Creating a leadership bench takes the skill of a coach and the precision of an engineer. But there are five distinct steps you can take to build your leadership bench – and keep it moving.

First, and most obvious, you must create and maintain a leadership development program. This isn’t simply an order to the training department to create leadership courses. You must obtain buy-in from your management team by showing the benefits: the leadership bench, succession planning, talent management, and career pathing. Your program should begin with classroom training -at all levels, if possible. Everyone in your organization should know what your definition of a leader is – and how to get there. But as you move up the ranks, leadership development should be ongoing, challenging, and not necessarily a sure thing. The program should include real-time projects, seminars, assessment, and evaluation. Program participants who slip should be coached back up – or out. Once someone is in the leadership program, he or she should continue to improve in all aspects.

Second, create a succession plan. Many organizational leaders have a succession plan that resides in their heads. This is not the best place for a succession plan – and you must have the input of the rest of the management team. From your leadership program participants, identify where strengths and opportunities lie. Find out what makes these people tick – it’s possible you have an operations manager whose first love is marketing. The idea here is that you should know who your talent is and what motivates each one of them. But more importantly is the fact that your succession plan, drawing on the strength of your leadership bench, will help determine where people go in the event of planned or unplanned losses of leadership. You won’t have to worry about who would take your place or the places of other seniors or executives, just in case. With this plan in place, you’re building your leadership bench.

Third, conduct regular talent review. This step is twofold: you should be conducting regular talent review both outside and inside your leadership development program. The outside review and assessment should be your tool for identifying potential leaders – and grooming them for the leadership bench. The inside review and assessment, as we’ve mentioned, should focus on maintaining the standards your organization requires of its leaders. Identify high professional and high potential leaders as well – high professionals can be counted on to lead within their field of expertise while high potentials can probably be moved from one area of expertise to another if necessary. With this evaluation and assessment, you’ll be able to fill your bench with “A” level players and coach “B” level players into the “A” position. The beneficial side effect of this approach is that “C” or “D” players will either strive to achieve a higher level or self-select themselves out of your organization. By conducting regular review, you’re keeping your leadership bench ready and always manned.

Fourth, consider rotational assignment within your leadership bench. Some organizations see merit in moving high potential leaders into temporary positions – to expose them to other areas of specialization within the organization. Doing this will also help you separate your high potential leaders from your high professional leaders – and also to focus on creating succession planning for both areas. Once a leader comes off of a rotational assignment, he or she adds further strength to your leadership bench.

Finally, meet with your leadership team regularly to assess the bench, make changes to standards, or to consider how quickly (or slowly) you need to add to talent to the bench. This ensures continued buy-in and weigh-in on the leadership bench and its members.

As we mentioned earlier, building a leadership bench takes coaching and precision. In the precision category, you and your team have to manage the bench to make sure it’s not too big or too small. If you have a huge bench with too many members, they’ll start to look for opportunity elsewhere. After all, as you move up in the organization, there are only so many slots available for potential leaders. But if your bench is too small, you could find yourself in trouble if the business expands or changes rapidly.

Focusing on these steps will help you build your leadership bench and ensure leadership continuation for years to come.

In today’s environment, technology is king. We know this because first of all because technology is cost effective and efficient, but also because, let’s face it, technology is popular. Smart phones, MP3 players, and social media almost make it a necessity to include a technology plan in the roll-out of the corporate university. Obviously this use of technology will help the university to stay fresh and cutting edge, but what’s better is that effective use of technology will save money and help you show more ROI.

The first step is to examine the organization’s existing technology infrastructure. To put it plainly, some organizations may not have the technology to offer the most advanced technology. You may know what your organization is capable of, but even if this is the case you should get your IT department involved in the planning stages. Use some of the examples we are about to discuss in order to begin a dialogue – and find out what you can and cannot do. Keep in mind that the “cannots” may turn into “cans” in the future – and the speed at which technology moves usually means that the future is closer than we think.

