SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Skyline Group International today released a new white paper, “Developing Leaders in the 21st Century: Outdated Methodology is Giving Way to Technology-Enabled Solutions,” which details the shortcomings of old-school leadership coaching approaches.
Industry experts have identified several shortcomings of existing coaching programs, including the failure to address the needs of mid-level leaders; poorly designed programs that don’t address the coaching expectations of today’s workforce that consists of millions of Millennials, Gen Xers and Gen Zs; a growing gap between learning and actually leading under real-world conditions; inadequate metrics for assessing the impact of leadership development programs; and a lack of scalability that makes it hard to provide customized and rapid coaching to large teams under fast-changing market conditions.
Responding to these concerns, Skyline Group International has created C4X | Coaching for Excellence, a first-of its-kind technology-driven leadership development solution that is cost-efficient, scalable and fully customizable to meet the needs of today’s fast-moving organizations.
“Skyline Group’s C4X | Coaching for Excellence solution is specifically designed to combine the key benefits of tried-and-true 1:1 coaching with a technology-driven platform to make leadership coaching scalable and measurable,” said Thuy Sindell, Ph.D., Founder and Managing Partner of Skyline Group. She added, “C4X leverages technology to quickly scale leadership development coaching, making it more efficient, measureable and dramatically more cost-effective than traditional coaching methods.”
The white paper, which is available on the Skyline Group web site (http://skylineg.com/resourcespotlight), details several pressing issues facing old-school coaching methods, including:
- One-size-fits-all approaches: According to a recent study by McKinsey, Why leadership-development programs fail, “Too many training initiatives rest on the assumption that one size fits all and that the same group of skills or style of leadership is appropriate regardless of strategy, organizational culture, or CEO mandate.”
- Failing to support mid-level leaders (aka “the barbell approach”): According to the authors of Danger in the Middle: Why Midlevel Managers Aren’t Ready to Lead, from Harvard Business Publishing, “Many companies recognize that they need to do a better job on middle management training. An April 2012 Harvard Business Publishing survey found that only 28 percent of organizations felt their development programs had evolved to match the changing needs of middle managers. This ‘barbell’ approach—heavy on the ends, light in the middle—has exacted a heavy price in terms of underperforming and demoralized middle managers who lack the networking, planning and team-building skills necessary to excel in the flat organizational structures that are so prevalent today.”
- Difficulty measuring the impact of leadership coaching: “Companies still rely mostly on self-reported satisfaction with the program and follow-up 360 assessments to gauge the value of their investment,” according to a McKinsey Global Survey. “A third of respondents don’t know the return on their companies’ training investment.”
“C4X | Coaching for Excellence fills a void in the marketplace because current leadership development coaching solutions are old school and out-of-touch with today’s organizations and next-gen leaders,” said Stacy Shamberger, EVP of Business Development and Sales Operations at Skyline Group. She added, “We have completely modernized the experience for both leaders and HR executives by creating an intuitive and user-friendly interface, a multimedia learning experience, and a real-time dashboard of team progress reports, drill-down data and graphic views.”
About C4X | Coaching for Excellence
The C4X | Coaching for Excellence leadership development solution from Skyline Group International makes the key benefits of tried-and-true coaching methods scalable and adjustable on a revolutionary technology-driven platform. C4X makes leadership development coaching more efficient, more measurable and much more cost-effective than traditional coaching methods, reducing coaching costs by as much as 75 percent. Dozens of forward-thinking organizations have deployed C4X to improve the performance of hundreds of leaders, contributing measurable results including increased productivity, as well as greater revenues and better profit margins. More information is available at www.c4x.com.