you with feedback about potential strengths and risks. It should be read not as a series of conclusions about your ability but as hypotheses which you should investigate further.

Suggestions are made as to the likely impact of your style in different contexts and you are encouraged to interpret the report in terms of the current and future challenges you face.

Your Leadership Style

Communication 2

Teamwork 2

Client Service 3

Achieving Results 3

Preventing and Solving problems 4

Leading and Motivating 3

Key

4 High Performance Your leadership style indicates this to be an area where you feel most comfortable and therefore a potential significant strength to leverage.

3 Competent Your leadership style suggests this to be an area where you feel broadly comfortable, although some aspects may suggest minor risk to be considered.

2 Development Needed Your leadership style indicates this to be an area of some potential strength although some aspects suggest clear risks to your future performance.

1 Clear Risk Your leadership style indicates a strong level of disconnect between your natural style and the behaviours required for successful performance. This is an area of clear risk to be addressed.



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YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE IN DETAIL

Communication A reserved individual, while you have the confidence and social skills to manage your impact well, you may also give people the impression that you prefer to keep yourself to yourself. You will be better at responding to others' initiatives rather than taking an active role in building conversations yourself, and will prefer to have specific task issues to talk about rather than leaving conversations too open-ended. You will want to have time and space to yourself in which to manage your responsibilities and can, in fact, dislike interruptions which impede your time for individual concentration. Upon first meeting, however, you can hold your warmth in check to the extent that you make it difficult for others to feel comfortable in accessing your time on anything which is not specifically task-focused. You can, therefore, appear more distant and self-contained than you might intend and this can, at times, limit the degree to which some individuals will be inclined to seek you out in order to access your support and opinions.

Although you have the ability to be influential in the way you make your input, your general style of operating does not reflect a strong desire to persuade or to convince others of your views by spending time in talking issues through with them. In many respects the hallmark of your style is such that you will often expect the facts to speak for themselves. You can, in fact, spend too little time taking people through your thinking in a way which enables them to identify with your points and understand the basis from which you draw your conclusions. You can, therefore, make too many assumptions about how other people view situations and can fail to share the logic which underpins your views in a way which gains the agreement and understanding of those with whom you work. Your tendency to immerse yourself in doing rather than also sharing your thinking in an ongoing way, can work against you when you are attempting to persuade others to your point of view. You can end up by telling other people what you want rather than convincing them of the value of the ideas you raise. The extent to which you gain ownership of issues from others may, therefore, fluctuate according to the degree that they understand or feel that they can influence your perspective.

There is no doubt that you can be very strong-willed and assertive when you choose, and a marked drive to take responsibility will ensure that you do not give up easily on issues of importance to you. When used to best advantage your assertiveness can be an asset in making things happen quickly at a task level, and particularly where you are operating in areas where you start from a firm knowledge base. On the downside, however, your anxiety not to let yourself down, when taken together with your interpersonal caution, can result in situations where you sometimes fail to articulate yourself openly or with confidence. You can, therefore, be slow to embark on conversations and can mis-manage your impact as a result, perhaps giving the impression of closing down debate rather than dealing with issues openly. You run the risk of building up your frustrations rather than managing discussions quickly or in a reasoned way, and your feelings are likely to express themselves in impatience with things or with other people. You can become very clipped and incisive in impact without necessarily being aware of it and, while colleagues will no doubt be left clear when you feel annoyed, they may not feel it appropriate to raise the issue with you, given your tendency to keep some feelings and thoughts to yourself.

Team Leadership A rather private and reserved individual, you will tend to keep your interactions with colleagues on a business related level and do not feel the need to socialise for the sake of it. This is not to say that you will be unsociable, more that you require some space to yourself in order to get on with what you want to do. You will appear assured in the way you handle meetings and group situations, even if this is not how you feel and will be responsive toward colleagues who seek you out.

You will be quick to take control of those events you manage and can be very self-sufficient in your decision-making style. Whilst this will ensure that people are clear on their goals and that progress is made, you may not be putting much effort into understanding, encouraging, or helping others to develop by involving them in working alongside you. At times you can be quick to decide upon a particular goal, but less open to analysing how best to resource others' time and involvement in that process. Although it may



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not be your intention, therefore, you could appear to be insensitive to others' needs and feelings, and you may be denying them from capitalising upon on-going opportunities to develop.