While you’re looking at the organization’s current technology, also take the time to take a realistic look at the population. The question you want to answer is not whether the population is ready for technological advances in learning, but rather what kind of technological advances are they ready for. Depending on the industry and age of the organization, you may find that your audience is already highly technically advanced and may expect that L&D will provide them with stimulating technological interventions. On the other hand, the population may be resistant to blogging or watching a training course via a synchronous web conference. Either way, your job is to determine just how far you can go.

In any corporate university in today’s environment, online training is a must. Whether it’s off-the-shelf or internally developed, online programs cut training time and costs, and provide a great way to track and report grades and completions. In addition, with the right LMS you can administer online programs very well. For example, if your organization is ready for the latest and greatest, your LMS can be a Social Learning Management System, or SLMS, that provides for online interaction and social networking. Or, if you plan to work on rapid development, you may need a content management system (LCMS). Regardless of your choice, make sure it’s the right choice for the technology you want to deploy. But keep in mind that technology goes much further than online training.

Consider including technology in classroom courses, as well. For example, blogs, discussion threads, and social networks can be used as both before and after class exercises. Instructors may be able to gain insight in the participants’ knowledge levels both before and after the intervention, as well as learn how well the training affects behavioral change out on the job. Also, as you are planning your corporate university rollout, have the design team begin looking for opportunities to create online applications for courses, such as quick reference guides, games, short knowledge based modules, and even testing. Another great way to incorporate technology is through podcasts that can be downloaded and viewed after or before class. Some rapid development programs, like Articulate, can export directly to podcast format.

Start looking for other ways to include technology in learning, as well. Some of the methods we have already discussed, such as blogs or social networking, are great ways to get learners involved and keep them involved. The question is determining how to begin using these applications. As you look for ways to integrate technology into the corporate university, you will also be able to create a culture that is open to technology. From there, you can use applications for marketing and to keep your audience informed about the corporate university and its progress.

Before you roll out your corporate university, conduct an assessment that helps you determine how you can use technology, both in online and classroom formats, as well as in marketing and information. Once you’ve rolled the university out, continue looking for ways to update technology and keep the programs fresh.

Our final best practice is avoiding the “ivory tower”.

Copyright 2010 Your Training Edge. All Rights Reserved.

Bryant Nielson – Strategic Alliance & Acquisitions Director at Financial Training Solutions a division of CapitalWave Inc – offers 20+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a trainer, business & leadership coach, and strategic planner for many sales organizations. Bryant’s 27 year business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering. Subscribe to his personal blog at: http://www.BryantNielson.com

You’ve planned, analyzed, obtained buy in, and even wrestled with a budget for your global leadership development program. But before you move forward with implementation, you need to determine how the program will be managed effectively. As you have moved through the challenges to global leadership development, you’ve probably realized that with each challenge comes a separate program component. Each component will need to be managed, and managed closely in the first stages of the implementation of the program. Let’s look at this challenge from the process standpoint and discuss some best practices for managing the global leadership development program.

First, take a good look at all of the components for your program. At the high level you’ll probably have separate components for training, coaching, succession planning, and operations. Is there a person or group who will naturally manage each one of these components already? If not, decide how each component will be managed. For example, training and coaching most naturally fall to the training organization. Will you outsource the training function or keep it within your organization? What about succession planning? Do you have a talent manager within the training or organizational development functions, or is the talent manager part of human resources? Or are you the de facto talent manager because of your sponsorship and management of the leadership development program? Operational components, such as scheduling and travel, are also a factor. Do you have an admin staff that can handle the added responsibility?

Second, consider the geography you’ve created with the global leadership development program. For example, did you divide the entire organization into geographic groups for purposes of the program? Does each of these geographical groups have the manpower to manage each component? Does each group already have a training or organizational development staff that will take on the new responsibility of managing the leadership development program?

