iVendi delegates unpack Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® leadership development value
A rapidly growing management team needs structure and guidance to thrive. That’s why iVendi invested in the Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® leadership development programme for 30 leaders and managers.
As they complete their six-month schedule, the value is clear. Not just for the 30, but for every stakeholder in the organisation.
Following up our first iVendi story, we spoke to two delegates about their experience of, and learnings from the Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® programme.
The programme in a nutshell
30 iVendi leaders completed three structured modules – Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® Group sessions supplemented self-led learning to embed lessons and create a supportive team spirit.
Adjust: in-depth self-awareness using Strengthscope Leader to deeply understand your unique strengths and performance risks, plus how to unblock mindsets.
(Helping Reach Potential uses a range of Strengthscope tools depending on client needs).
Advance: gaining clarity and alignment with your company vision and purpose. Plus, understanding how you and your team contribute.
Achieve: learning how to have ‘quality conversations’ with stakeholders and replace PDPs with individual growth plans for your team members.
Jana Jones is Vice President of Marketing and Communications at iVendi. Rob Sever is Senior Vice President of Products and Insight. Both told us how the Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® programme has helped them so far.
“I felt so privileged to be in the first cohort of managers,” said Jana. “I was excited and ready to take every advantage of this opportunity. I wanted to develop my own skills as a leader and better understand how to influence and lead teams in a positive and productive way.”
As a senior VP, Rob had experienced other forms of leadership training before: “Whilst I knew what to expect, there’s always a bit of apprehension given how personal it gets. At the same time, I was excited. I could see how the programme could help many people in the organisation and move the business forward faster.”
Creating quality conversations
Whilst early work was incredibly valuable to Jana personally, she enjoyed bringing everything together in the third module (Achieve), putting new skills into practice with her team.
“The first two modules were more challenging for me. Inward looking, they focused on my own leadership style. The final module was about applying your hard work to develop others within the organisation. It’s about having a positive impact, which I found really energising,” she said.
Working through a series of self-led activities, plus group work, Achieve focuses on having better quality conversations with your team, peers, and priority stakeholders. Helping Reach Potential provided leaders with several models to help shape new methods. Jana particularly liked the boat analogy.
“I found the practical workshops invaluable and have referred back to them many times,” said Jana. “I initially used the boat analogy structure for one-to-one conversations with every member of my team, drawing out their underlying motivations.
Even though I previously had monthly one-to-ones, without my new structure and confidence, I wasn’t getting value out of them. I don’t think they were either.”
From PDPs to motivating growth plans
Helping Reach Potential showed iVendi leaders how to transform ‘tick box’ personal development plans into effective growth plans.
Previous PDP conversations only focused on career goals and day job objectives. Now, they had a structure to better understand their team on a personal level and help them create meaningful growth plans.
Jana was quick to act: “I wanted to break the growth plan process into smaller chunks for my team to avoid overwhelm. So, we had a separate meeting for each part, with time in between so they could process the conversation.
Using this new method, I learnt much more about them. Like how one team member has tinnitus and struggles to work on a noisy sales floor. And how a young mother needs assurance she can prioritise her kids when necessary.
As my personal values are important to me in my work, of course people in my team are going to feel the same.
But I would never have thought to ask them without a structure to create the conversation.
And yet, I need to meet these needs if I’m going to get the best out of them.”
The new growth plan structure strengthened Jana’s personal leadership confidence too.
“I now feel more confident about what I’m doing,” she said. “I also know that, regardless of their previous experience, every iVendi leader is embracing this new way of doing things. We can also support each other better because we’ve experienced the same development programme.”
Rob concurred with Jana’s thoughts. As most of his direct reports were on the programme, he’s welcomed a consistent and transparent approach.
“Everyone knows what we want to achieve now. So, it’s easier to probe difficult areas as my managers understand why we’re doing this. I’m also hoping for a less defensive reaction when I need to raise development needs as they’re all more self-aware.
Personally, it’s been a useful refresher for me too. I’m more about getting things done, but unless I build those relationships now, the job I need to execute in six months is going to be harder,” he said.
Tackling management debt
A senior VP, Rob highlighted Adjust. Advance. Achieve.®’s benefit to the entire business. And even though he’d previously experienced leadership development, he appreciated the difference with Adjust. Advance. Achieve.®.
“I’ve done similar things, like Myers Briggs, before. But Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® goes much deeper – it makes a real difference. Also, as a team we were transparent about our strengths and blocking mindsets. This helps you understand those around you at a far higher level so you can frame things better to resonate with them.
As an organisation, we’ve rapidly grown our management team. And yet, we’re quite immature from a staffing perspective. The Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® programme has given us a framework to tackle this management debt, giving leaders self-awareness, support, and structures.
They know what we’re looking for now. It’s clarified their expectation and we can develop on that going forward,” he explained.
Jana couldn’t agree more with Rob’s reflection.
“Managing people doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® has been invaluable. It’s built my confidence whilst providing a support network and structure to help me with challenging things that aren’t part of my natural skillset.
Also, one trained leader has a positive ripple effect on many people. For example, I have a new line manager who will become my direct report. I’m guiding her with my learnings as she takes responsibility for the team.”
Embedding new skills into the iVendi culture
The Adjust. Advance. Achieve.® leadership programme promises sustainable results. It’s not something leaders complete before putting to the back of their mind.
Embedding new mindsets and practices into the very fabric of the organisation is therefore key. And this is where iVendi must go next.
Rob explained: “There’s always initial enthusiasm, but it’s now important to make this part of our company culture. It must become part of our foundation, even though we’re a fast-paced organisation.
So, not only are we looking to select a third cohort to work through the programme in the New Year, we’re actively working with Hector to identify the support we need from Helping Reach Potential to embed our new learnings and methods for the long-term.”
iVendi might claim to be immature from a staffing perspective, but they’re incredibly mature in their attitude to leadership development. Not only have they proved it’s a worthwhile investment they’re also committed to creating inspirational leaders for years to come. And with that, they’ll ensure a highly effective business
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