You are not someone who finds it particularly easy to talk about your feelings or sensitivities openly. You need to trust other individuals before you feel comfortable enough to be open and honest about yourself, and will tend to give very little data until these conditions are met. Whilst there is no doubt that you can be very open and honest on task issues, you can be much more cautious about expressing any feelings that could hint at any vulnerability, perhaps exaggerating in your mind the degree to which this information could, or would, be misused by other people. The net effect is that others could, at times find you difficult to relax with and, when you feel at all uneasy, you can misplay your impact rather than share your personal feelings in an open manner.

Your ability to adopt a fairly calm and focused approach when working within a team can play a strong part in guiding others towards achieving results quickly, but when over-played could cause you to appear insensitive to what is going on around you. In one sense you will work with the clear intention of making things happen whilst also involving other members of the team and ensuring that they have the chance to give their input to discussions. You can, however, be slow to share your own perceptions and sensitivities to the way in which the team is operating together, unless there are issues that are clearly impeding task achievement, and others could at times be unsure of how you personally feel about operating within that team. You could appear to overlook obvious points of frustration or disagreement purely for the sake of achieving the immediate task agenda, and at worst impact as insensitive to the need to work with and through others effectively.

Client Service You are currently prepared to invest time and energy into long term planning in order to identify key targets and ensure that you have a clear focus on what you are aiming to achieve. You will attend to the broad details of a project, but without allowing yourself to get bogged down by the minutiae, and will also make sure that important deadlines are met and results delivered on time. Whilst you can find it difficult to sustain your efforts where you are required to deal with the more detailed and routine elements of your work, and could be prone to allow your attention to drift to those tasks which appear more interesting or stimulating, you will more often than not be regarded by your colleagues as reliable, well organised and flexible enough to adapt to most changing circumstances.

A self- disciplined individual who will often take a very objective and logical approach to task issues, your main focus when problem-solving will be to achieve tangible results, basing your solutions on fact rather than speculation or intuition. You can resolve issues in a fairly structured and organised way, and can be persistent in managing problems and implementing decisions that you feel are key priorities. At the same time, however, you are not strongly tied to the rules and regulations of the organisation, and can be flexible in thinking around obstacles in order to find expedient but effective solutions. At your best, you will be clear in communicating your thoughts in order to produce structured, logical and effective plans for how best to achieve a particular objective. When you play to your weaknesses, however, you can deal with issues with a rather black and white, no-nonsense way that discounts less tangible, but nonetheless potentially important factors. You can in some senses be almost too pragmatic in your approach, and in a way that narrows the options that you and those are around might have considered.



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Achieving Results You see yourself as very open to change in your current role and as relishing opportunities to work in an environment of experimentation and variety. Indeed you are likely to be very productive in generating innovative ideas for improving efficiency and effectiveness, and will look actively for ways of experimenting with new options that challenge the more traditional approaches within the organisation. You have little attachment to established ways of doing things just because they are considered tried and tested, preferring to challenge existing approaches or experiment with alternatives. A potential downside of this approach is that you may sometimes appear to be too ready to discard practices and systems which others feel comfortable with, or indeed are working perfectly well. More cautious or practical colleagues may see you as too ready to indulge in change for its own sake, and your potential to move things forward could be inhibited by their resistance to your approach if pushed too far.

Very achievement-orientated and concerned to succeed in your career, you will put a great deal of effort into your work and often at the expense of managing your priorities in life as a whole. You will accept demanding targets, but will be well aware of the downsides rather than over-optimistic about outcomes, having first weighed up the pros and cons of any given scenario before rushing into issues. This suggests that you will generally be more concerned with delivering what can be achieved to a high standard than trying to seek the unobtainable. At times, however, your desire to progress in your career could prevent you from always taking the calm and balanced perspective that you are capable of. Where you are offered the choice to prove your worth, you could be overly quick to accept what is asked of you without a careful appraisal of the implications. You may find it difficult to resist the temptation of a challenge, but whilst you probably consider yourself capable of rising to events and juggling several balls at the same time, there is a danger that you will jeopardise the standards you aspire to because you have not allowed sufficiently for all the demands this will make on you and your team.