If there is no structure already in place for managing a global leadership development program, consider the big step of bringing it all under your training or organizational development function. This will give you a great “bird’s eye” view of the program, its implementation, and its progress. Plus, if component managers report to you, you’ll have the ability to be closer to the program. With this structure, you can report succession planning and the positioning of the leadership bench to your human resources department, as well. This way, you’re creating a dual relationship between your group and the human resources group. This relationship will work for the benefit of each group.

One of the other factors to consider is the tracking of the training component. Will the leadership development program be a part of the organization’s learning management system? Will you input groups and career paths into the LMS or will that be tracked by the organization’s HRIS system? Either way, be sure to investigate whether those systems can be adapted to track a leadership program or not. Most likely, if these systems are already in operation, they can be utilized to track a global leadership development program just as easily as any other program.

Regardless of how you decide to manage the program, you should take the time to visit, inspect, and observe the program in action. This may mean taking on some additional travel and time, but it will give you a good idea of how things are going. If travel is not an option, be sure to meet with the managers of the geographic locations on a frequent basis in order to track progress. Along with this, it is very necessary to evaluate the program from various levels. For example, participants should complete a level one evaluation for each component, that is, after each training program, coaching session, or networking event. Participants and managers should also be evaluated down the road to at least give you higher levels of evaluation. If you do not measure behavioral change for a global leadership development program, you won’t have much to report back to your executives and stakeholders. After some time, you should even attempt to look at the return on investment for the program, as well. Even if you’ve moved only one high potential leader into a new position, you should be able to report the costs and benefits of that move.

As you move through each challenge to global leadership development, you should get a clearer picture of how the program will function within your organization.

Copyright 2010 Your Training Edge. All Rights Reserved.

Bryant Nielson – Strategic Alliance & Acquisitions Director at Financial Training Solutions a division of CapitalWave Inc – offers 20+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a trainer, business & leadership coach, and strategic planner for many sales organizations. Bryant’s 27 year business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering. Subscribe to his personal blog at: http://www.BryantNielson.com

All of your best plans for the creation of a global leadership development program may be meaningless if you do not obtain the buy in of key individuals or groups. Any organizational development program needs this buy in and approval, but a truly global program is probably going to require more work on your part; after all, your key individuals and groups are probably just as diverse as your program itself. Let’s look at the best process to use when looking for buy in from those key groups.

First, it is absolutely necessary to define the individuals and groups from whom you need to obtain buy in or approval. Before we move on, let’s look at the difference between buy in and approval. You’ll need to obtain buy in from any individual or group who can push your global leadership development program forward. This could include line managers, key organizational leaders, executives, and even various work groups. The concept of buy in also includes approval, but try not to forget the people who need to approve the program before it can move forward. Divide the key people and groups within your organization and determine which ones should “buy in” and which ones should “approve”. Tailor your presentation to each group, keeping in mind the cultural differences you may encounter within the organization and its regions. Most likely, you’ll come up with an executive group, a stakeholder group, managers and front line supervisors, and key business leaders throughout your system. And each group will require you to “sell” the global leadership program from a different perspective.

Many times, the executive group is more about the cost and benefits of a program. Of course, they want to have a general idea of the scope of the program, but overall they want to know how the program will impact the organization’s bottom line. And obviously they want to know how you’ll do this in a cost effective way. When you analyzed your budget and potential expenses, you created a matrix of methods, expenses, and overall program needs, as well as the cost of each category. Use this as a tool to present to the executive group. For each piece, know what the organization stands to receive, what benefits are going to come from each piece, and at what cost. Also be aware of how each piece of you program impacts the overall goals and mission of the organization-and of each region or geographic group the program will touch. As with any training program, a cost-benefits approach will get the attention of a group of executives, especially those that may control the flow of cash. If you’re asking for a budget for a global leadership development program for the first time, start with the most ideal program components and work from there.

