Page 274 - The extraordinary leader

The Organization’s Role in Developing Leaders • 251

suppliers, or challenging battles with competitors. The latter are
memorable and powerful teaching devices.

You will hear some people say that leadership development is something
that organizations invest in for the long run and that no one should expect an
immediate payoff. We take exactly the opposite stance. You should be able to
see results right away, and in that way you will be guaranteed significant long-
term results. If you do not see results relatively quickly, we doubt you ever will.
One of the authors was sitting by the head of leadership development for
a Fortune 500 company during a lunch and inquired of him, “What are you
doing in your leadership development efforts that you feel really good about—
something that you can see really makes a difference? The executive unhesi-
tatingly replied, “We don’t anticipate seeing any payoff from what we’re doing
for at least five or ten years.” We admire the executives of a firm who are will-
ing to invest in something for which they can see no near-term payout and
for which the long-term payout is totally impossible to measure. However,
while admiring them, we question their judgment.
As we noted earlier, if people cannot go back to their jobs and apply what
they have learned almost immediately, we seriously doubt they ever will. We
do not help ourselves gain credibility by portraying what we do as having no
immediate payoff, nor having any way to measure it. That feels like we are
purveyors of “fairy dust.”

The Power of Better Teaching Methods

It is easy to underestimate the enormous power of improved learning and
teaching methods. A group of 19 school districts in the Chicago area have
banded together to form the First in the World Consortium. These schools
have focused on improving their teaching methods. The outcome is that if
these 19 districts were considered to be a “country,” it would rank number 1,
2, or 3 in the world on scores in mathematics and science at several grade lev-
els. The students, many from inner-city schools, perform better than students
in Singapore, Korea, and Japan, despite the fact that U.S. students overall are
in the lower half of worldwide comparative scores.
How was that accomplished? Teachers act as coaches and facilitators. Stu-
dents are actively engaged. Lectures are seldom used. The students work on
projects that are exciting to them. They are far more emotionally engaged
than in a normal classroom setting. 12