While you can recognise the organisational requirements of a situation and will generally apply yourself to meet these, you are also very independently-minded and, as such, are likely to value having autonomy of action making your own decisions where required. Although generally conscientious in approach, you will not feel it necessary to apply yourself to every task to the same standard and on occasions, will consider alternative, more expedient approaches to tasks. Whilst to this extent you will be quite flexible, your own sense of pride and self-discipline in living out what is expected of you will enhance your commitment to those goals and objectives that will reflect on you personally. However, the mixed messages in your style, between your capacity at times to be expedient and your high personal standards and commitment, could at times confuse others and leave them questioning where your loyalty lies. Once you have made up your mind on an issue, your commitment is unlikely to falter, but in choosing a particular direction you could be seen to be operating too much on your own terms.

Enterprising in your thinking, and very willing to use your own initiative in exploring how things could be improved, you will be open-minded to change and quite prepared to test out new ideas or proposals in practice. You are not hidebound by existing methodologies and will often try to think about things in new ways in order to generate novel solutions to problems. You will, however, want to ensure that any plans you implement have a practical basis and are relevant to the immediate problems you face. Whilst this will ensure that they can be put into place without delay, you could fail to apply your imagination to the full. There will be little doubting your commitment to continuous improvement, but you may tend to be seen by more cautious people as rather scornful of traditional approaches in your eagerness to see the best of current practice implemented. Whilst you will keep practical concerns in mind, you could become too quick to tamper with what already works quite effectively.

Preventing and Solving problems You are a person who prefers to have a fundamental understanding of issues and their wider context before putting forwards solutions. Where a theoretical or conceptual approach is called for, you will be very ready to use it and you will usually relish complex problems. In addition, once you have decided on your objectives, you will plan carefully how you are going to achieve them, trying to anticipate and prepare for different contingencies which could occur. These qualities suggest a strong potential for thinking at a strategic level, strategy formulation and planning and organising the implementation of strategy. However,



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while you will be good at mapping the milestones which must be passed to reach objectives under the strategy, you will not get too involved at a detailed level. At worst, you could allow your plans to become too much set in stone and fail to respond adaptively in the face of changing circumstances which you didn't anticipate.

Leading and Motivating You enjoy having responsibility in groups and will put effort into influencing colleagues and trying to win them over to your point of view. You are prepared, to a degree, to negotiate your position, even though you may find it trying to have to exercise diplomacy for too long. You are not likely to want to consult widely in order to make decisions, preferring to do so on your own. This could mean that you can be seen as overly impatient and dominant rather than willing to build ownership to a course of action through consultation and involvement. You will make your views known, therefore, and often with some success, but may currently be seen as lacking versatility in the range of tactics you employ, resorting to often to control rather than more subtle means of convincing others.

An independently-minded person, you will prefer to have the scope to manage your areas of accountability with a lot of autonomy. You will readily challenge upwards when you think that ideas or plans of action are ill-informed or poorly thought through, although you will try to do so in a way which is not seen as unduly confrontational. At best, you will be quick to act on your own initiative, and you can be effective in the role of devil's advocate, enabling those who manage you to carefully think through the implications of their decisions. The downside, however, is that there can be times where you appear to be more inclined to follow your own agenda, with insufficient reference to the needs of others, and your style may leave others feeling that you are unwilling, at times, to compromise in order to achieve a consensus solution.

Note: Given the nature of the competency called "Knowledge", it is not possible to offer personality feedback against this area.

How to use this information Reviewing the feedback above, ask yourself the following questions:

> What are my strongest personality preferences?

> What do my preferences suggest as potential strengths in my leadership style?

> What do my preferences suggest as risks to manage?

> What, if anything, does not seem to resonate with my own perceptions of myself?

> What is the potential impact of my style in my current role (positive and negative)?

> What is the potential impact of my style on future roles?

> What performance feedback have I received (positive and negative) that goes to support this information?

> Most importantly, what can I do to leverage the strengths associated with my style?