For the purpose of our discussion, we will group managers, line supervisors, and key regional business leaders together as “stakeholders”. Each person in these groups has a stake in the program, from the cost in time and employee presence to the expected final benefits. Stakeholders may be a more difficult sell than your executive group. Some stakeholders may see a global leadership development program as a threat to their efficiency or even to their own control over the groups they manage. This may be caused by fear over what will happen if some of their employees devote time to the program, or even fear that the individual stakeholder may not get into the program. If your leadership development program includes a succession plan, these stakeholders may see the program as an “organized robbery” of their best and brightest employees.

Your reaction to these objections should be twofold. First, find a way to meet the individual objection with facts, costs, and expected benefits. Of course, one of the best ways to handle objections is to send out a gentle reminder that the purpose of the program is to further the overall mission of the organization, and that everyone involved stands to benefit from a global impact. Second, your response to objections should take into account the regional and cultural differences you’ve already uncovered in your research. No response to an objection should be “canned” or across the board in the case of a global leadership development program.

But once you obtain the buy in and approval of your key groups, you can put those groups to work for the program. Have them “plug” the program to anyone who may be a potential candidate, using the same benefits you used with the stakeholder groups. With buy in from important groups, you’ll see that potential leaders go through the program with much more ease, and possibly quicker. Your key stakeholders will realize the value of taking employees off of the line in order to attend training, coaching, and networking sessions. And those stakeholders will start to see the value of the program as the participants develop their leadership work styles.

The final challenge you may face when implementing a global leadership development program is the challenge of managing the program-and keeping it moving forward.

Even if the recession is beginning to back off, it may take some time to build budgets and training staffs back to a serviceable level. Plus, one of the hard facts of the ongoing financial crisis is that organizations will have to emerge with much more lean and efficient training staffs and programs. Coaching in the field is a very effective and cost efficient method of keeping training going – and making sure that an organization’s associates are not left in the dark.<

The first question that may come up is, “how do I create a coaching program when things are such a mess?” Hopefully your organization still has some of its high performing, high potential leaders out in the field. Plus, your organization may still have its leadership pool, whose members are probably “chomping at the bit” to increase their skills. These are the groups to turn to when you need coaches. And most likely the members of these groups will be more than happy to help out.

The next “how” is how to create the program. You probably already have training for specific subjects, positions, and skills. Consider taking those programs and adapting them for use on the job or in the field. From these programs, you can create coaching guidelines for positions, skills, and even individuals. If you still have a training staff, they can help design coaching programs using the existing material.

Next, the question becomes, who gets coached? It may be virtually impossible to coach everyone you want to reach, so start small. Start with new hires. You may have new hire training still in place, so take the time to analyze how much coaching that group may need. And, if new hires have responsible leaders as managers, those people can take over the coaching. In times of economic uncertainty, new hires are typically the ones who still receive training, so also look at other groups who may be in need of a refresher.

What about associates who are newly promoted? You may have had layoffs and restructuring that caused people to move up and laterally into different positions. Has that group been trained or coached at all during the upheaval? In some cases, a member of the leadership pool or a high potential leader vacated those positions. Have that person coach down the line to ensure that his or her replacement is learning how to do the job and improve as a professional. Pay close attention to those newly promoted groups, especially if they are managers. They need a coach to help them through the crisis and to help them become effective managers.

Don’t forget about the group of leaders you may have already identified and developed, such as high performers, high potentials, and top-level leaders. In times of stress, even this group may get discouraged and slip into old ways of managing and leading. Try to keep their planned program going through coaching and mentoring. Each level can mentor or coach the level below it.

What should be coached during this time? The topics run the gamut of organizational topics, but the main thing to remember is to keep subjects to the “need to know”. For example, you may want to tackle leadership skills and management versus leadership for newly promoted managers. Plus, you may want to touch on corrective action leadership for the entire group if they’ve never had the skill before. In other areas, you may need to assign coaches or mentors specifically for operations and technology, especially if the economic conditions have caused a restructuring within your organization. For already-identified leaders, such as high potentials and high professionals, a mentor relationship is probably more important. Instead of creating specific topics, simply be sure that each person has a mentor or coach to meet with on a regular basis to discuss relevant and pressing issues.

