Executive Competencies and Development of Self-Directed Learning for Dell
Goal
Improve executive selection and development at Dell to ensure a group of "ready now" executives who have a high chance of success due to their preparation.
Challenges
- Identifying executives at each level that had successfully made the step to the next level, especially when executives were at locations around the world
- Dell executives were under great pressure to perform
- Interview questions and tools had to work in telephone/virtual interview situations
- Most executives did not feel the need for additional development opportunities until they realized the solutions enabled self-directed learning
- Team of multiple interviewers had to coordinate and combine interview and analysis findings.
Solution
Cognitive's approach was to work closely with PPG and Dell Executive Development sponsors to:
- Select and schedule interviews with executives representing different lines of business , executive levels, and worldwide locations
- Craft a custom interview protocol hat enabled the team to obtain the information required
- Conduct the interviews in a manner that enabled us to gather required information, while gaining executive trust and buy-in
- Analyzed and grouped executive competencies, identifying those that were "foundational" in nature and those that seemed to differentiate successful executives from those who had not been successful
- Compared differentiating competencies with Dell's existing executive curriculum in order to identify training/development gaps
- Suggest a set of self-directed learning activities that executives could use to obtain the differentiating competencies
- Facilitate a session with Dell's executive learning team to present the ideas for self-directed learning and get their input and buy-in
- Draft, refine, and produce the Dell Executive Performance Series, a set of six different self-directed on-the-job learning activities
Cognitive Value Added
- The Dell Executive Performance Series provided critical on-the-job learning activities that could be modified to fit particular interests and personal development opportunities. The titles in this Series:
- Provided tangible tools to use during the on-the-job learning so critical to executives that previously had been highly dependent on the individual executive's mentor/manager
- Included activities, templates and tools to help the executive maximize learning on the job
- Required significant interaction with the executive's peers and other Dell executives to ensure learning took place and to gain from the wisdom of others
- Were designed to enable completion in approximately 6-12 hours each, with some additional time required to plan and/or debrief the activity with the executive's manager.