> And what can I do to manage the risks?



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YOUR LEADERSHIP JUDGEMENT

Introduction During the process, you completed a situational judgement test designed to help you understand how your preferred leadership style impacts your ability to make effective judgements across a variety of typical leadership challenges.

Your Leadership Judgement Profile Based on comparisons between your answers and an “ideal response”, the profile below illustrates your strengths and development areas across the Sainsbury’s Leadership Behaviours.

Communication 5

Teamwork 3

Client Service 4

Achieving Results 5

Preventing and Solving problems 7

Leading and Motivating 4

Key

8 or above High Performance Your responses were closely aligned with the ideal responses in this area, suggesting an area of strong ability and high performance.

6 to 8 Competent Your responses were broadly aligned with the ideal responses in this area, suggesting an area of dependability and competence.

3 to 5 Development Needed While some of your responses were aligned with the ideal responses some were misaligned, indicating an area for potential development.

0 to 2 Clear Risk Your responses were generally misaligned with the ideal responses in this area, suggesting a clear risk to your future performance.

Highest scoring questions: Within this test you demonstrated a number of strengths. Firstly, you took opportunities for tackling 'awkward' issues in a constructive and helpful way. You also were very effective when you were seeing new and varied applications for ideas that others tend to miss. This ensured that you were shaping activities across the organization and showed an understanding of the need for taking an optimistic view of what will be achieved. Finally you addressed issues by having a go at achieving something that others might typically avoid.



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Lowest scoring questions: Within this test there were opportunities for you to improve your performance. Firstly, you could have placed a greater emphasis on making clear and positive commitments to deliver results. You also missed opportunities for looking for the positives in new and/or unknown situations , tended not to focus on relating well to people at all levels of the business and could have addressed issues by encouraging others to go the extra mile. Finally, you might have made more of the chances for delivering important messages at the right time.


> In which areas (Leadership Behaviours) did I perform best?

> In which areas did I show areas for improvement?

> What does this feedback suggest as key strengths in my leadership judgement?

> What are my key risks when making critical judgements?

> What links do I see between my work style preferences and decisions made in this exercise?

> What real-life examples can I think of where I have made similar decisions?

> Looking back, should I have done anything differently?

> Looking forward, what do I need to keep in mind when making critical leadership decisions?



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YOUR PERSONAL MOTIVATORS Research indicates there to be seven key sources of motivation at work. They are:

> Personal Development – Satisfaction comes from gaining a sense of mastery, where the focus is on increasing one's skills, experience, or knowledge.

> Achievement – Gratification comes from completing a task or goal; the sense of momentum and closure that comes from finishing a task is the primary focus.

> Competing – A drive to measure and test oneself against a standard, which can be met or exceeded. In this case, having a clear target or competitor to focus on is important.

> Control – Satisfaction comes from having autonomy, input, and being in charge of one's own workload and priorities.

> Reward – Satisfaction comes from gaining valued outcomes which include recognition, prestige, financial rewards, or other benefits.

> Affiliation – The drive to work alongside others, with an emphasis on cooperation, harmony and teamwork.

> Fear of Failure – Whilst the other sources of motivation are about moving towards a desired state, this one is about moving away from an undesirable state – the fear of failure.

During the process, you completed a questionnaire designed to help you understand where your primary motivators lie. Based on your responses, the summary below illustrates your top three sources of motivation at work. In each case, the description will help you to understand the types of environment in which you will thrive and the potential risks associated with each source of motivation.

Personal Development > Satisfaction comes from gaining a sense of mastery, where the focus is on increasing one's skills,

experience, or knowledge.

> Your interest is less focused on completing the task or goal per se, but on what is gained from 'the journey'.

> As a result, tasks that are repetitive or offer no opportunity for learning will be less motivating to you.

Achievement > Gratification comes from completing a task or goal; the sense of momentum and closure that comes

from finishing a task is the primary focus.

> You prefer to have a clear sense of progress as they work towards the goal, as well as a clearly defined end point.

> It is important to ensure effective prioritisation - that tasks are being competed because they are important, not because they offer easy gratification.