Why should an organization go through the trouble of substituting coaching for training? The most obvious reason is that you can get your coaches without impacting a budget – and you can keep some form of education going if the training department is scaled down. But remember all of the reasons you’d want to have training and coaching going on during “normal” circumstances: retention, increasing the knowledge base, raising competency levels, and cross-training. Plus, you may find that a field-based program will give you more ideas for effective formal training when the “lights come back on”.

Instead of letting training languish, consider coaching and mentoring programs to get through the crisis. The organization will emerge in a good condition when the economic situation calms down.

It’s easy to say that a great salesperson is that person who continually closes, and this is true to a great extent. But in a new economic environment, a closed sale is not necessarily the sole measure for effectiveness of the salesperson and the sales presentation. There are several ways to measure sales and all of them can be used together to get a good picture. In addition, you can use a combination of metrics to determine how to set goals – and how to coach salespeople in the meantime.

One of the most common sales analytics is revenue. For a business with only a few products and a few salespeople, it’s also a relatively simple leap to determine how much of the revenue was brought in through the sales force. But as products become more complicated and as the sales force spreads geographically, this determination is harder to make. The idea of using revenue as a sales metric is to take the total revenue and then break it down to relevant units, such as division, product, region, or salesperson. Once you have a hold on the numbers, you can determine how much revenue is generated by each product – and by each salesperson.

Along with revenue is the concept of average sales. From the revenue numbers over a certain time period, you can determine average dollars. But you can also determine, by unit, division, region, or salesperson, the average number of units sold. Any comparison to an average is a helpful measurement tool, but you must remember that there are “average-breakers” who continually outperform, due to sheer skill, market forces, or product and salesperson position. One of the best ways to use average sales as an analytical tool is internal – determine which members of the sales team are below average, at average, and above average and go from there. On the organizational level, be sure to benchmark averages with others in the industry.

For more detailed sales analytics, consider a ratio of closed sales versus what is in the sales pipeline. This measurement can tell you if the sales process is breaking down at the point of sale. For example, if a salesperson or unit has strong sales but consistently has an even stronger pipeline, they should be increasing sales by increasing the number of closings. This measurement can also point you back to issues with the product and competitors. As a matter of fact, you can take this measurement a little further and try to find out which clients in the pipeline have, in fact, gone to a competitor.

Another ratio used as an analytic is new accounts to return customers. Most sales managers measure effectiveness of their divisions and salespeople based on the number of new accounts generated in a certain amount of time. But if you have a product line or industry that can generate income on a repeat basis, you should be measuring this. Out of the new accounts, how many become repeat customers within a particular time period? If this is a measurement that works for your organization and your product, use it. You may find that the sale is becoming the last point of contact instead of one of the first contacts. Or you may find that account management needs to be stepped up. But on the other hand, you may find that customers are returning again and again – which is a great measure of sales effectiveness.

What about subjective sales measurements? There is argument in the sales arena about using analytics that are not based in the numbers. But why not see what happens to perceptions, customer service, and overall effectiveness of the salesperson before, during, and after the sales presentation? A customer survey is not necessarily a numbers-based analytical measure, but the client is going to be completely honest based on their feelings at the time. For example, a customer who is happy with the product will give a glowing review within 30 days, but what happens to that “high” after 60 or 90 days? What happens to their perception of the salesperson when the customer perceives that he or she is always around to help or that he or she has simply vanished? Subjective surveys, although not related to the bottom line, are a great way to measure effectiveness in both the long and short term.

Sales analytics can be rooted in the numbers or in the subjective. The point is to use a variety of measurements to determine the effectiveness of the entire picture, that is, salespeople, sales presentations, the process, and after the sale.

As we close our discussion on creating a coaching or mentoring program, you must take the time to make the program permanent. You’ve measured the success of the program in both human capital and otherwise. You’ve shown that success to the decision makers and stakeholders and they are “on board”. Let’s look at some ways that you can make the program a permanent part of the organization.

