The Power of Solving Real Business Problems

TLDR: Game-changing leadership program combines business acumen training with executive-sponsored strategic projects - giving ambitious women the skills AND visibility needed for senior roles.

Susan: I am back with my co host inside of Lead to Soar and the author of The Leadership Compass - Michelle Redfern for part two of our conversation and today I am asking her about what I know to be her high impact and high powered leadership programs for women, how they are different from other programs, both in content and impact, and why a company should be interested in working with her.

Michelle: Well,  the, the short answer is, the programs are different because they focus, have a core and, and fundamentals around the importance of business savvy or BQ as I call it in, in The Leadership Compass.

And pretty much many other leadership programs designed for women do not address these critical skill sets of business, strategic and financial acumen. Also that what we talked about in part one, that success orientation, that "be for the business". That's why they're different, because they overtly deal, teach, facilitate and encourage women to build and demonstrate these critical skill sets.

What I do in these programs is really paint a picture of why this is so important. It's not just, shoving a whole bunch of content down participants throats. It's giving them the context. This is why it's so important that you learn these skills. Why? Because 60% of the skills criteria required for advancement to senior executive and C suite roles are related to you being known for your business, strategic and financial acumen.

So if you're not learning these and you're not learning how to demonstrate them in the context of your business and your career, you are going to get stuck.  And as you've often said, Susan, your great interpersonal skills, your high EQ, are going to get you only so far. They will get you your first team leader position.

And I'm talking from experience, because this was me. Your interpersonal/team skills get you your first team leader position. It might get you that next leader of leaders position, but you will not be considered to run a division of the business or the whole business unless you can really help the business grow.  

So that's why my programs are different.

Susan: That's so true. And it's incredibly seductive for women to want to double down  on what I call "polishing the diamond," working their EQ skills, their ability to be effective in communicating one-on-one or with teams, working on themselves as people, deeper self knowledge and all of that.

When in fact ambitious women need to be "strengthening the setting" and the setting to me is business, financial and strategic acumen.

You talk about not just shoving a lot of content down their throats and I know you are doing amazing and different things with giving the women in your program an opportunity to actually hone those business skills in the context of their organizations.

That is nothing that I was ever able to do given the structure of the programs when I delivered them. So, talk a little bit about some of the ways you do that and the impact both for the organization, the executives who are seeing this work and the women.

Michelle:  I'll map this one out there because this is how I work with one of my clients.

The cohort and I work together for four months.  During that four months, there are six workshops with the fundamentals. There are six coaching group coaching sessions and those group coaching sessions are me holding space for women to ask vulnerable questions about the content, about what should I know more of me probing and pushing, et cetera.

But the key to this is during that time, the women are assigned a project by the organization.

We go to the organization and ask, "What are the big gnarly problems you're facing? What are the things that you wish you had someone to think about and do about?" And we come up with usually two topics, which are of strategic importance to the organization.

We split the group into four. Two groups have one topic, two groups have the other topic, because there's the diversity of thought. You can have the same topic and two different outcomes. Each group is paired with an executive sponsor. They are also paired with a group of subject matter experts from that executive sponsor's group.

They come up with a problem statement, here's the solution, here's why, here's the link to how it's going to help the organization move forward. And that's done through the whole program.  And then at the end they present to a significant group of stakeholders.

It's a high stakes environment where women get to practice demonstrating their business, strategic and financial acumen.

That's how a program, a perfect program runs. It gives a combination of theory, question embedding, practice and profile building as well for all the right reasons in the organization.

Susan: So as you were saying that, I was thinking, "Oh, did I just ask Michelle to expose the keys to the success of her programs?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you can set up that experience of solving problems for the organization, but if you don't deliver the right business savvy content, the women won't succeed.

Okay. So the women have these amazing learnings and they have exposure to executives and they're solving real organizational issues. What kind of impact have you seen in terms of the perspectives of the high level of people who get the pitches and the organization at large?  

Michelle: So executives have said to me, "Wow, Michelle, this has been a real luxury for me to have 12 women thinking critically about a problem that I just haven't had time to get to or I'm bogged down in. So this has been really useful for me to form my thoughts about how to go forward."

In one particular client of mine, we've seen nearly 260 women go through the program, 35 projects, and at least half a dozen of those projects have turned into the the business casing for a strategy change or a strategic initiative.

So executives have told me this is a necessary luxury to have a group of people dedicated to thinking critically about something that they need to solve for. That's number one.

Number two, "Wow, Michelle, I didn't realize we had so many talented women in our organization."

And that's the bit that makes me go, yes, because I'm very upfront with the women. This is a chance for you to be visible in all the right ways. And,  you are going to be talking in high stakes environments, such as the presentation day at the end, during discovery meetings, during stakeholder meetings, during testing out theory meetings. So that's the number two,
"I didn't realize we had so many talented women."

And number three is the women's mobility. They tell me, for example, "I'm now going to work for so and so because they saw me in this program and we've built a relationship."

Because the other part I say is this program is about networking. Networking is not just events with wine and cheese. Networking is when you're doing these kind of projects and you have conversations and you continue to build your strategic network. And these strategic networks have led to women's mobility within the organizations.

Susan: I was so hoping that you would say that. That's great to hear.   We're coming to the end of this part and I want to say to readers, if this kind of professional development sounds attractive, appealing and important in the context of your career ambitions, please talk to your organization about weorking with Michelle.

Again, below you'll find all the information you need to know about how to reach her.

Thank you again, Michelle.

Catch you next time.
Susan

Go Deeper Links

⭐  About Michelle Redfern

⭐  Lead to Soar online community (I encourage you to join us!)

⭐   Lead to Soar podcast

⭐   The Leadership Compass by Michelle Redfern

⭐  Connect with Michelle on Linkedin