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Reward > Satisfaction comes from gaining valued outcomes which include recognition, prestige, financial rewards,

or other benefits.

> You prefer to be clear about the benefits of working towards a goal, or the opportunities associated with a particular course of action. In addition, the benefits must be attractive for that individual (rather than merely being assumed to be attractive).

> Dissatisfaction comes from a sense that efforts are not matched by the rewards. There is the potential for risks to be taken or boundaries pushed in order to meet goals which have especially attractive rewards.


> Of my key motivators, which do you clearly recognise as true to you?

> What links can I make between my motivators and my leadership style and judgement ability?

> Thinking of my current role (e.g. my relationship with my boss, the way my work is structured), where am I most motivated and where am I least motivated?

> Do my reflections align with the feedback in this section?

> How can I shape my current role to better align with what motivates me?

> Thinking of my future development, what types of work, role, department are going to motivate me?

> What can I do to shape my development to ensure I find roles that leave me motivated and energised?



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YOUR 360-DEGREE FEEDBACK The profile summary provides an overview of your strengths and areas for improvement based on the feedback gathered. All the competencies measured in this report are listed and organised by cluster.

360-Degree Leadership Profile To the right of each competency, you will see Average (Avg.) Total Others Rating. This is the mean score from everyone, excluding yourself, who provided you with feedback.

Rating scale Within the 360 Degree Feedback Questionnaire, items are rated on a four point scale as shown below. Where there are groups of respondents, average scores are shown.

A clear area for development 1

Some development needed (development needs outweigh the strengths)

2

Some strengths in this area (strengths and development needs are evenly balanced)

3

An outstanding area of strength 4



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Overall summary of ratings by competencies

Manager 1

Client 0

Peer 2

Direct Reports 4

KNOWLEDGE Self 4

Manager 4

Peer 3

Direct Reports 4

COMMUNICATION Self 3

Manager 3

Peer 3

Direct Reports 3

TEAMWORK Self 3

Manager 2

Peer 3

Direct Reports 4



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CLIENT SERVICE Self 3

Manager 2

Peer 3

Direct Reports 4

ACHIEVING RESULTS Self 3

Manager 2

Peer 3

Direct Reports 4

PREVENTING AND SOLVING PROBLEMS Self 3

Manager 3

Peer 3

Direct Reports 4

LEADING AND MOTIVATING Self 4

Manager 3

Peer 3

Direct Reports 4


> What does this feedback suggest are my key strengths and development needs?

> How do my own perceptions compare with that of my colleagues?

> Where are the main points of alignment in perception?

> Where are the key differences?

> How do the verbatim comments support the data contained in the report.



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YOUR CAREER GOALS Below is a summary of the goals that you have created during the development centre. To see a more detailed report please visit the 'Career Goals' pages on the DC platform.

Career Goals for the next 3-5 years Goal Why this goal is important to you? Deadline Status

Pensions Director Because it gives me the responsibility to make my own decisions on how the department is run and shows that peers respect my judgement.

30-06-2016 In Progress

Marketing Qualifications We are a marketing company but too often rely on what we have done in the past rather than try new techniques. I think I am good at coming up with new approaches but at times lack the details to put into place as a campaign.


Life Aspirations for the next 3-5 years Goal Why this goal is important to you? Deadline Status

Climb Mt Blanc Because I love being in the mountains, especially Chamonix and this would I\'ve me a target to train towards.


Learn to surf before 40! Because it’s something I keep trying once every few years, enjoy but never have the time to follow up.




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FORCE FIELD ANALYSIS This section details the force field analysis that you completed as part of the development centre.

What is holding you back?

Time. Need to spend more time looking at longer term strategy rather than fire-fighting day to day issues.

Knowledge. I need to improve technical knowledge to be seen more as a 'beacon'.

Existing reporting lines.

Pensions Director Marketing Qualifications

Drive to be recognized for running a well run profitable department.

Feel that I have already shown on numerous occasions that I can create, run and motivate teams better than most.

Proved that I can hit deadlines, such as Pension Reforms. Majority of the industry weren't ready for launch, we were two weeks early.

Respected by peers and teams that I have run (I hope).

What is driving you forward?