First, the key part of permanence is to always be a step ahead of the organization. If things are going to change, you need to be aware of the coming changes. To do this, you should keep in contact with your executive sponsors or stakeholders. Set regular meetings with them using the coaching program as a meeting subject in order to keep the program in their minds. Be prepared to show how you’re evaluating and making changes along the way, both the good and the difficult changes. Once you’ve got this “window” into the future of the organization, you can always be on the lookout for ways to change the program with the organization. And when you do this, your executive sponsorship and buy-in will continue.

If your program involves a formal training course for coaches or mentors, be sure to keep that training alive and well – and on the schedule at all times. If organizational members are looking for ways to expand their own careers, they will inquire about the program. This is another way to keep in permanent. Don’t offer the course or the coach and mentor openings too frequently – one of the chief concerns in marketing a great product or service is to keep it scarce. And prospective coaches or mentors may have to wait to get into the program, which is a good thing. Keep in mind that just as you evaluate the coaching program itself, you must evaluate the training program, as well. Keep it fresh and people will keep lining up.

In regard to the coach and mentor “positions”, keep them at a level of scarcity, as well. Determine your time frame for opening the program to new coaches and mentors and stick to it. Conduct a marketing “blitz” just before you open the program each time in order to peak interest on the part of coaches and proteges. When the members of the organization know the benefits of the program and begin to know when it opens, they will be ready to move when the time comes. This tactic can keep the program alive and make it part of the organization’s “mental calendar”. In terms of marketing, be sure to use your executive sponsors as spokespeople when the time comes to open the program. This kind of marketing is effective and is also a definite mark of permanence.

If your program is still in “limited release”, that is, not a part of every area of the organization, go through the steps for expansion. When you do this, you’ll be able to create the permanence that we are discussing. By deploying the program to all levels, you’ll also be able to create the concept of scarcity that we’ve just discussed.

Another way to maintain permanence is to keep measuring and evaluating the program. Don’t give in to the temptation of going through a few evaluation cycles and then stopping. Evaluation takes time and resources but it will be worthwhile as the program changes with the organization and its needs. And as you market the program, the members of the organization will be able to see that coaching and mentoring is there to stay.

Before we finish our discussion on creating a coaching or mentoring program, let’s review the steps. First, determine your goals and the type of program you’re going to implement. Second, take the time to design the program based on those goals. Third, plan an implementation strategy that includes marketing, training, scheduling and selecting coaches, mentors, and proteges. Fourth, be sure to measure the effectiveness of the program through formal, informal, and benchmarking methods. Fifth, don’t be afraid to make changes. Sixth, remember to look for ways to expand the program at all levels. Finally, always make it permanent.

The coaching or mentoring program you’ve created is up and running, you’ve evaluated, and you’ve made changes. At this point, you’re probably seeing the successes of the program and would like to help others in the organization achieve those successes. Don’t be afraid to look for ways to expand your coaching or mentoring program. Here are some ways to get more people interested and to expand the reach of your successful program.

First, consider incentive for coaches. If you’ve already implemented incentives for coaches or mentors, look at what incentives you are offering and determine if those are going to be sustainable. If so, offer those incentives to new coaches and mentors in order to get the program into an expansion. If the incentives were experimental, think about expanding them and making them permanent. Under these conditions, think about moving to more valuable incentives. When you find that coaches and mentors are performing well in an incentive environment, this is a sign that you’ve hit the mark. And let’s face it: one of the best ways to get people’s attention these days is to offer value. Another way to expand incentive is to offer “better” incentives for proteges who want to become coaches, or coaches who want to take on additional proteges. There are many ways to get creative with incentive, especially if the program has led to higher productivity or decreased costs.

Another way to expand a successful coaching or mentoring program is to make it formal. You may have been right on target with your informal program, but an expansion in an informal environment could create confusion. Before you expand, take the time to make the program formal by creating training, schedules, selection criteria, and evaluation criteria. This way, as with any major program that is being expanded, you can bring some order to a larger group of people or a wider geographic spread.