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YOUR DEVELOPMENT On the following pages are a range of further options that could be of use to you in planning your development. Each option will suit a different personal style of working and learning, so be thoughtful about the option that you choose. Equally, if there you have no clear preference for any of the options then feel free to draw on the ideas here to create your own development planning process.

Option 1: Write a Letter Sometimes the most powerful motivator to deliver results is a desire not to let ourselves down or disappoint ourselves. This development planning option is based on making a personal commitment to yourself, captured in a letter that will be posted to you twelve months from now.

The purpose of the letter is to capture your clarity, your feelings and sense of motivation in order to help you experience these again, at a time when you may have less time to focus on your development and may be more immersed in the everyday challenges of the organisation. In other words, the letter will arrive on your doorstep as a powerful reminder of what you planned to change in the twelve months, and a useful measure of whether or not you have achieved your aims.

You will need to write a letter to yourself that spells out how you are currently feeling, what you would like to achieve in the next few months, where you would like to be in your career twelve months from now and so on. Once you have written this letter, you should pass the letter to your coach, in a sealed and self-addressed envelope (provided). Your coach will post the letter back to you in twelve months time.

You can include what you like in the letter, but here are some useful examples:

> What has been the value of the development centre to you?

> How are you feeling right now? How do you feel about managing your personal development?

> What do you believe that you can offer the business in the future?

> What are your priorities for development over the next year?

> How will achieving these be of benefit to you personally and to the organisation?

> What are the messages that you think you will want and need to hear, twelve months from now?

Option 2: Positive Planning There has been a huge amount of research that has underlined the value and importance of maintaining a positive perspective on our everyday approach to our work and to life in general. This approach – often referred to as positive psychology – encourages individuals to make the most of their 'talents' in their work, rather than spending too much of our time focusing on their development needs. Our talents are strengths that come naturally to us as individuals and are qualities that often enable us to stand out from others. While skills determine if we can do something, our talents determine how well and how often we will do it.

This development planning option will help you to concentrate on what you enjoy about your current role and look at how you might capitalise fully on your talents, as identified throughout the development centre. There are several steps to follow:



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Step 1 Review the data gathered from each exercise, concentrating specifically on the sections that identify your strengths, and look at the areas in which you performed particularly well. Write a summary of your strengths onto a blank piece of paper.

Step 2 Having captured all of your strengths, now look for the consistent themes that link these strengths. Now draw lines between strengths, connecting any themes together.

Step 3 Now, on a separate piece of paper, write down the things that are most positive and rewarding to you in your current role. For instance, these may be the things you most enjoy, the people who are most important to you or the nature of the work that you are involved in.

Step 4 Now review the degree of consistency between the two pages - your talents and the things that you are particularly enjoying at work - and ask yourself the following important and useful questions:

> Are you clear about where your talents lie? Can you list your strengths clearly and confidently? If not, you may want to review this aspect of your development with your coach and people manager.

> Are you making the most of your talents at work? Are you using your skills across a wide enough area of your work?

> Do others recognise your talents in the workplace? If not, how could you demonstrate these more overtly?

Step 5 Based on your responses to these questions, write a short and focused plan to discover your strengths or enhance the impact of your strengths at work. Review this with your manager as soon as possible to explore the opportunities that exist to make the most of your strengths.

Option 3: The Long-Term Plan Often, because of work pressures and demands, we confine our thoughts to the 'here and now', and yet career choices are often significant, long-term decisions. This option will help you to focus on the longer-term choices that you may want to make.

The first step is to plot your career 'highs and lows', using a simple timeline chart, as illustrated in the example below. The central dotted line represents the time you have spent in your career (the example below runs across the past ten years) and the solid line plots how positively or negatively you consider these periods in your career to be.



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Once you have plotted the graph, take a moment to consider whether or not there are any important points to draw from the decisions that led you into the different stages of your career. For instance:

> What were the main factors that made a particular phase stand out as being either positive or negative in your memory?

> How did you make the decision to take on a particular role or to move to a new area?

> What were the important factors that led to a promotion in a role?

> How willingly did you move into each role?

> How clear were you about the implications of each role?