Along the lines of formalization, take a look at the target population of your coaching or mentoring program. As we discussed in the beginning, you may have created a program strictly for one area or one group of people within the organization, such as management trainees or the sales department. If the program has had a great deal of success, look for other areas within the organization that could benefit from the program and its benefits. Depending on your organization’s size, you can even make plans to expand to the entire organization. If your program was already rolled to the entire organization, consider how you can give the program a further reach.

Expansion may sometimes be easier said than done, especially if money is involved. But there are ways to expand on an existing budget, especially if that budget is aimed at training and development.

Consider taking some of your T&D budget and allocating it to the coaching or mentoring program. You’ve already seen success and are able to measure that success, so why not take existing dollars and put them into the program. In fact, as the program continues to succeed, you may be able to ask for more money, especially as economic conditions improve. But if the money remains tight, look for training programs that can be cut in favor of the coaching program. If you do this, you may be able to prove that the program is worth a few more dollars, especially because overhead on a coaching or mentoring program tends to be lower than formal training programs.

Finally, don’t be afraid to show your results to decision makers in order to look for ways to expand. If the numbers show success, the organizational decision makers may be more willing to help you expand the program. In fact, those decision makers may be able to give you ideas and further clearance on expansion. Going to the decision makers and stakeholders to ask for expansion is also a great way to get the buy-in of those who may not have given it at the beginning.

Once your coaching or mentoring program has become successful, remember to look for ways to expand it. The benefits will be far-reaching and can change the organization for the better.

Most organizational development professionals know that evaluation of any program can lead to changes. And most of us know that change can be good and also that change can be rather difficult. When it comes to your coaching or mentoring program, you must move forward with the changes you’ve discovered in your evaluation, regardless of whether they are great changes or rather difficult changes. The best way to maintain a good perception, or build one, within the organization is to show that the program can be tailored to fit the current situation. Now is the time to take a close look at your evaluation and determine the changes that need to be made.

First, take a look at the kind of program you have in place. In our first discussion, we talked about the differences between coaching and mentoring programs, as well as the differences between formal and informal programs. Have you discovered that an informal mentoring program just didn’t come together like you thought it would? If so, consider moving to a more formal arrangement. What if your program has achieved results but only on a small scale? This is another reason to consider going from formal to informal. Did mentoring miss the mark, that is, did informal mentoring have a less-than-adequate impact on the organization as far as productivity, management style, or other numbers? If so, think about going to a coaching program that has goals centered on the organization.

Another way to look for changes is to revisit the training and pay situation in your program. If an informal program hasn’t quite lived up to expectation, consider implementing a formal training program for coaches or mentors. On the flip side, perhaps coaches and mentors felt a bit restricted by the formal training and formal rules. Could that be a sign to move the program in a more informal direction? If your organization is paying mentors and coaches, look for signs that this has or hasn’t worked. If proteges reported that their coach or mentor was less than interested in their progress, you may have picked up coaches that were more interested in getting paid than in helping their peers and organization. On the other hand, if mentors lacked motivation after a while, a pay program could be the proper motivating factor. And keep in mind that incentive programs for coaches and mentors don’t always have to take the form of extra money on the paycheck. These incentives could be time off, gift certificates, special awards, or perhaps just a monthly luncheon.

As you’re considering change, look at the people in the program, starting with coaches or mentors. One of the most obvious results of an evaluation is going to be the evaluation of coaches, mentors, and proteges. If coaches have more than one proteges, look at the trend from the evaluation you’ve created. A coach or mentor with lackluster performance on more than one proteges may be the wrong pick for the program. The same goes with proteges, though. A proteges  who is resentful of the program or thinks he or she would be better suited as a coach may not have the right attitude to be included in the program. The hardest part of making change in the area of human resources in your program is just that: you may be adding or removing people from the program due to what you’ve discovered in your evaluation. The key point here is to move forward without fear – after all, the program must continue to improve and coaches, mentors, and proteges should be top performers within the confines of the program.

As you review your measurements in an effort to look for ways to change, take a close look at your original goals. Are your goals reachable and effective, or did you over- or under-write the goals? Has the organization gone through change that would necessitate a change to the goals of the program itself? This is another area where you must overcome your fear and make the changes that you feel are necessary, especially when you have a fact-based evaluation to back it up. A final way to make changes is to ask the mentors, coaches, and proteges for help. They have evaluated the program and may have given you some ideas as to how to change it. Allow these groups to help you make changes.

The most important thing to remember when making changes to your program is to go ahead and make them. The change may be difficult, but it will strengthen your program in the long run. Once you finish making changes, it’s time to get creative and look for ways to expand.

You’ve spent time and effort on creating and designing your mentoring or coaching program. You’ve also got the “buy-in” of key stakeholders within the organization. Although these are important steps, it is equally important to ensure that the program is effective – and that it maintains its effectiveness. As we will discuss in the future, your ultimate goal with a coaching or mentoring program is to make it a permanent part of the organization’s culture. To make that happen, you must take a few major steps beyond the implementation of the program. The next step, then, is to measure effectiveness. Let’s look at some great ways to do this.

First, it’s important to remember that measuring effectiveness is not a one-time thing. You must continue to measure the effectiveness of your program on a regular basis, just as you would a regular training and development program. Whether your program is formal or informal, the first thing to do in preparation for measurement is to revisit your original goals, objectives, and mission. From these items, you can formulate an evaluation. If your program is informal, take the goals of the program to formulate interview questions to be posed to both coaches and mentors and proteges.

The overall goal of an informal interview is to find out exactly how the program has affected the lives of both the coaches and the proteges. You’ll want to find out if they have achieved advancement professionally, personally, or both. You’ll need to discover if the program reaches beyond the office environment. And, you’ll want to find out if the program is meeting your original goals.

For a formal program, consider creating a formal evaluation using your goals and mission. Think about how you would evaluate a training program in the lower and middle levels of Fitzpatrick’s levels of evaluation. Write a separate evaluation for coaches and for proteges so that you can compare both back to your original goals. Make the evaluation a formal part of the program, that is, send it out via email or inter-office mail and request a response within a certain amount of time. If program members fail to respond, give them a friendly reminder. Also inform them that their responses are completely confidential and that the goal of the evaluation is to make the program better for them. You’ll learn quite a bit from a formal evaluation, especially when you can put numbers and responses in comparison with your original goals.

Evaluating effectiveness doesn’t have to stop at interviews and paper-based evaluations. Consider evaluating the people who work with both coaches and proteges, as well as their managers and supervisors. This way, you’ll get an overall picture of how the program is impacting others as well as the direct participants.

Another way to evaluate is to find out how the program is perceived throughout the organization. Again, this could be done the same way regardless of whether the program is formal or informal. Ask organizational members if they’ve heard of the program, if they know anyone who is involved with it, and if they’ve seen a difference in how the organization is functioning. While you’re looking at perceptions, go back to that executive sponsor or key stakeholder and discover what he or she perceives about the coaching or mentoring program. Although executives may be removed from the every day life at the organization, anything they’ve heard, whether good or bad, is important news to you and your coaching program.

Another way to measure your program is to do some research and benchmark it against similar programs at similar organizations. You may have a formal or informal network of organizational development professionals, so that is a good place to start. Find out what kind of results those organizations have had with coaching and mentoring programs, on both an informal and formal basis. Take time to do some Internet research on coaching and mentoring and decide if any of the organizations you find are worth contacting. You may hear some good ideas for changes going forward, as well as some encouragement that your program is working well.

The major idea to keep in mind about measuring the effectiveness of your program is to keep the evaluation going at regular intervals. If you get one good evaluation, don’t stop there. As we will discuss, your program is a growing and changing part of your organization and should be treated as such. Now that you’ve evaluated, it’s time to move on to the changes you’ll need to make.