Having answered these questions, now look forward to the next five years, and ask yourself the following questions:

> What are the things/aspects of work that I would most like to be doing in five years time?

> What particular groups of people would I like to be working with? (i.e. Customers? Clients? Teams? Etc.)

> What level of management do I realistically believe I could be operating at within the organisation?

> How can I be of greatest benefit to the organisation in the next five years?

The answers to these questions, together with your insights about past career decisions, should provide you with at least a platform for making future choices and also give you enough information to be able to be clear about where you would like to focus your personal development in the future. Share your conclusions with your manager and explore opportunities for building a five year career development path.

Option 4: The 'Ideal Me' In managing your development, you may have plenty of ideas of the kinds of things that you can do differently. What can sometimes be unclear, however, is what you are trying to achieve overall. In other words, where are you heading? What will you be like when you get there? What will you be able to do?

A simple way of starting to address these questions and build these into a development plan is to take a blank sheet of paper and divide it into two by drawing a line through the middle. On the left hand side of the paper, write the heading ‘Ideal Me’. Below this heading, jot down a summary description of how you see the 'ideal' you at work. In other, you have the freedom to think about all of the things that you don’t do, but would like to, and all of things that you perhaps can’t do, but would like to improve upon. You can use the summary of feedback from the development centre to capture your strengths and help to define your ambitions.

Having captured your thoughts on the 'ideal you', now write down in the opposite column the things that would need to happen in order to achieve the ideal you. In other words, what would you need to change or improve or start or stop etc. to achieve what you want to achieve?

The actions in the right hand column may now form the platform for a plan of action – you may want to break these actions into manageable steps, or capture them using the 'letter' option as described previously.



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Option 5: Formal Training/Development: Attending training courses can help to address some very specific skills development needs, such as project management, personal organisation, influencing, presentation skills and so on. Training courses are often led by somebody who has a degree of expertise in the field, and therefore attending a course will usually provide opportunities to:

> Explore best practice around a particular skill area.

> Extend your knowledge of a particular skill i.e. what should I be doing, what do others do etc.

> Give you the opportunity to practice the skill in a 'safe' environment and receive immediate feedback against agreed standards.

The downsides of training courses are that they can be costly to the organisation and they can sometimes be too generic in their approach. They also require coordination (booking, time out of office etc.) and it can often be several months before you will attend, which means that the training need may be out-of-date. They can also be time consuming in an already busy work schedule.

If you feel that there is a particular training/development event that you feel will be of great benefit to you in the near future, you should consider putting together a 'business case' for attending. This will help your manager and HR support to understand your requirement and represent your case in securing funds for the training. In doing so, you should aim to answer the following typical questions:

> What is the specific training need?

> How does the training need relate to my immediate role?

> How is this likely to impact on my future roles with the organisation?

> What immediate benefits am I likely to experience as a result of the training?

> What longer-term benefits am I likely to experience?

> How will this be of benefit to the organisation (in terms of my performance, achievement of my objectives, etc?)

If you have any further questions about submitting an organisation case for training, speak to your HR Advisor or Line Manager who will be able to offer you further advice.

Option 6: Work-Based Development Given the high cost and time-consuming nature of many external training events, it often makes sense to look for ways of practicing new skills and developing yourself in your everyday work environment. There is no better training ground for improving in a role than actually in that role.

In looking for work-based development opportunities, you may want to consider a few important principles:

> What are the particular aspects of my current performance that I wish to develop? Are they skills (i.e., what do I do every day)? Are they behaviours (i.e., how I do things in my role)? Or is it my knowledge of particular elements of my role? If it is a skills need, where are the opportunities to practice these skills and get feedback on my performance? If it is behaviour, such as asserting myself with others, how can I monitor my improvement over a longer period of time? And if it is knowledge, what should I read or research, and how can I manage this in terms of the time required?

> Are there any people who can act as positive role models? In other words, does anyone around me have expertise in this skill, or demonstrate this behaviour in a very positive and consistent way? Could I observe or shadow these individuals so that I can pick up hints on how they demonstrate the skill so effectively?

> Who, in my work environment, could give me immediate and useful feedback on the way that I demonstrate aspects of my role? If I want to practice certain people skills in meetings, such as team working, who is willing and able to give me honest feedback on what I am doing well and less well?



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> Could I seek the support of a mentor? Who do I admire at work? What might I learn from these individuals about the way that they deal with the challenges I am facing? Who might have a different background with different experiences, and thus be able to broaden my perspective on the organisation?

> Could I gain the support of a coach? Is there someone who could help me to talk through particular challenges at work and enable me to reflect on any feedback that I gather and the key learning points?

Option 7: Learning Logs/Diaries One tool that can be very powerful in managing your development is the personal log. This is a running account of what you are aiming to do, how you do it and the outcomes/changes that you encounter as a result. The log will be your personal means of tracking progress so that, in twelve months’ time, you will be able to reflect on your achievements and demonstrate tangible improvements to others.

You can use any format you wish to complete the log, but having a few simple headings will probably be your best starting point. These might include:

> Today's date (of the entry)

> What I was aiming to achieve/change...

> What I actually did/tried to do...

> Impact/outputs

> Key learning points...

Option 8: Projects Creating a new challenge for yourself, while adding increased value to your area to the organisation, can be a very positive way to develop new skills and experience. Talk to your people manager and explore if these opportunities exist at the moment.

At the start of the project, write down a list of all of the personal objectives you may have (e.g. developing specific skills in team work, managing large scale involvement in projects, building knowledge of the new IT systems etc.) and use this list to regularly review your personal progress.

Other Opportunities There are a wide number of other opportunities to stretch and develop yourself at work. These might include secondments to other positions or other areas of the organisation, application to new roles, including lateral moves across the organisation to widen your experience and expertise, and shadowing opportunities. All of these should be discussed with your people manager and HR in order to consider the 'business case' and the implications, but bear in mind that if you do not proactively look for these opportunities, they will not happen.



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CAREER DEVELOPMENT PATH

Our Business Leaders demonstrate: Knowledge

> The highest level of technical skill.

> Recognised as an industry expert or thought leader in their field.

> Anticipates changes within their area of expertise and actively uses them to the benefit of the business.

> Actively seeks out and brings new and external knowledge, latest trends, best practice and new innovations into the business, with recommendations and support on how to use it.

> Constantly self-developing.

Communication

> Builds empathetic and influential relationships across the business including all Directors and Non Exec Directors.

> Expertly adapts communication style to different audiences.

> Communicates confidently and persuasively with colleagues and clients to gain commitment and alignment.

> Leverages external networks for the benefit of the business.

> Can be trusted to represent the business well in the most senior and complex communication environments.

> Can achieve exceptional results and change entrenched perspectives through exceptional communication.

Teamwork

> Builds high performing teams who deliver outstanding results for the business in all conditions which result in Directors and other teams placing exceptional value in this person.

> Ensures that their teams work well with other teams.

> Volunteers to share staff and resources when needed.

> Can meld unlikely teams or limited resources to perform strongly.

Client Service

> Spots unusual new opportunities to serve clients better.

> Ensures the business delivers outstanding client service.

> Sets high standards of service for themselves and the business.

> Promotes a sense of urgency, commerciality, practicality and integrity in all things.



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Achieving Results

> Identifies and actions the need for change when required.

> Drives change via engaging people and processes expertly.

> Driven to achieve outstanding results for the business within agreed

Preventing and Solving Problems

> Uses information fully to make sound arguments leading to exceptional judgements.

> Encourages senior management to participate in problem solving.

> Executes practical solutions for the business that are appropriate across the whole business, not just their own area.

> Prepared to make tough decisions and deal positively with conflict.

Leading and Motivating

> Will lead a substantial business or area crucial to the results, protection or growth of the firm.

> Leads others to deliver the Sainsbury’s culture and brand.

> Inspires and motivates others across the business. A ‘beacon’.

> Creates a shared vision for the future direction of the business.

> Coaches, mentors and appraises to encourage high performance.

> Delegates in order to build new competence and experience in others.

> Leads others by demonstrating professional behaviours at all times, and is a role model for others.

> Protects and drives the professional reputation of the business.

ilead development centre - pearn kandola · 2020-03-27 · ilead development centre | summary...

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